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Now I've got to see it for myself. Maybe if I walk out 15 minutes before the ending, it will work better.
That's probably why you didn't get the movie then, because the film is about him. He's one of the "old men" in the title, who finds himself no longer with a place in the world.
I do understand the change in tone of the film is jarring, much the same way a realization of life can be, and some are finding it disappointing, but "the death of cinema" seems a bit of a stretch.
Maggie, if you walk out 15 minutes early, you'll miss the whole point of the story.
O.K., El Bich, so I was hasty. As usual, you're the voice of sanity. Well, close. :-)
"Why this commentary must be made at the expense of the movie’s entertainment value I cannot figure." Great films are more than mere entertainment.
I realize the death of cinema was dramatic, but a walked out of the movie feeling that way. It's been a bad decade and this was an extreme disappointment, and just when I was deciding whether it deserved an A- or my first A!
I appreciate your opinions though.
The ending is jarring, but I think the Coens handled the shifting of focus fairly well. I left the theater feeling awkward and empty, like all was not right in the world. That was definitely a new movie-going experience for me, and I appreciate it.
There was only one problem I had with the movie - and that was the lack of a showdown. I think that's the reason I felt so uneasy about it at the end.
I may be coloring this film by my faithfulness to Coen movies, but God, it is amazing. It's no Barton Fink, but what is?
The lack of a showdown is what got to me. If the movie really is about Ed Tom Bell, then why was it... well... not about him? There was nothing about him that interested me in the slightest, which makes his paucity of screen time fortunate. It was Chiguhr and Moss that made the movie so engrossing.
The Coen brothers pulled a cruel trick, not a masterstroke.
And left with one thought: as a director who's bankable enough to turn story structure on its ear, is showing everyone that you can do it more important than telling a good story?
Story structure works like this. We see Hero in everyday world. Some event or person calls Hero to action. He meets with complication after complication (rising tension) until at the midpoint of the story, he learns something he will need in order to achieve his goal. He suffers reversals (turning points) until the blackest moment when all seems lost, followed by the climax and the denouement. 99.9% of stories are crafted along these lines.
So what do the Coens do? For starters, they dispense with any clearly delineated protagonist. If a story protagonist can be defined as someone who experiences the most pronounced character arc during the course of a tale, then I think we might claim the protagonist in "No Country" is Tommy Lee Jones's character.
But in this we are deceived. We spend most of our time with Josh Brolin and are disabused of any notion of his being the protagonist about 3/4 of the way through the film. Are we shocked? Perhaps. But does shocking an audience for the sake of shocking it make this any less of a mediocre movie? No.
If we are to assume Javier Bardem's character, Chiguhr, is Death or, as has been suggested, cruel and capricious fate, we learn nothing, are left with nothing, other than its implacable nature...and an entirely gratuitous scene where he debrides an open wound. Again, was this scene worth shooting? Was this movie worth making?
To my way of thinking, the Coen brothers are--or can be--better filmmakers than this. Depriving us of anyone likable to root for (with the exception of Kelly MacDonald's character, the only one by the way with enough pluck to refuse the coin-toss challenge posed to her by Chirguhr's personification of Death), an emotionally satisfying (or at least understandable) ending, any sense of causally-related cohesiveness (Woody Harrelson's character, while brilliantly acted, bore no relationship to the plot, not even allegorically) does NOT make this movie Oscar worthy. Instead, what we are fed in great abundance, is gore, directorial arrogance, and a whole lot of brilliant cinematography.
After reading all those rave reviews, I left the theater feeling as though I was the only one who realized the emperor wore no clothes.
And after reading this blog, I'm hugely relieved to know I am not alone in my censure of a widely-touted film.
Joel, Ethan--if by some remote chance you read this--please seal up your bag of cinematic tricks and write a movie with a little heart, okay? You have fans out here. Sure, some of us took a gut punch with this last movie, but we're still willing to give you our time, consideration, and money.
In the movie "Commando" with Arnold Shwarzenegger are we not captivated by the stories ethos that one man can overcome the greatest odds and will himself to victory? Many movies have a theme that is not explicit, and the fact that most of you critics have given legitamacy to this piece of sh*t movie because it has a message you feel is different or thought provoking proves that you are more interested in showing the public and your "artsy" cronies that you can think at a higher level than your are in realistically evaluating a movie for its purpose in telling an engaging story.
How come in these reviews there is no mention of characters which are superfluous to the plot like Tommy Lee Jones who takes up half of the movie or Woody Harrelson who also added nothing. Of course, the ending should be infamous and if the public ever stops assuming that the critics are smarter than them it could hopefully prove to be the chopping block for every critic in America who gave this crap a good review. In the meantime I hope all of the critics gathered in coffee houses enjoy their shared comradarie brought upon by their pretentiousness and mutual inability to articulate why this movie was good.
I find it interesting that most of the folks leaping onto the back-slapping bandwagon of the new Coen film tend to deride the movie's detractors for simply "not getting" what the filmmakers intended... when it is painfully obvious to me that it isn't truly the resolution of the story that the nay-sayers find appalling,.. but the story-telling method by which that ending is reached.
Surely, the film is quite loyal to it's source material and the bleak ending is intentional... but the viewer is lead through most of the story's progression through the eyes of Josh Brolin's character... and when this pivotal persona is actually killed OFF SCREEN (when the majority of the assassin's monstrous deeds are arbitrarily documented onscreen in great detail) leaves the audience with a very unsatisfying and uneven feeling for the remaining quarter of the film. I fully understand that his (Brolin's) death is one of the lynchpin moments that cement Javier Bardem's character as a sort of elemental force or personification of the brutality of random chance (or Death, if you must be literal)... but the choice to portray this climactic moment off the action is not only counter-intuitive to the story-telling voice established throughout the majority of the film, but it is also unfair to the film's audience who have invested their attention (and dare I say.. hopes?) in one of the story's main protagonists... only to have his tale's climax take place without them sitting in witness.
I think what sticks in the craw of most film-goers when exiting this film isn't, in fact, HOW the film ends... but the way in which the Directors chose to tell it. Sure... there are certainly more problems with the film... superfluous characters... uneven, inconsistent, and sometimes completely absent character development... but all the main ingredients are there for a memorable film. Unfortunately, even with the rich melange of flavors to be found in this visual ambrosia, the Director's flashy bait-and-switch tactics near the end of the film leave the viewer with a disappointing taste of cork in their mouths by the film's credits...
Again... just another take on the matter...
Thanks so much for listening...
Thanks for the comments. Good to know we're not alone and here's hoping the next Coen Brother's movie is more like Miller's Crossing (their best in my opinion). I must agree with your observations on storytelling. Break the rules with caution!
Greg Follander,
"I find it interesting that most of the folks leaping onto the back-slapping bandwagon of the new Coen film tend to deride the movie’s detractors for simply “not getting†what the filmmakers intended… when it is painfully obvious to me that it isn’t truly the resolution of the story that the nay-sayers find appalling,.. but the story-telling method by which that ending is reached."
Bravo! Well put!
A waste of my time.
It is meaningless to build a very well crafted boat to drive in highway.
That's how I felt about his movie.
"You don't understand."
If there is any link to Iraq it is this: '01 wasn't '41 when people became more angry than afraid. In that sense, we indeed are "no longer a country for old men."
There are at least three veterans of the Vietnam War in the film. I came aeway with new thoughts about that war. The movie made me realize that the question I asked during that conflict wasn't the important one.I wondered if South Vietnam wasn't worth defending. After the movie, I realized that the question is if this countr y is worth defedning. Notice no Korean War vets in the film. Truly, the forgotten war.
That is my problem with the movie. There was not one thing real about it.
People in that time and place just did not act that way. Some guy that looked like the goon from a Three Stooges short would have been taken care of in short order with no muss or fuss.
West Texas and The Southwest in general is no place for film makers that do not know the country. Maybe Mr. air cylinder would make them wet their pants in their Malibu beach house. But people in West Texas? They would chew him up and spit him out.
Perhaps the movie was about our society of "coolness". The cool indifference that many people in society talk about when they claim they are cool. Perhaps a better word that people should use is "numb". Their brains numbed as they drown out cognitive processes with the music they jack into their ears as they walk in a park or as they play with their cell phones when waiting for a bus; or as they numb their brain with drugs.
Maybe the ending was "cool" as the director exercised indifference to the expectation of the audience. Looking at it in that sense I would say it was a very cool movie for cool people.
Furthermore, for a movie that is trying hard to send a message, I find it ironic that the use of so much violence really doesn't lead to much of a thought-provoking ending. Anyone who's ever listened to their grandparent or someone that has lived on earth a long time could tell you everything and more that this movie sort of attempted to say.
discussion can make a case for or against the quality, integrity, themes, motifs,
symbolism, characterizations, purpose, success/failure, etc., of "No Country" with
evidence from the movie ALONG WITH/BACKED BY credible authority in story telling,
story elements, literary and film analysis and critique, and film making techniques? If
not, all of this is simply a matter of personal opinions/reviews that run in circles,
ironically remaining as unresolved as many of you claim the movie does.
I teach Journalism, Literature, Film History, and Film Application. My students are taught
that the Arts do not exist to tie up endings in tidy false resolutions that make audiences
comfortable. On the contrary, they exist to provoke thought, evoke emotion, and bring
about change in the reader/viewer. That which is considered Art (and we all agree that
not all that is framed, bound and published, or shown in theaters can be called Art)
challenges us to reflect, evaluated, re-evaluate, interpret, etc. Quite often pieces are
"unsatisfying," seemingly leaving us hanging. There is a reason for that. Now, there are
certainly those pieces which are poorly done and unresolved because they lack
appropriate structure (for the genre), or because the writer/director compromises the
details or characterization that pull the story off track. However, keep in mind that the
stories that wind up neatly target our base level; we don't need to interpret or examine
because we are not challenged, but are, rather, merely entertained. That's the mass
audience most films "shoot" for. Then there are the films that allow us to think,
encourage us to discuss, to get out of our instant gratification mindset and tackle
philosophical, moral, and ethical issues/questions that open our eyes to who we are.
Our brains crave resolution; they look for patterns in order to solve puzzles. When that
doesn't happen we feel off balance, unsatisfied. We often mistake dissatisfaction for not
understanding, or for someone not doing his job properly. We are selfish viewers and
want film makers to pander to our whims, and when they don't we discuss whether or
not the film was worth our time. What if we try to see films from the artists' points of
view? Just because we don't get it or don't like it doesn't mean its not valuable.
"No Country" is not necessarily told the way I would tell it, but I understand it. The main
characters are not Llewellyn and Anton. Tommy Lee Jones' character is. He is the one
who goes through changes as a result of events in the film. As you discuss this further
please investigate other types of characters, learn who Llewellyn and Anton really are in
this film, then view the movie again or just rethink it. You may find that it has much
more to offer than selling out to the masses.
Also, it is possible to debate without circular thinking, big words, and convoluted
sentences. That doesn't make for an intelligent argument, only a pretentious one.
"Tommy Lee’s lawman was essential to the film, as the Old Man who was always a step behind the two main protaganists - intentionally so. He is the aged sage of the sagebrush, mystified by the violence and amorality that Vietnam, Watergate, crack cocaine and Ronald Reagan had and would inflict on America. Brolin was the cyncial vet, clinging to a country long dead, while Bardem was the Wall Street assassin who would doubtless take his millions and make a mint on leveraged buyouts."
Greg Follender's comment below really made me think more about the film:
"I fully understand that his (Brolin’s) death is one of the lynchpin moments that cement Javier Bardem’s character as a sort of elemental force or personification of the brutality of random chance (or Death, if you must be literal)… but the choice to portray this climactic moment off the action is not only counter-intuitive to the story-telling voice established throughout the majority of the film, but it is also unfair to the film’s audience who have invested their attention (and dare I say.. hopes?) in one of the story’s main protagonists… only to have his tale’s climax take place without them sitting in witness."
If Bardems character is fate & chance then I think this unexpected & disapointing part of the film is appropriate to feeling the vulnerability that we all have to fate & chance.
But ultimately, I don't agree with some of the ideas here that some characters were not needed. I think each one represents a positon dealt by either fate or chance that most of us experience at some point in life, yet never have the objectivity of an observer.
Tommy Less's character presents the feeling of knowing exactly whats going on, but despite that always being one step behind and never being able to catch up. He is futility.
Brolin is on the edge; one wrong move and everything falls apart. He made one single error in judgement and thinks he can run, then hide, the kill it, then confront it, then reason it away, then outsmart it.... maybe he represents regret or something.
It is suggested that Bardem IS fate & chance. I'm not sure about this. It seems to me he might represent faith in fate or chance. He tosses the coin, he is sure about everything he does, but he remains the same, unmoved & unchanged by his experiences.
Woody Harrleson's knows exactly what his fate is. he represents the desperation of knowing.
The girlfriend is the most obvious one even though many of you think her part is unimportant. Much of the movie deals with a focus on her being safe, her being moved, Brolin getting back to her, Bardem promising to go to her... and ultimately we do not know what happens to her. She is the "not knowing" where fate & chance will take us. She is uncertainty.
Anyway... perhaps I over thought it. But just my 2 cents. I really enjoyed reading everyone else's perspectives.
strand. Just reading some of these articulate responses makes me green with verbal
envy!
I still stand firm by my prior comments... but in light of some of the insightful
commentary that has since graced this forum, I'd like to add a few things that have
occurred to me since then...
I think that it might be a mistake to try and succinctly label each character as a certain
iron-clad device within the film's narrative... even though those ready assignments
might make the story's progression a bit more palatable and easier to swallow. Surely,
much as been said about what each character supposedly represents... but I wonder if
the film's abrupt resolution is a reflection of what happens when a Director is too
married to archetypes at the expense of apropos storytelling? (Keep in mind, I know that
the book ends in a similar fashion... it is not the climax itself that irks me, but it's
execution)
I found the final denouement with Bardem and Brolin's girlfriend to be quite well done
given the film's otherwise disappointing (in my humble opinion) finale...
Her refusal to take part in Bardem's game of chance... the very definition of his role
within the tale... speaks volumes about what this film COULD have been.
And then... we get the car crash...
It's just too bad that the film didn't end there... with Bardem a victim of the very engine
of brutal chance that he championed earlier. But his survival is expected... and it seems
to me a rather heavy-handed device to drive home such an obvious point. Especially after
the filmmaker's careful restraint in rendering the assassin's calculated execution of his
business with Brolin's noble mate...
Instead... we get the final didactic soliloquy that carefully reinforces the film's cryptic
title (just in case you hadn't figured it out by this point and needed it clearly spelt out for
you).
Feh... just because you CAN doesn't necessarily mean that you SHOULD...
Again... just my humble opinion...
questioning Anton's actions or intent ... the rest of the film was anticlimax.
know if the Mexicans killed him or if it was the Killer. I think it may have been the Killer
but it may also have been a bunch of Mexicans who also were found at scene dead. In
fact, a bunch of them got away in a truck prior to Tommy Lee Jones arriving so i suppose
it wasn't the Killer.
The Killer murdered Brolin's wife offscreen. We know this because he leaves home and
wipes his shoes off. I presume that it was blood he was wiping as to not leave a trail or
footprint.
Tommy Lee Jones says a monologue at end of movie that I listened to twice but did not
understand. From reading your responses I am glad at least the Coen's know what they
wrote in this ending scene.
Great movie with a disappointing ending. I did not get to see anyone do anything
meaningful at end of movie that brought closure. I am left guessing as to what happened
and what it all meant.