The motion picture "No Country For Old Men," and what it means to you.

[Mike 03]

Why is this motion picture an important work of art? What did it say that needed to be said?

If you read the book but did not see the film, you are welcome to post as well. What was the use or meaning of this work to you?

Please share!

As an obsessive fan of Cormac McCarthy's works, I offer that as the reason I ask questions about your reactions to his novels or adaptations to them.

Thank you.

[ShortnFiery]

1. It was a very dark film. It was depressing ...

I wanted to see SOMEONE basically good come out on top, but alas, just corruption and death.

It was a good film but not to be watched when one's depressed. :shrug:

I found it true to life but thank Heavens that I don't choose to associate with the people who mix it up in the drug trade (either side).

[ContinentalOp]

2. I think it was probably a minor McCarthy work. A semi-interesting storytelling experiment...

that didn't make for a very good movie. It was brought to the screen by a brilliant team who are going through a bit of a slump. And as is typical, they won the Oscar for a lesser movie based on the strength of their past work. The great acting, cinematography, etc couldn't cover up the fundamental story problems IMO.

[Mike 03]

4. I agree very passionately with your opinion. Thank you for sharing it. NT

[ContinentalOp]

8. Thanks. I have a feeling The Road will be a brilliant movie.

And even more brutal and harrowing for people that had trouble watching No Country!

[sharp_stick]

15. I didn't care for the road

I was much more into Blood Meridian. For some reason the road seemed a little simplistic and I can't figure out why, it just never got to me. Perhaps I was expecting too much, sometimes that can really kill a book.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

22. The book was simplistic as well.

But it was a short novel. Very effective in that form. Haven't seen the film, and probably won't because Viggo whatshisname is in it, and we hates him.

[ContinentalOp]

24. Hate Viggo? That's weird.

John Hillcoat is a fantastic director though. He's the perfect person to do The Road. It will definitely be a big Oscar contender IMO.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

48. I didn't realise John Hillcoat did it.

In that case I'll definitely watch it. Thx for the tip.

[villager]

40. Esquire's already calling "the Road" "the most important movie of the year"

http://www.esquire.com/features/movies/the-road-movie-review-0609

[ContinentalOp]

41. I didn't read the article yet but that doesn't surprise me.

The director's previous movie The Proposition was one of the most powerful and astonishing movies I've seen in years.

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. I was totally surprised

It totally sucked all the time that the hit man was not on the screen. Poorly edited too. A lot of bad action. I didn't read the script, but what came on the screen in some places was trite and acted like it was a spoof of a film noire.

[Richardo]

5. I read the book after I saw the movie.

Was amazed at:

- The faithfulness of the movie to the book - right down to verbatim dialogue.
- McCarthy's simple, evocative style - this was the first one of his books I read. One of the most heart-wrenching sentences I've ever read was 5-word throw-away near the end of the book: Ed Tom is watching his wife riding and remarks to his horse: "There goes my heart yonder."

I'll see it again (Coen fan) and read it again (and much more McCarthy)

[cherokeeprogressive]

38. I loved the colloquialisms

"Probably (TLJ pronounced it probly) I don't"

"Got some hard bark on him"

"At the gettin' place"

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. We just saw this movie last night!

It scared the crap out of me, primarily due to the most effective movie psychopath since Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death.

The complete amorality of the assassin character, with his soft voice, using a tool of "humane killing" (or at least that's what the meat industry would tell you), his coin flips, making his victims participate in their "final judgment" or as he said - "it all comes down to this". I can't even begin to really discuss it, we are still assimilating.

Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and the other guy (too busy to look up right this second) were all BRILLIANT!!! Not a pleasant movie, but a damn compelling and scary movie.

When it came on, I said, "Oh, I'm not up for a movie" and those were the last words I spoke for 2 hours!

[mitchum]

7. It's a sardonic comedy

a great one

[ContinentalOp]

10. Ha!

That's about the only way I can take the Tommy Lee Jones stuff but I don't think it was McCarthy's intention.

[mitchum]

16. I dunno...McCarthy is pretty sardonic

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

9. fan of Cormac and the Coen Bros.

I think that the Coen Bros.' often-bizarre read on violence includes a great deal of understated comedy (even in their comedies). I was surprised to see how well it fit with Cormac McCarthy's moody work.

I also thought that the Coen Bros. are masters of Americana. Their films tend to be dressed in an almost Norman Rockwell sort of way, which is embellished by freewheeling performances from their actors and meticulously chosen music from Carter Burwell. In terms of subject matter, No Country for Old Men fit right into their oeuvre.

[Bluzmann57]

11. It was a STRANGE film

And the ending was not a satisfying one. I thought it was worth the six bucks I spent to see it, but I won't rent the video.

[AlCzervik]

13. i liked the end, it's not all neat and wrapped up in a hollywood ending.

[lostnotforgotten]

12. Enjoyed Both The Movie And Book - Very Compelling Character Studies Of Man's Darker Side

eom

[ContinentalOp]

14. BTW, does Chigurh == the Sheriff?

Anton / Ed Tom, etc. Probably not. It's the only thing that would make the movie and book interesting to me but other people say the idea is trite. Either way, it's no "Killer Inside Me."

[mitchum]

19. Now, ya talkin!

You're just not talking me to death.
That is a great novel and film adaptation.

[lunatica]

17. The story as it developes is riveting and keeps you glued to the screen

Not one note of music. Not one sentence to explain anything. No excess or unnecessary dialog. You find out what it's about as the characters in the story find out. You have to keep track and figure out what's going on because it isn't obvious. You don't see people getting killed in much of the movie, but you see them dead.

Then there's the characters themselves. Every one of them is fascinating because you want to figure them out. What makes them tick.

I watched it twice and it's incredibly intense without a single wasted moment in it. It's visual storytelling at its finest.

[Canuckistanian]

33. I agree with your critique

I didn't know that to expect of the film when I started it.

But it WAS riveting in the sense of the character development and plot line. The cinematography was spledid as well.

The end was one of those "uhhhh, WTF?" moments, but then many interesting movies have them. "Waiting for Mr. Goodbar" is an example.

Actually, I considered it to be sort of a darker version of a Coen brothers film such as "Fargo". Black, black humor that tries to deliver some cryptic message, but you aren't sure what.

[Canuckistanian]

34. dupe

[Mike 03]

18. OMG, I can't believe I posted this in GD. It was intended for the lounge.

But I appreciate the input.

I actually think his best works are almost contrapositive to how they have been received by the media; for example, THE ROAD. Oprah made it a classic, and it won the Pulitzer. But what about BLOOD MERIDIAN?

Weird.

The same is surely true for other writers.

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA was one of Hemingway's weakest works. He only was rewarded for it because he was dead or dying, right?

He had written a half dozen superior works.

[lunatica]

23. The movie with Spencer Tracy was very good and I watched it as a child

The Old Man and the Sea. I was maybe 12 years old when I saw it.

[mitchum]

25. That often happens...

Steinbeck won the Nobel right after publishing The Winter Of Our Discontent and Faulkner right after Intruder In The Dust (although Nobels are given for a body of work)

[cali]

20. That is no country for old men, the young in one another's arms

birds in trees,
Those dying generations at their song
the salmon falls, the mackeral crowded seas
fish, flesh or fowl commend all summer long
whatever is begotten, born and dies
caught in that sensual music all neglect
monuments of undying intellect

An aged man is but a paltry thing
unless sould clap its hands and sing
and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress
nor is there singing school but studying
monuments of its own magnificence
and therefore I have sailed the seas
and come to the holy city of Byzantium

O sages standing in God's holy fire
perne in a gyre
consume my heart away, sick with desire
and fastened to a dying animal
it knows not what it is
and gather me into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
my bodily form from any natural thing
but such a thing as grecian goldsmiths make
of gold and gold enameling
to keep a drowsy emperor awake
or sing to lords and ladies of byzantium
of what is past or passing or to come.

Memorized that as a kid when I fell in love with it and decades later it's still there humming softly in my brain.

[Raksha]

27. Cali, you left out a few lines from the last two verses.

It should be...

O sages standing in God's holy fire,
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire,
perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away:
Sick with desire,
and fastened to a dying animal--
it knows not what it is--
and gather me into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
my bodily form from any natural thing
but such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
of hammered gold and gold enameling
to keep a drowsy emperor awake
or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
of what is past, or passing, or to come.

I also memorized the poem as a kid, along with a bunch of other Yeats poems. I am a major Yeats freak from way back, and still have the copy of his Collected Poems my mother gave me for my nineteenth birthday. It's pretty tattered and falling apart now, but I still read it a lot.

I copied and pasted your version and then did the revision from memory, so the punctuation may not be exactly right, but I believe the words are. I'm not trying to embarrass you or play one-upmanship games. It's just that it's one of my favorite poems of all time, and I couldn't stand to see it quoted incorrectly.

[cali]

30. no problem. I'm surprised I got that close

after over 40 years. I too love Yeats- well I love poetry and I've memorized masses and masses of it.

[ezgoingrl]

21. Immediately after I saw the movie,

I was sort of pissed. I felt like I'd gone a long way for what felt very much like a Sopranos ending. It's been a couple of months since I've seen it now and as time goes on, I become more fond of the ending and will likely watch the movie again. I'm still not sure that I think the Tommy Lee Jones soliloquy (for want of a better word) was 100% necessary. At the same time, I am willing to give the movie a second chance just for the sheer beauty of Javier Bardem's performance as the hitman. Good grief he was scary in the most primal sort of way.

[RoyGBiv]

26. Doesn't "mean" much to me ...

The ending was contrived, trying ever so hard to be "different," and when you try that hard, it doesn't work very well, imo.

And the "street battle" scenes were just dumb.

The underlying themes and motifs were interesting, but the movie itself wasn't a good vehicle for them, imo.

That said, I liked it for the most part. They characters in the movie were excellent, and the actors did a lot with them, which made it all entertaining.

[Echo In Light]

28. "You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waitin' on you."

[Mike 03]

29. Thank you so much for your opinions. They are very perceptive.

My appreciation for your contributions.

[customerserviceguy]

31. Chigurh was a most chilling villain

It really didn't matter to him, heads or tails, the victim lived or died, there was no motive, no reason, no nothing, just raw random chance. If there were a killer robot, it would not be more dispassionately wanton than Chigurh.

What got me was how willingly many of his victims just stood still like sheep for the fatal blow to the brain. For me, it was not the best picture of that year, but it certainly deserved it's nomination.

[Echo In Light]

36. There hasn't been a villain so effective with so little since Kevin Spacey in Seven

He was perfect at portraying absolute greed/ruthlessness/unconscionableness incarnate.

[Redneck Socialist]

32. Written as a screenplay...

...at least that was my impression upon finishing the book.

Definitely one of his lesser works. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was written with the big screen in mind.

[aikoaiko]

35. I learned that shotguns can be supressed, friendo.

;)

[wuvuj]

37. I liked it due to the beauty of west Texas...

...not so much the plot or whatever. All the violence got to be a drag....

But what should you expect...network TV is all cop shows and True Detective anymore. Sick country?

[NashVegas]

43. There Was a Great Quote In Paste

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/09/my-history-of-violence.html

Judging by the canonization of Cormac McCarthy, who writes about scalpings and coin-flipping symbols of death and babies roasted on spits and the Apocalypse Blooming From Every Man’s Evil Heart, nihilism is now so universally confused with profundity that even the serious literary establishment can’t see that he’s really just Stephen King without the entertainment value.

[mitchum]

45. Yes, but I would take anything from a creeping Jesus publication...

on the ropes with a hefty grain of salt. McCarthy will still be in print next year (or next week)
I guess that means that Emmylou, Gillian, David, Sujan, and Judy and Buddy Miller don't care for McCarthy's work?

[mitchum]

46. I found the west Texas landscape to be the most horrifying aspect of the movie

I turned to ms mitchum and said, "I would prefer the bolt to living in that godforsaken place"

[AllieB]

39. I thought the movie was brilliant.

I have never been so riveted during the first 30 minutes of a movie. I thought the understated feeling of doom in the movie was compelling. Javier Bardem was fantastic, and Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones were also.

[proud patriot]

42. greed leaves you alone and hated

:shrug: I really didn't like that movie but I
watched it ...

[Sal Minella]

44. The IMDb message board for this film has some really profound theories

and explanations for events in the film and for motivations of the characters.

Ordinarily I cannot stand violence in movies but I've watched NCFOM three times and will go for a fourth sooner or later. It says a lot about courage and foolishness and greed and adhering unerringly to one's belief system (Chigurh) no matter how distorted it may be.

[tabasco]

47. It was a movie.

It was two hours of entertainment.

"Important work of art." LOL.