English 1302 Film Study

No Country for Old Men

English 1302 Film Study

Final Exam Guide*

Credits:

Joel Coen and Ethan Coenadapted Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Meninto a screenplay and also directed the film, released in theaters in 2007. You might recognize some of their other films: Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?,Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After Reading, among others.

Oscar Wins: Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Javier Bardem),Best Achievement in Directing (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen),Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Cinematography, Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, Best Achievement in Sound Editing

“The Coens squeeze us without mercy in a vise of tension and suspense, but only to force us to look into an abyss of our own making.” –Rolling Stone

“Violent, poetic, gripping, thrilling and blackly funny: that’ll be the Coens doing what they do best then. Now with added humanity.” –Empire

“This movie is a masterful evocation of time, place, character, moral choices, immoral certainties, human nature and fate.” “that [opening] stretch of narration… Jones delivers it with a vocal precision and contained emotion that is extraordinary, and it sets up the entire film, which regards a completely evil man with wonderment, as if astonished that that such a merciless creature could exist.” **** Robert Ebert

Synopsis (SPOILER ALERT): Do not read this if you want the entire film to be a surprise! However, the plot can be a tad confusing, so this synopsis of the book from CormacMcCarthy.com might help you

It’s the early 1980s, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell has presided over his small south Texas border county for decades. In all that time he has sent only one criminal to death row in and is otherwise secure in his belief that “it takes very little to govern good people.” Unbeknownst to Bell, however, a local welder named Llewellyn Moss has, while out hunting near the Rio Grande, stumbled across the bodies of a half dozen drug runners who have killed each other off during a deal gone bad. Moss has discovered and made off with a satchel containing two million dollars in cash found near the site of the carnage. Moss, a former sniper during his tours of duty in Vietnam, is himself unaware that the satchel contains a radio transponder. After a lapse of caution enables the drug dealers’ bosses to identify him, Moss and his young wife find themselves fleeing from the cartel hitmen who have been dispatched to recover the satchel of money, and Sheriff Bell finds himself confronting a surge of violence the likes of which his quiet community has never before experienced.

The agent of much of this violence is one of McCarthy’s most memorable creations, a wily psychopath named Anton Chigurh. Chigurh’s loyalties seem fluid but his determination to recover the cash is relentless. Armed with an array of homemade weapons such as a sawed-off shotgun with a coffee-can silencer, his trademark compressed air-driven cattle gun, and with an eccentric philosophical conviction that he is merely an agent of fate, Chigurh systematically eliminates anyone who gets between him and Moss. He also dispatches with icy efficiency anyone whose innocent comments annoy him—or whose cars, uniforms or radio transponders might be useful to him—only pausing long enough to allow some of them to call a coin flip for their lives.

As two cartels battle around him, Chigurh implacably hunts down Moss and his wife while Bell tries to get between the killer and his prey, and to contact and convince the couple of the danger they are in. The veteran is convinced that his military experience and facility with firearms will enable him to fend off his hunters, and his young wife is convinced by her husband’s bravado—a hubris which eventually proves to have disastrous consequences.

Soon, the violence breaking out around him forces Sheriff Bell to reexamine his own ability—and willingness—to deal with this new form of criminal brutality. The elderly lawman, product of an informal code of honor that belongs to generations past, comes to doubt whether he is any longer suited to his work. This new era demands an equally brutal response of a kind he is unwilling to muster lest he “set his soul at hazard.”

The novel reads like a breathlessly paced crime thriller, but it is also a profound meditation on the corrosive effects of greed and the nature of honor in an increasingly mercenary civilization.

No Country for Old Men was the basis for the Coen Brothers’ film of the same name. Released in 2007, the movie won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).

(Before) Cast

Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a laconic, soon-to-retire county sheriff and World War 2 veteran on the trail of Chigurh and Moss.

Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, a welder and Vietnam veteran who flees with two million dollars in drug money that he finds in a field in Texas.

Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, a hitman hired to recover the missing money.

Kelly Macdonald as Carla Jean Moss, Llewelyn Moss's wife. Macdonald said that what attracted her to the character was that she "wasn't obvious. She wasn't your typical trailer trash kind of character. At first you think she's one thing and by the end of the film, you realize that she's not quite as naïve as she might come across."

Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells, a cocky bounty hunter and acquaintance of Chigurh, also hired to recover the drug money.

Garret Dillahunt as Deputy Wendell, Bell's inexperienced deputy sheriff.

Tess Harper as Loretta Bell, the sheriff's wife.

Barry Corbin as Ellis, a retired deputy shot in the line of duty and now wheelchair-bound.

Beth Grant as Agnes Kracik, Carla Jean's mother and the mother-in-law of Moss. She is dying from "the cancer."

Stephen Root as the man who hires Chigurh, Wells, and the Mexicans.

Gene Jones as Thomas Thayer, an elderly rural gas station clerk with good fortune, as his call on Anton's coin flip saves his life.

Brandon Smith as a stern INS official wearing sunglasses as he guards the U.S.-Mexican border. He lets Moss cross once he learns he was in the Vietnam War.

(courtesy of

(Before) Events/Questions to PonderThese questions and topics will help you prepare for the final exam. You will be asked to choose from one of many prompts about these topics. Preparation is key—know what you think about each of these ideas and questions.

What are the film’s elements of Existentialism? Moralism? Absurdism? Nihilism?
Chance: happening upon a crime scene, coin tosses, car crash
Fate: Chigurh himself, the fate of those who happen to encounter Chigurh, can any of the characters escape fate?
Institutions: what established institutions are there in this movie? How does the movie portray each?
Allegory: are these characters representative of larger groups of people? (…yes…) If so, what is Cormac McCarthy saying about society as a whole?
Film editing: what scenes are shot from unusual or parallel angles? Consider lighting, sound, dialogue, scenery, and props
How does the West Texas setting affect the story and meaning? What does it say about outsiders?
Is Llewelyn an apt adversary for Chigurh? Is Bell?
What is Chigurh’s philosophy? Llewelyn’s? Bell’s? Wells’?
How are the three main characters (Chigurh, Bell, Moss) alike?
Find the humor. Where is it, how can it be categorized, and why is it there?
What’s the point of living? Can living in a world with Chigurh negate the purpose of life? Law?
How are the marginal characters treated in this film? What does that reveal about its purpose?
Is crime larger than law?Further, is evil greater than good? Furthermore, can it be measured? Ultimately, does it matter?
Why does it end that way?? Can the viewer find satisfaction in it?
Major topics/themes: philosophy, morality, ethics, fate, chance, free will, justice, higher law, changing times: past, present, and future
Symbols: briefcase, bolt gun, deer, dogs, the coin, the country…
How does the title, borrowed from Yeats, illuminate its meaning?

(After) Chew on this:

The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium”: “That is no country for old men, the young / In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, / —Those dying generations—at their song.” The poem also contains the lines: “An aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat upon a stick, / Unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing / For every tatter in its mortal dress.” Why has McCarthy chosen a line from Yeats’ poem for his title? In what ways isNo Country for Old Menabout aging? Does Sheriff Bell experience any kind of spiritual rejuvenation as he ages?
“One might speculate further about McCarthy’s ultimate vision. In an early scene, Llewellyn Moss spies an antelope through his gun site and whispers, “hold still”, before he shoots to kill. Later, Chigurh approaches a motorist that he has forced to stop on the roadside and says softly, “hold still”, before exterminating his victim with a cattle stun gun. The stun gun is an efficient way to kill pastoral animals: a cylindrical bolt is explosively shot forward into the animal’s brain and then retracted, killing the animal instantly. This is the mechanized way of killing animals (10 billion per year in the US alone) which is now customary. The animal about to be killed is not approached in hostility, it is merely terminated by a soulless executioner who operates according to rules incomprehensible to the animal. To the many humans killed by Chigurh in this story, their own deaths are equally inexplicable. To Chigurh it is natural; it is their karmic fate. This is the way the world works. Bell finds the modern world incomprehensible, but we can see the connection between Moss and Chigurh. Our killing of animals for meat, which is harmful for human health, unsustainable for the environment, and ultimately inhuman, is reflected in the persona of Chigurh. Whether McCarthy intended this connection or not, it would be worthwhile reflecting on it.” POSTED BYTHE FILM SUFIAT1/05/2009 08:39:00 PM
“Sheriff Bell senses the utter depravity of Chigurh and sees him as representative of a new, soulless breed, driven by drugs and money that is here to stay. Bell is powerless to turn the tide and can only make melancholic comparisons between the comprehensible past and the incomprehensible present. For McCarthy, it seems, the few decades following World War II, where some general degree of order and human decency prevailed, even among the lawless, may have been an exception in human history. That all-too-brief period may have been a unique and isolated period that is now fading away forever. Those who lived through it were living in a cocoon that could not endure. These reflections of Bell (and McCarthy) are the core of the outer story, and although the film spends less time than the novel on this aspect, the basic themes are there. The significance of the outer story is emphasized when the inner story ends abruptly and disturbingly, without the closure that most audiences expect. The outer story offers the final commentary. Fans focusing strictly on the inner story feel cheated.”POSTED BYTHE FILM SUFIAT1/05/2009 08:39:00 PM
In short, I think the major theme of the movie is this failure ofmaking sense of the moral universe. The world becomes morally opaque and the effort at trying to make sense of it becomes too heavy. The sheriff is worn down by what I'll calltheodicy fatigue. This entry was posted by Richard Beck.
As you can see, the concerns here are epistemological. After expressing nostalgia for the good ol' days when the world was morally comprehensible and peaceable (e.g., the old timers never wore guns), we see the sheriff struggle to make sense of the evil he is encountering. He can't take the "measure" of the evil in the world. He can't understand the killer in the jail. He doesn't want to meet something he "don't understand." This entry was posted by Richard Beck.
But it is worse than that. The sheriff feels that the act of comprehension would be contaminating. To take the measure of evil is to risk one's own moral integrity, to put one's "soul at hazard." In the end, the sheriff refuses to become a "part of this world." He doesn't want to understand. So he walks away, befuddled and fatigued in his efforts to "make sense" of a moral universe that seems so broken. This entry was posted by Richard Beck.
“And that’s why Llewelyn dies off-screen. This is the moment when the film reveals that the plot is not important. Nor was it ever, really. Rather than being a cat-and-mouse thriller,No Country for Old Menis a coming-of-age tale in which the real protagonist, Sheriff Bell, comes to understand his place in the universe. I actually think this story has something of a happy ending. When Bell details his final dream, I think it’s the inception of his self-forgiveness. He’s realized the goals he’d set himself were always too great and that, like lighting a fire, you can only produce so much warmth and protection in an otherwise cold and hostile world.”

(After) For Further Examination:

“Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats
Theodicy and No Country for Old Men:
No Country for Old Men – The Ending Explained:
Nihilism: look it up. Start here:
LitCharts:

(After) IMBD Quotable Quotes (not exhaustive):

Anton Chigurh: “What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”
Llewelyn Moss: If I don't come back, tell mother I love her.

Carla Jean Moss: Your mother's dead, Llewelyn.

Llewelyn Moss: Well then I'll tell her myself.

Anton Chigurh: Call it.

Carla Jean Moss: No. I ain'tgonna call it.

Anton Chigurh: Call it.

Carla Jean Moss: The coin don't have no say. It's just you.

Anton Chigurh: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.

Bell: That man that shot you died in prison.
Ellis: In Angola. Yeah.
Bell: What would you a done if he'd been released?
Ellis: I don't know. Nothin. Wouldn't be no point to it.
Bell:I'm kindly surprised to hear you say that.
Ellis: All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it...Your granddad never asked me to sign on as a deputy. I done that my own self. Loretta says you're quittin.
Bell: Yes, you've circled round.
Ellis: How come're you doin that?
Bell: I don't know. I feel overmatched...I always thought when I got older God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.
Ellis: You don't know what he thinks.
Bell: Yes I do.
Ellis: I sent Uncle Mac's badge and his old thumbbuster to the Rangers. For their museum there. Your daddy ever tell you how Uncle Mac came to his reward?...Shot down on his own porch there in Hudspeth County. There was seven or eight of 'em come to the house. Wantin this and wantin that. Mac went in and got his shotgun but they was way ahead of him. Shot him down in his own doorway. Aunt Ella run out and tried to stop the bleedin. Him tryin to get hold of the shotgun again. They just set there on their horses watchin him die. Finally one of 'em says somethin in Injun and they all turned and left out. Well Mac knew the score even if Aunt Ella didn't. Shot through the left lung and that was that. As they say.
Bell: When did he die?
Ellis: Nineteen zero and nine.
Bell: No, I mean was it right away or in the night or when was it.
Ellis: Believe it was that night. She buried him the next mornin. Diggin in that hard caliche...What you got ain'tnothin new. This country is hard on people. You can't stop what's comin. Ain't all waitin on you...That's vanity.
Ed Tom Bell: I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how they would have operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."
Ed Tom Bell: Alright then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em . It's peculiar. I'm older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he's the younger man. Anyway, first one I don't remember too well but it was about meeting him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past... and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up...
Man who hires Wells: [about Chigurh] Just how dangerous is he?

Carson Wells: Compared to what? The bubonic plague?