no country for old men

With the benefit of three or four days reflection, I think this is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

The acting, direction, writing, and cinematography are absolutely perfect. McCarthy's dialogue is wonderful, per usual. He does a great job of "showing without telling," even through the dialogue. I was really pleased that the Coens didn't screw this up. Hell, some of the most important events happened off screen.

SPOILER....

















Does anyone understand the significance of the car wreck at the end? I have an idea, but still unsure.
 
The book mentions it. The pistol the boys take from the car is eventually used in another murder, and Tommy Lee's character remarks on it.
 
Just saw it at noon on a Tuesday. I convinced the rest of the office to go see it.

I probably won't be able to relax for a few more hours. That is a really intense movie. But extremely well-done. Great acting, great cinematography, great use of quiet moments without f'ing it up with music.

I have to confess, though: during TLJ's last speech about his dream, I fazed out a little. I didn't realize it was his last speech, but I was thinking that it might be, and my mind wandered a bit. Can someone summarize it for me?
 
It's been a few days since I saw it, so this is only vaguely what the last speech is about. TLJ speaks about 2 dreams of his. The first I can't remember, but in the second he is out in the dark desert, and his dad passes by with a fire protected in a horn. The understanding is that his dad will be up ahead of him when he arrives at his destination with a fire waiting for him.
 
Thanks, OC. That makes no sense.
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Hopefully in a day or two it might. I'm a little slow.

I really want to read the book now. I think the Sheriff's monologues might mean more in the book. I don't know if I want to sit through that again in the theater, but I definitely need to see it again.
 
(do we still have to say spoilers at this point? below is a question.)




...I certainly admit that I may have missed something....

but when TLJ went back to the hotel room. where exactly was Chigurh... he's looking at same blown out lock cylinder.... please explain what I'm missing in the scene... the coin suggest the money's in chigurh's hands.... and he just disappears? he's a ghost? how did the showdown go down in the book?



somebody a while back posted a link to the coens' first script adaptation. thanks again-- glad I got it then (did not bookmark). I can't wait to read it now.

here's the final monologue in that version:

In reply to:
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Did anyone here a metallic grinding throughout the film?

I could not tell if the Alamo was changing out kegs or if that was the film.
 
Awesome, thread has reached spoiler alert critical mass. So what's the moral of the film?
SPOILER ALERT














Seems to me that it's folks of mixed morality are wiped out far more quickly than those of straight good or striaght evil; even those at extreme moralities -- good or evil -- are not left unscarred.
 
evil horn, thanks for that quote of the last dream speech.

And yeah, the wife got it, too (as mentioned, the dude checks his shoes). Kind of weird how the last few murders took place offscreen. We never see Moss get it, then the mom and wife.
 
Cajun,

Never camped in a more brutal spot than Black Gap in JUNE. Doing some Field Biology studies and we basically used one of the two or three cinder block shelters during mid day to stay out of the sun. Nothing was active during the day. Couldn't even find lizards to catch. Jumped in the Rio Grande and washed off old dirt, came out with new dirt. Also swam across the river and hiked up a pretty good size hill on the Mexican side. Had to literally fight my way back through the thick cane. That being said, thought it was beautiful.

Oh, and I do think we went to the Stillwell store as we headed out to our next destination.
 
Here is by far the best interpretation and review of this movie that I've seen. It's from Yahoo's viewer reviews, where just recently a whole slew of viewers have gone on there ignorantly railing on and on about the ending.

IMHO, this viewer nails it. Nicely written, too.

In reply to:
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dog QT for a lot of stuff, but for the way his movies look? 16mm? that's just not necessary. is there some rivalry between the two camps or something?

still looking for others thoughts on the question I posed above. I've been doing some thinking and have formed an opinion on it, but want to hear what others think.
 
** spoiler question














Went yesterday (Tue afternoon)at Austin's Arbor Hills...

When the handful of dudes were spying on the mother and went to help her with her bags... who were those men, and what did they have to do with the whole thing?

Next, then I guess they were the ones who killed Moss and were seen by TLJ driving that pickup that was careening across the intersection. True?

Okay, then who got the money at that time and then why? (I'll know when I find out who they were)

Then what ever happened eventually to the money and why was Anton back at the scene of that shooting? I get the feeling he never got the money, and I think those men had connections with the pile of men all shot up out the country at the start of the story. But that doesn't explain why Aton was there unless he had come looking for the money and found it (again) gone by the time he arrived.

Once Moss walked past that swimming pool with his gun over his shoulder, the entire rest of the movie is less clear to me than just about any movie of this kind I have ever seen.

I agree on the killing of the woman. In the hotel room when he shot Woody, he picked up his boots to keep the blood off of them. That's a clue that the "boot check" when he left the woman's house, meant he did kill her and probably stepped over a pile of blood, as he doesn't like getting blood on his boots.

The car hitting him was the only self-evident scene in that whole section of the movie. That was one of my favorite scenes and was, to me, a clear moment in how life goes in that world. As calculating and as eccentric as he was -- including being willing to act on a chance flip of a coin -- a car running a red light and hitting him was something that really could happen in spite of his calculating ways seemingly always with the jump on others. I figure there's a handful of bullets with his name on them just waiting for the day. I've heard about the life of the Russian mafia... that it's a glorious and short life. No matter who you are in the mix of that, your time is coming soon enough.

But as this movie put it, it's no place for old men.

To me the movie was similar in structure and impact to a "short short," in which the aim is not to unfold toward an ending, as to unfold even a plot as in a classic short story, but rather to create an impression. A snapshot in life that leaves you with an impression. No beginning, middle or end. Just a moment, an impression, a sensation. You need not know much about the characters, only enough to grasp the sensation right in that slice of time.

I typically see movies ten or more times if I want to better understand them, and this one may qualify for several runs but will wait for DVD.

The film should deliver a powerful DVD with supplemental material. I predict this will be a big seller when it is released.

ps. And how about that scene of Woody Harrelson sitting in that chair knowing his chances of talking his way out of getting killed were slim and none. I have never seen such a look on a person's face as he struggled to get the next sentence out. He was pretty cool in that office and in the hospital, but it looked like all his cool had drained out of him. He made a valiant effort of composure and to take it straight up.
 
SPOILER RESPONSE








Hu, the guys who offed the mother-in-law were the Mexican half of the drug deal gone bad. They got the info out of her where they were going & what hotel, then showed up to off Lluellyn. Since they delivered the drugs as agreed, technically, the money was theirs.

While the yahoo review is pretty good, I completely disagree with this characterization:

In reply to:
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BTW, my Dad also expressed amazement about that Harrelson scene, said it was his best performance since Kingpin.

OK, I made that last part up
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I like Blood Simple better, but this was awesome.

I can't imagine a better role for TLJ.

The ending was perfect; it really gave me the chills.
 
Did they mention cancer in the movie, or was that in the book? The last we see of her the creepy dude saying 'come right this way', the next mention of her is that she was just buried. I assumed the done her in. Though it would be an interesting thematic action -- allowing her to live, however briefly, because she wasn't involved in the racket. Kinda like mobile park manager.
 
Book Spoiler...









In the book, the kids notice a gun laying in the floorboard of the car and grab it before the cops get there. That gun is then used later in a shooting and it is matched back to Carla Jean's murder. The other kid is interviewed and he tells them that they did see him and he left the scene.

Also, I noticed three of the monologue scenes, while only the very first one is done that way. The second is when he reads about the couple killing the old people for their checks, he laughs to himself about the dog collar. The third is when he tells his wife the dream.

The movie was thankfully right along with the book for most of it. I did hate that Llewylan was not killed on the steps with the hitchiker he had picked up, but I was very happy with the movie.

Most of the theater was very mad when they left and I loved it! I hate those ******* Hollywood endings and love real life stuff. Simply amazing movie and they did real justice to the book.
 
When Carla and her mother were leaving in the car she said she had "the cancer." Also, the way Carla returned from the funeral and said she had just buried her mother, it just seemed to me that it was not an unexpected death and fit with her condition.
 
somebody please give me their take on the scene between bell and chigurh staring at each other through the same blown-out lock hole... ...and then chigurh just disappears.

it's really the only break from reality in the whole movie...

my thought is that was supposed to show us Bell's failure as law officer... he imagines Chigurh to be in there... even imagines that Chigurh might be scared (out of character)... and what follows... him sitting on the bed... he shows us that he's not up for the chase, nor has he ever really been.
 
I think that's when he decided to retire. He knew Chigurh would come back to the scene, he knew Chigurh was in there, but he didn't have the will to investigate.
 
I don't think Cigurh just disappears, I think he hides and Bell just doesn't look hard enough for him. Cigurh believes in predestiny and fate. If it's someone's time to die he has no qualms offing them. Bell realizes that the game is way too intense for an old sheriff like him and that no matter what he does the big bad guys are always going to exist and there is nothing he can do about it. So why doesn't Cigurh kill him? Well, when he goes into the room they show a close up of the dime he used to open the vent earlier. Why? The audience already knows Cigurh has been there, the Coen's aren't going to dumb down a movie that they haven't dumbed down one bit, so why show that dime?

It was heads up. Perhaps Cigurh used that as a determination for not killing Bell?
 
I saw the movie and liked it overall, but was left with a few questions:
1. Who was Chigurh? - I thought at the beginning of the story he was some random psychopathic killer. Later he was after the money. Did he stumble onto the situation with the 2 guys that he killed at the drug shootout scene?
2. Later he killed Harellsons employer. Did he work for the him?(Steven Root?) Was the guy that he killed the head of the organization who supplied the money for the failed drug deal?

I wish that there would have been a little more clarity in some of the final scenes even tough you can guess or deduce what happened. I wish we would have seen the shootout where Llewellin(SP?) was killed. I guess that his mother-in-law dies from the shootout or was it cancer? Im pretty certain that Llewellins wife was killed but you have to make that judgement.
 
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