Toronto's is an international film festival, and naturally the films are shot in locations all over the world. But one thing so many of the best films in this year's fest have in common (a thing all great films have in common) is not the places in which they're shot, or set, but the places they create, and pull you into. These aren't travelogues. The films are the places, whether the geographical locations exist independently of the pictures or not.
There's Texas and there's Mexico and there's "No Country for Old Men."
Tommy Lee Jones' character, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell begins Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men" with an elegiac monologue about missing the "old times." His words are spoken over a montage of western landscapes in blazing oranges and reds (the incomparable Roger Deakins is the DP). By the end of this reverie, we're no longer in the past but in the harsh daylight of the present, and the color has drained from the images. The way Ed Tom sees it, he's outmatched in the modern world where violence is random, unmotivated, and unpredictable.
Within moments we see a shocking example of what he's talking about, as Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) strangles a man on the linoleum floor of an office, his dead yellow eyes fixed on the ceiling. That's a terrifying touch: Chigurth doesn't even look at his victim, even while he's garroting the guy. And then, one of those Coen touches: a shot of the floor, covered with a mess of black heel marks from the killer and his prey.
"No Country for Old Men" is one of those movies I think provides a critical litmus test. You can quibble about it all you like, but if you don't get the artistry at work then, I submit, you don't get what movies are. Critics can disapprove of the unsettling shifts in tone in the Coens' work, or their presumed attitude toward the characters, or their use of violence and humor -- but those complaints are petty and irrelevant in the context of the movies themselves: the way, for example, an ominous black shadow creeps across a field toward the observer ("No Country" has a credit for "Weather Wrangler"); or a phone call from a hotel room that you can hear ringing in the earpiece and at the front desk, where you're pretty sure something bad has happened but you don't need to see it; or the offhand reveal of one major character's fate from the POV of another just entering the scene; or... I could go on and on. To ignore such things in order to focus on something else says more about the critic's values than it does about the movies. It's like complaining that Bresson's actors don't emote enough, or that Ozu keeps his camera too low.
A moment here to celebrate the genius of one of the greatest talents in motion pictures, supervising sound editor Skip Lievsay, who has worked with the Coens (and Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese and others) since way back before the mosquito buzzing and peeling wallpaper of "Barton Fink." Since the bug zapper in "Blood Simple," in fact. Also, composer Carter Burwell ("Psycho III"!) has been associated with the Coens for just as long. He's credited with the music in "No Country," too, but it's to his merit that I don't even recall any music in the picture -- except for one memorably Coen-esque appearance by a mariachi band.
When I read Cormac McCarthy's novel, it struck me as a Coen screenplay just waiting to become a Coen film. Indeed, by that time it already was. And it could serve as a model of prose-to-film adaptation, choosing exactly the right moments and movements for the picture, and leaving alone others that are better suited to literature. (This is especially true of some very savvy omissions in the latter part of the movie.)
"No Country for Old Men" makes me want to echo Jean-Luc Godard's famous celebration of Nicholas Ray: "Le cinéma est les Coens!"
From what I've read, the only music Burwell wrote for the film is that which appears in the end credits.
Don't know what to say except...can't wait for it. Just the thought of a film on the level of "Fargo", "Barton Fink" or "Blood Simple" has got my mouth watering...literally.
Jim, I'm curious whether you recommend a reading of the McCarthy novel before seeing the film, or if you feel experiencing the film with no prior experience of the story would be more enjoyable.
This might be a good time to expand the question to novels and film adaptations in general. Does a viewer, having read the source work, suffer for his exposure to plot, character, style, and his own imagination when finally seeing the film adaptation? Does exposure to a film adaptation test the patience when it comes time to read the novel from which it came?
I love the Coen brothers' films, so I expect I will love this one. But I realize I am predisposed to loving it, because it's a Coen brothers film. (The trailer really isn't so compelling, except that it's the Coen brothers!)
The question is, can YOU watch "In the Valley of Elah" without being predisposed to hating it?
This reminds me of the time I was on imdb and was wondering what new movies the Coen Brothers were making. When looking at the list, I realized I had seen all of their movies (and loved most of them) and hadn't realized it beforehand. Usually, I make note of what movies I've seen by what people. In the Coens' case, I never cared who they were because I was too busy thinking about the movie I had just seen to notice anything in the credits.
The film was already my most anticipated one of the year, and reading the comments from you and Roger only heighten that anticipation. The "buzz" around this film reminds me of the similar "buzz" preceding "Fargo". If this film is anywhere near that realm of quality, man, I can hardly wait. Bring on the Fall movies!
It has been a long, dry(-ish) spell from the Coens ... their last two films have been, to my mind, weak. I echo Alex's sentiments -- I can't remember when I've anticipated a new film more.
Jim, your observations about adapting the film from the novel have piqued my interest; I'll probably pick up McCarthy's novel before No Country opens in November. I hope you flesh out your analysis of No Country the film versus the novel at some future date.
I love it that there are three major westerns coming out this fall. We can do the same kind of source/adaptation analysis with 3:10 to Yuma. Elmore Leonard's excellent short story, which is still available in print. The cool thing, of course, is that we can compare it not only to the source prose text, but to Delmer Daves' very good 1957 adaptation.
3:10 to Yuma-thon, anyone?
Jason: I usually prefer to see a movie before I read a book if, of course, I haven't read the book a long time before. Movies are often more dependent on surprises of one sort or another, and can also seem a bit sparse in their characterizations, if only in comparison to the novel. I would rather see the film and then let the book sort of fill in the canvas in my head.
It's nice seeing the critical comeback of the Coens, whose reputations seem to have slipped considerably, not only with their last two pictures (which I would agree are mediocrities at best), but also with "O Brother" and "The Man Who Wasn't There" (both of which I adore, to a greater extent than I adore "Fargo" and "The Big Lebowski").
I love the Coens (and "Miller's Crossing" is almost certainly my favorite movie), so the notion that they're back at the peak of their abilities has me immensely excited about seeing "No Country For Old Men."
Ty: "Miller's Crossing" is one of my all-time favorite movies, too -- and "O Brother" and "Man Who Wasn't There" are unjustifiably overlooked (the former partly because the massive success of the soundtrack overshadowed the movie itself).
I agree the Coens seem to have been coasting with the last two ("Ladykillers," an Ealing remake, and "Intolerable Cruelty," a more "commercial" [?] picture they did not write or originate themselves). But with "No Country" you forget about all that immediately. They are back in the groove, no question about it.
For some time now our whole culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end...
~ Nietzsche