There ARE no clean getaways (No Country for Old Men review)
Comments(4) *There may be spoilers ahead…but I’m gonna try not to focus on that and remain appropriately vague*
So I’m sort of caught up in McCarthy fandom and decided I definitely had to read this novel before I saw the film. I have also been a serious fan of Cohen bros. dramas, as opposed to the comedies. Nothing wrong with their comedic quirkyness, but I would argue if you ask the average viewer to name a one of their films, they’ll give you ‘Raising Arizona’ or ‘OBWT’ before ‘Miller’s Crossing’ or ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There’, which I find disappointing. Anyway, from my first learning of this project, I had a strong inclination I was going to love it, and I essentially did.
Reading some sneak peak reviews, I quickly came across a complaint from blog reviewers who hadn’t read the book and are so weened on common suspense arcs that rely on over-the-top sensationalism to outdo one another: Tarrantino style, if you will. But this isn’t about that. Period. There is a very specific reason I have chosen the title of this post from the films tagline and a very specific reason I have chosen this image. Go watch a Tom Cruise, or Vin Diesel vehicle if you cant handle post modern tweaking of the thriller genre. This film comes from a pulp work from a literary mind. Yes, there is a “kick ass” psycho (and after being so compelled by ‘Before Night Falls’, I sensed Bardem was gonna nail this role – I think the fact that he is also the lead in the current Marquez classic speaks volumes about his power as an actor) and there are even over-the-top nifty devices you’ve never seen in a film before – straight from the mind of C McCarthy. So go see it. In a way it’s like getting to see another Peckinpah film, but much of that had to do with the period and location. Here are my two minor and one major beefs…
Because the locations and authenticity are so dead on, even while reading, I have to admit their authenticity stumped my imagination, despite the fact I can recall images of 1980 (OK, not central and west Texas…) I have to get finiky and picky. 1) I don’t remember the girlfriend mentioning she worked in a WalMart. It sort of struck me as a modern jab, and as a nomad, I don’t have my copy of the book here and now to reference, but a search reveals Walmart did hit Texas in ‘75, so it is plausible. It may very well come straight from the text, as so much of the dialogue does. 2) Having ridden lots of Greyhound buses, I’m doubting that semi-southwestern style with the bold blue through the other colors that still adorns the apolstry of many of the seats now, did so then. Total nitpicking I know, but the authenticity is dead on in every other way – I think it bears mentioning.
And the major thing I didn’t like: the young hitchhiker character is reduced to a poolside beerswiller with only a few lines of dialogue. I think there was a lot of revelation about Lwelyn’s character in those passages with her in the novel, as well as more of McCarthy’s foundation about what overtly changed about (our) culture at that time, which isn’t exactly what I mean to say but – the big picture stuff about society and individual. As the film is a bit long as is, I fully understand why the reduction stood, but I’d argue it also built suspense for the story, even though, as stated, that’s not the point. I further admit, I didn’t picture Lwelyn’s wife to be as attractive as the actress they picked, during my reading. I guess I was strung out then on the sexual suspense as well as violent suspense – i.e. semi-loner guy with a bunch of money has beat the devil once or twice, THEN runs into some hot free ass on the road. What now? And there is no sexual suspense at all in the film.
Other than that, every bit of acting worked or excelled. The Cohen bros. excerted their style without being “cliche Cohen bros”. The bleak beauty of the desert was perfectly captured. The moments of gallows humor blended seemlessly between the styles of novelist and filmakers. Was there even a single bit of music in this film? I can’t even think of a song on a radio right now, much less soundtrack…wait, there is a major instance of music I’m recalling, and it’s comedy. But a sort of “slap in the audience face” comedy: the audience wants to go ‘oh irony, ha, and we could use a laugh’, but as the scene lingers there is sort of a feeling of ‘yeah, this is unusual, but what the fuck is funny about it?’. More defiance of easy expectations-
*Spoiler Alert*
I didn’t read the book. I agree that the acting and characters excelled, and the dialog was phenomenal. I imagine most of the pithy nuggets were McCarthyisms and I’m thinking especially at the end when Tommy Lee Jones concludes with, “What you got ain’t new. Can’t stop what’s coming. Ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.” This revealing statement at the end sums up, in a much needed way, the themes at work, and it is a very theme oriented picture, the contingency of life and man’s place in that chaos, the uncontrollable nature of things, the powerlessness of the individual vs. destiny. Do what you will, but sometimes and quite often, things overwhelm you, and the situation rises up to destroy you. Indeed the evil Anton Chagurh embodies and is possessed by, the random brutality of contingency itself, as evidence by obsessive coin tossing, and his statement near the end to the effect that he was the same as the coin, there was no difference in the way they ended up there, at that particular crossroads, at that particular place in time. Powerless to history, powerless to nature, and therefore in almost religious devotion an instrument of it’s brutality. Of course the beautiful Kelly Macdonald tries to convince Chagurh that it is he who is making the decision, not the coin. But to no avail. This is further driven home in the next scene, where Chagurh, the man creating destiny, security, objectivity, by denying it, is nearly killed in a random car accident. Brilliantly done, it eggs one on to thinking perhaps he is on to something, or at least, explains a little of how he may have come upon such delusion.
The movie didn’t work as a whole for me because I thought it fell apart beginning with the pool scene. It doesn’t bother me so much that our likable protagonist is suddenly yanked out of the picture, it’s what we’re left with isn’t developed. I’m thinking they tried to stay true to the book but it just didn’t work out. First of all, I felt cheated without the finale showdown of Lewllyn and Chagurh, but I got over that. Still…the movie had been gunning for that showdown the entire time, teasing, and then pulled back. Ok, but now you better really work some magic…if you are going off the map… but they couldn’t. The pieces didn’t add up, maybe they just needed more of them, it felt sudden and random and prematurely over. The thing is, they were good pieces that with a little more effort could have fleshed out the overwhelmingly existentialist ideas.
I was thinking about this more, trying to make an analogy to Star Wars IV:A New Hope – it’s not the story of the death of Ben Kanobie, though that happens. It’s sort of the story of the unveiling and destruction of the Death Star, but it’s really the story of Luke Skywalker leaving his “nowhere”, he answers a calling and embarks on the path to becoming a Jedi Warrior. Han is in there, Leia too, some service droids who seemed destined to somehow always be in on the action, but they are not the real story. OR you could argue the entire thing is the story of Anakin, and in this chapter he destroys his former master and becomes aware his children have lived to eventually oppose him. The analogy doesn’t completely hold up…
NCFOM is the story of small town sheriff who has tried to live a good and moral life, not necessarily rooted in religion, an intelligent but simple man, coming upon forces of social entropy that disturb him to the point that he must question what good his life’s work has accomplished. He must also admit his is approaching the darkness, the void, his death, and he can’t solidly say he has made a difference in the world for good. Lewlyn is in there, Chagurh is in there, as well as the Mexican dopers, and others but it’s not really about them.
McCarthy tackles similar questions in ‘The Road’: how does one go on in the face of complete chaos and the devolution of civilization in the absence of proof of a benevolent force that might absolve “the good guys”? Ethics for their own sake, to carry on a lineage against madness, brute selfishness, and decay. A tiny flicker of flame carried in a horn through total blackness and crushing cold – that’s all faith might be.
Also- I took Charguh’s statement about the coin to be sort of a ‘physics joke’: “I came from the same place the coin did”, as in ‘it’s all carbon, babe, how much meaning can you really put in THAT?’
Speaking of physics…the physics of the cattle stun-gun were quite dubious. A little out of it’s expected range at times.
haven’t read the book. saw this a few days ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it. to me, it’s the triangle of the 3 men each driven/guided by a different set of operating principles with different levels of effectiveness: the sheriff and his values out at sea, moss and his chaotic and random stumble leaving/causing a trail of destruction in his wake, and anton who is malevolence defined albeit still a man of principle, a man who will honor the ‘rules’ (although as mrs moss points out a principle doesn’t exist on its own – anton is still the one applying it upon his action)…in a related way the issue of work threads throughout the film too: anton (and woody h) are both ‘hired’, sheriff is retiring, llewellyn says he’s ‘retired etc…
i get the issue w/ the pool scene but to me that’s where the movie leaves the strictures of genre, heads into other territory quite brilliantly. moss has already sold out his wife (out of vanity you could argue, but sort of passively) and here he is again now willfully about to take up w/ another woman. i don’t think it’s coincidence that at this precise moment the movie leaves moss, shifting to the sheriff. the showdown w/ anton, and moss’ fate is all but certain at this point