Well, Jim, we'll probably disagree, but I found McCarthy's novel to be not that good. It definitely falls apart at the end and really doesn't go anywhere, and the motivation of what will be Brolin's character never makes a lick of sense. While I've admired his earlier novels, McCarthy just seemed to hack this one out and his near-parodic style definitely became parody here. Having said that, the novel struck me as the bare bones of a screenplay (I wonder if it started that way?) and if the Coens have fleshed it out a bit, I'm going to enjoy the movie. But there is a lot of evidence that the novel is mediocre.

I think anyone who considers themsleves possessed of some kind of cinematic taste comes across situations where they can't believe someone doesn't like a certain film, but what can you do? Inevitiably each individual has a different response. After losing some sleep pondering why a friend of mine would prefer to watch 'Epic Movie' over 'Spartan', the solution came to me - people like what they like.

I've found myself in the minority (why do people so love 'Spiderman 2?) and majority (how can Roger Ebert not like 'Fight Club' when it was obviously 1999's best fairy tale?), but in the end all I could do is realise that the essence of art, and probably human nature, is disagreement. At least if the argument is civilised, who knows, the participants in the dispute might at least learn to appreciate another point of view. I try to do that, except when it comes to Fall Out Boy fans. They're just idiots.

I hope Rosenbaum's wrong, but his assertion that most other critics are under some kind of spell of optimism reminds of when I've sometimes walked out of a film wanting to love it despite its flaws. In my early days of optimism, I used to think 'The Phantom Menace' and 'The Beach' were 7/10 movies. Oh well. I guess there's worse things in life than walking into a film and wanting to like it.

Jim: If you describe your initial response as "preemptively defensive" then isn't that an implied admission that you see problems with the film, or at the very least, you see problems that others will see but that will not bother you and thus, you want to attack that viewpoint before it is expressed?

If I view a film (and I'm sorry but I have not seen No Country yet so I cannot use it as an example) and I am convinced of its greatness upon seeing it (say Magnificent Ambersons for example) then I feel no need to attack future unseen arguments before they surface. If however, I view a film that I personally like very much (say Satyricon) but am maybe a bit unsure about as an excellent film and I immediately fire defensive shots ("people will say it's confusing, there's no plot or Fellini's afraid to give us characters that have depth") then I must be seeing those things myself and in some small, perhaps, acknowledging that I agree with them?

As for Rosenbaum, I have never met a critic or moviegoer (myself included a thousand times over) who haven't had at least a few films where they completely missed the point. I don't know if that's the case here or not as I have not seen it.

But I will say this: Both of you sound a little defensive to be honest. Rosenbaum has that whole attitude (that we've all adopted at times) where he dislikes something so many others like and as a result condescends in his writing, informing us he's not seeing what others are. The implication there is always that the others are too dumb to see through the con. I'm sure we've all done that on more than a few occassions.

And you seem to have the same attitude in reverse, that the others (in this case Rosenbaum) isn't looking deeply enough into the film, and thus implying in a gentle way, that he has a shallow view of the film (your title only deepens the insinuation). And thus, that poor old dumb blockhead just can't see what I'm seeing (and I think we've all done that too).

However, neither one of you seems to be doing any of this with any intentional malice so please forgive me if I was guilty of implying something I did not intend.

Anyway, I'd like to see the film now more than ever. If it has inspired such defensive reviews from both ends of the liked it/disliked it spectrum, there's got to be something worthwhile in it.

P.S. I'm reminded of the fight over Van Gogh's painting ability in Lust for Life between Van Gogh and Gauguin.

Gauguin: You paint too fast!

Van Gogh You look too fast!

Having not seen the film, I can't say much. But as to your comment how some critics simply say "beautiful cinematography" and leave it at that, I'm reminded of a comment by Roger in his review of Jeremiah Johnson where he said he resists writing the phrase "the scenery is beautiful" because it sounds like praising a car because the wheels are nice and round.

have you read pat graham's post about the film? if you can decipher his precocious voice, it seems to be an echo of rosenbaum's critique. are they the same person?

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/film/2007/11/07/strangers-bad-company/

Hi Jim,

Maybe you don't understand what I mean by "ideological impulse," but you sure do a good job of illustrating it when you opt for what you rightly call "word games" without ever bothering to mention the core of my argument--the occupation of Iraq and the daily killings and torture that we simultaneously support and strive to ignore.

Sounds to me a bit like what some academics call a structuring absence.

Best,

Jonathan

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.

Statements like that build walls around opinions. I can therefore infer that you would accept no negative or even provisional commentary on "No Country For Old Men," meaning you've stopped being a critic and become an advocate, or a priest.

Everyone feels or says similar things about works of art that have moved them. It serves the purpose of getting our attention. The unfortunate result is, after turning a movie or an artist or pop star into Jesus, or given it/her/him the ideological significance of Roe v Wade, any explanation or exploration is beside the point. Fall down and worship or give up movies completely. Please.

Best to put aside Rosenbaum's opinion and make your own case.

Thanks for responding, Jonathan: So, can you clarify for me? What is the parallel you see between the critical or audience response to "No Country" and "the occupation of Iraq and the daily killings and torture that we simultaneously support and strive to ignore"? (I didn't intend to ignore THAT, just to deal with it, as I said, once I'd seen the movie again.) Are you saying the movie itself mirrors that struggle to support killing while striving to ignore it? Or that you think that is the film's (or the audience's) attitude toward Chigurh? As somebody who has argued extensively against the Bush "War of Terror," from 9/11 to the present, I find it disconcerting to be told that my response to a Coen brothers movie based on a Cormac McCarthy novel indicates that I support the Bush/Cheney ideology after all -- that I secretly approve of what they've done in the name of the USA but just don't want to think about it. Is that what you're saying?

The Orwell quote suggests you see "No Country" as a "good wall" but one that surrounds a concentration camp. That's a perfect example of the word games (aka famous propaganda techniques), known as Simplification, Card-Stacking, Stereotyping and Transfer -- "another of the seven main propaganda terms first used by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in 1938. Transfer is often used in politics and during wartime. It is an attempt to make the subject view a certain item in the same way as they view another item, to link the two in the subjects mind...." In short, your review employs many of the rhetorical techniques used by the Bush administration to get us into Iraq:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/proptech.htm

So, I'm just wondering: How is "No Country for Old Men" like a good wall that surrounds a concentration camp? Are you saying movies with killings are safely walled off from real experience, so that we can approve of them and tacitly support them while striving to ignore them? I admit, that's where I get lost...

Best,

Jim

Rick Powell actually highlights the exact problem I had with your initial impressions, Jim. It seemed you were setting up a sort of objective standard for what makes good film. I've done something kinda-sorta similar in the recent past; my tack when reviewing Across the Universe was that it was a Rorschach for seeing exactly how blinded our aging critics could become, when presented with inferior product wrapped in blatantly pandering nostalgia. I was drawing a "do not cross" line that I believed to be objectively true... but at the same time, I was not telling those who disagreed with me that they are actually incapable of appreciating movies properly. That is some majorly tricky territory, and struck me as one of your (thankfully) few moments of critical arrogance.

As it turns out, I actually liked the movie quite a lot. But I went in with your review in mind -- you can see evidence of that in the last paragraph -- and it informed my experience, perhaps negatively. I'm wary of the Coen brothers on the best days, so getting what amounted to a pre-emptive condemnation ("if you don't like this, it shows bad things about your character") colored my experience considerably. Thankfully, I still enjoyed myself.

That said, I can't imagine what Rosenbaum is getting at when he talks about an ideological impulse. I don't think this movie has a lot up its sleeve; its themes are so broad (and simultaneously deep, or at least rich) it qualifies more as mythology- than idea-based storytelling. I don't think the Coens are selling anything.

Shamus: I agree that "No Country" is relatively "minor" McCarthy. I think the Coens have improved upon it. I haven't read "Sutree" (Roger Ebert's favorite), but I loved "The Road" and couldn't get through "Blood Meridian," for reasons I've addressed in other posts.

Rick and Jonathans T & L: My acknowledged defensiveness was an attempt to address the same old criticisms trotted out for every Coen Bros. movie since "Blood Simple" in 1986 -- the same ones I knew would be recycled for "No Country" no matter what was on the screen. Now that the movie is going into wider release, the index at Rottentomatoes has response to the movie at 93% "fresh" and Metacritic at 94% positive, which is about what I expected. I wanted to express my frustration with the knee-jerk criticisms of the Coens' work that are rarely supported by specific examples. (I'd love to engage in a real analysis of the central importance of the character of Mike in "Fargo," which many dismissed as pointless and/or cruel because it made them feel uncomfortable.) This week I read a review that describes the disconcerting appearance of a mariachi band in "No Country" as "idiotically incongruous." In a bad way. Another term for the same thing might be "funny." And the moment in the film is funny and disorienting in so many ways, not the least of which is how mariachi bands work border towns, how they think the guy they're playing for is just another American who's gotten drunk and passed out (when his medical situation is considerably more dire), and their timing when they respond to his request for directions to the hospital. That moment didn't have to be anything; the filmmakers made it into something.

Anyway, I agree it's in bad taste to throw down the gantlet the way I did, but if I'm going to stand up for what I value in movies, then I have to stand behind what I wrote, however inelegantly...

I think part of the problem is what the Coens leave out the film, the moral center of the novel that is the sheriff. Tommy Lee Jones is fine, but he's not given enough space, words or help from his directors to anchor the film the way the sheriff does the novel. Aside from that the problem really is the Coen Brothers' direction. For every great, smart improvement on the novel -- the dog chase, the hotel door lock hitting Moss on the chest, the better staged, less derivative border town shootout, the TV reflection shots in the trailer -- there a dozen mistakes in tone that have mostly to do with a certain cartoonishness creeping into the casting, some of the performances and all of Bardem's haircut. Sorry to say, but this film could have been a masterpiece, had it been done by someone like David Gordon Green or Terrence Malick or especially the late Sam Peckinpah. The film needed a little more poetry, a little more restraint, a little less confusion between local color and satire.

Jim: If you really and truly think I'm accusing you of supporting the war, or that I'm quoting Orwell in order to support or ape the Bush administration, then I think further discussion is pretty useless. But since you answer most of your own questions yourself, I see little point in answering them as well.

I spent a lot of time and effort articulating my arguments in the review, and if you don't understand them, then I clearly failed--sorry about that. My basic concern is how we deal with our own remorseless mass murder, which I personally consider more of a burning issue than what genre that Coen brothers movie belongs to. My main concern is why and how some people respond to its violence the way that they do and whether this is related to how they responded to The Silence of the Lambs, and what both responses might have to do with wars being fought at the same time--none of which you chose to write about, which is your privilege. But it's also my privilege not to engage with what you appear to find more interesting or important. Chacun a son gout.

Anyway, I agree it's in bad taste to throw down the gantlet the way I did, but if I'm going to stand up for what I value in movies, then I have to stand behind what I wrote, however inelegantly...

No worries, Jim. I know the Film Festival atmosphere, especially in the early parts, feeds hyperbole. That's not news to most of the people reading this, I think.

Ken: I thought I was emphasizing the subjective nature of critical values. To me, what the Coens do is central to what the art of film is about: creating a world that is vivid and alive in so many details. I think they don't get enough credit for how they bring their world to life. All great filmmakers show us experience through their eyes, their sensibilities, and I was trying to say that the Coens are much more than the "movie brats" label often used to dismiss them.

jacob: I think I understand what you're saying, but what you see as cartoonishness I see as essential to the stylized vision of the film, and absurdity and incongruousness are part of that. I'd love to see a McCarthy adaptation directed by Peckinpah, Malick, or Green -- but the Coens' approach seems fully valid and appropriate to me. The use of Tommy Lee Jones (from the opening voiceover to the final scene -- which is not where the book ends) should, along with the title, make it pretty clear what the movie' central concerns are. It's a de-romanticization of the American west (the "old times") that I believe Peckinpah (who had his own absurdist sense of humor -- remember the Bunuelian scorpions and children at the beginning of "The Wild Bunch"?) would appreciate. Of course, Peckinpah was criticized for many of the same things -- too-harsh violence (largely described as brutally "realistic" at the time, when it's clearly stylized and "poetic"), grotesque condescension to characters, etc. Perhaps time will also put the Coens in clearer perspective...

Jim,
Fargo is one of my favorite movies ever, and I do not remember a character named Steve. Perhaps you are talking about Mike Yanagita? I always remember people having a problem with his scene, that it was completely pointless. I always thought finding out he had lied to her was a catalyst for her going back to interview Bill Macy again (and thus blowing open the case). I guess people needed her scene in the car conteplating it all to include some sort of inner monologue to spell this out.
Again, I don't even know if this is what you were referring to, though. All I know is I haven't been as excited to see a movie in years as I am for No Country (the last time was probably, in fact, Big Lebowski)

JE: Mike! For some reason I always make that mistake. I think it's because I once knew a guy named Steve who reminds me of that character. I'll fix that. Thanks.

Jonathan: As I said, this post is just a preliminary response (I didn't see your piece until after midnight) to your statement: "... I can’t understand why it’s been accorded so much importance, unless it’s because it strokes some ideological impulse."

For now, I've linked to your full review, and I hope everyone here will read it. Meanwhile, I intend to revisit the movie with your main concern ("how some people respond to its violence the way that they do and whether this is related to how they responded to The Silence of the Lambs, and what both responses might have to do with wars being fought at the same time") in mind. As I wrote from Toronto in 2006 and 2007, just about every movie I saw seemed to be about Iraq, whether explicitly or otherwise, so I'd like to explore that further.

My reading of the violence in the movie (which you say I don't address) is right there in my original post: "Perhaps if Chigurh needs to be reduced to an 'emblem' of something, it's ruthless, indifferent force in the pursuit of any goal (religious, financial, political, genocidal). Some people would define that as the nature of 'evil.'"

Tommy Lee Jones' character begins the movie reminiscing about "the old times" and how he finds himself unequipped to understand or face the senseless, seemingly unmotivated violence he's encountering nowadays. It's not until the end of the movie that he sees nothing has changed, that violence (the kind we now label as "terrorism" -- or "war") has always existed. It's not new. We're just seeing the same failure of imagination (and memory) once again...

PS Representing or perceiving "No Country" as a "psycho killer" is the heart of the evidence you cite for your argument, not a trivial matter of genre assignment. You write: "One reason I tend to dislike movies about psycho killers is that I can’t respond to them with the devotion I feel is expected of me. I’m too distracted by the abundance of these characters on-screen when they rarely appear in real life, and by how popular they seem to become whenever we’re fighting a war. What is it about them that people find so exciting?" Interesting questions. You mean the war that 60 percent of Americans currently think is getting worse, and that 71 percent think was a mistake to begin with (Gallup Poll, 10/18/07)? I will be most interested to see what the local audience response is to the violence in "No Country" -- and whether I can find any indications it has something to do with Iraq.

Hi Jim,

glad you read my review ("idiotically incongruous" mariachi band, that's me). I know I don't understand movies if I don't happen to like this one, but I thought I'd proffer a few more comments expanding on things I said in my original review.

First off: that mariachi band is idiotically incongruous. Kitted out in Three Amigos gear at 5am? This has nothing to do with any mariachi-band-busking-for-drunk-American reality - it is clearly intended by the Coens to be a laugh-out-loud moment, contrasting Brolin's dire plight to these cartoon Mexicans. And considering the (over)careful maintenance of a grittily realistic tone throughout the rest of the film, it is indeed incongruous - "idiotically" depends on your viewpoint, I suppose.

And that minor point leads on to a larger one: that the film is more a simulacrum of a "gritty, realistic, evocatively existential" film than the thing itself. Self-consciousness is inscribed upon every single frame of this film, and that's both its strength and its ultimate weakness. You might note that in the rest of my review I go out of my way to praise it's "brilliantly crafted outer shape" and to name it a "superior thriller" - the difference is, you seem to view these as condescending remarks rather than praise. It's damn hard to make a superior thriller, and the Coens have made pretty much the best one in recent memory.

My problem with the film is that the cosmic sense of pervasive evil we're evidently supposed to feel is so neatly packaged, so blatantly demonstrated at us that it has no resonance. I'm being told something, and all the film is doing is (to paraphrase myself) "flattering my acuity in picking up the obvious." I have nothing but respect for the Coens' adeptness at genre mechanics (that's a compliment!) - it's when that adeptness is magnified into profundity that I get irritable.

I think Rosenbaum is touching upon some pertinent issues in his review, and I think the real "word games" being played here are those which attempt to defuse his criticism by saying that he misidentifies No Country as a "serial killer movie." There certainly is an ideological impulse at work here, even if it doesn't go as far as passive acceptance of U.S. governmental aggression in the Middle East. As I can testify from two screenings, Chigurh's brutal killings invite laughter more than they do horror - not callous laughter, but shocked laughter at the neatness and speed with which he dispatches of his victims. No problem so far: "Fictional killings are fun - when well done," as Stanley Kauffmann says. It's when we're expected to elevate those well-done cinematic killings to the level of potent moral allegory that the bottom falls out.

The ideological impulse that's being indulged here, I think, is the idea that we're "bravely" confronting the world's "horror" and "evil" by enjoying an excellent thriller - and as we're confronting it from the safety of our theatre seats, we have no need to apply it to the real world. I am by no means implying that enjoying this film means that you're a moral midget. Rather, through its brilliant craft it attempts to convince us that a profound statement about Human Nature and the whole damn World is being made, and it invites nebulous generalizations about our "twisted moral landscape, etc" - imitations of Deep Thinking without the benefit of thought.

For myself, I ask no more than a sense of perspective on what exactly it is we're praising. I've sat through and enjoyed No Country twice now, and that's no small thing - and if I want more than an enjoyable time at the movies, I shall go elsewhere.

Thank you, Andrew: I think I do understand what you're saying, even though I didn't see the movie that way myself. And if that's what Jonathan Rosenbaum was trying to say... then you've articulated it a lot more clearly than he has.

I don't see the movie as an attempt to make anyone feel "brave" for "confronting the world's 'horror,'" though. I thought the point was how such horror has always been present and occasionally makes itself manifest in unexpected ways. I think viewing it as a "psycho killer" movie is to miss the essence of what it's about: ruthless pragmatism rather than sickness or compulsion. I see it as the difference between viewing the Holocaust as the creation of a bunch of "bad apples" who simply acted because they were "evil," vs. a means toward an end with total indifference to the "collateral damage" necessary to accomplish the goal -- which in this case is not to kill but to get the money and leave a "clean" trail. Chigurh is not a psychological creation. (I'd like to see "No Country" on a double-bill with "Zodiac" -- a movie that is about obsessive-compulsion, on the other side of the law.)

Just for my own understanding: Do you think it's possible for a good genre movie to be something more than "an enjoyable time at the movies"? Are "Psycho" or "The Searchers" or "Touch of Evil" or "Army of Shadows" in similar company, or are they more resonant for you?

What I want to know is this: is there any who DOESN'T fall prey to ideological impulses? And is Rosenbaum exempt from 'ideological impulses?' Nor Emerson?

Don't get me wrong-- I respect you Mr. Rosenbaum for your efforts when it comes to championing international cinema and Orson Welles, but I think you just need to state that NO COUNTRY isn't your cup of tea without trying to carry an air of critical, elitist objectivity... because, as is, you're being a Mr. Jones, Mr. Rosenbaum.

To me, this is criticism in its most naked, flawed, and thrilling state. It has inspired me to offer my own thoughts regarding the ideological grounds critical of debate. Further comments can be found here.

To believe the film is somehow analogous, or somewhat a response to, the current Iraq war is a fair arguement, but to overlook the film's basic premise in order to reach such a conclusion represents a failure on the critic's behalf. "No Country...", set in 1980 -- before the crack explosion, before the War on Drugs -- is plainly about the impending, unstoppable evil that will pervade the country through the next few decades. This gets no mention in Rosenbaum's review. The evil that he, by some means, finds more congruous: war.

Mr. Rosenbaum's review is solely focused on the film as it relates to his current feeling's about the state of world affairs; his review is not a reaction to the film itself, but a platform for thoughts he (however rightly) cannot shake.

When one finds that the world has made it impossible to enjoy cinema for cinema's sake, it might... I enjoy and respect Mr. Rosenbaum too much to finish that sentence, and looking back, find only thin credence to it, but I believe the point is made.

Ted, Darrell: I love the back-and-forth of a critical debate, refining and clarifying positions using specific evidence from a movie. I'm frustrated that, having not seen "No Country" since my first time two months ago, I won't be able to revisit it until it opens in Seattle next week. (I missed the critics' screening, assuming it would be here sooner.) I'm told it goes wide the day before Thanksgiving.

Two things I resent: 1) criticism based on generalities and ideology rather than specific evidence from the movie itself; 2) being told that direct (non-rhetorical) questions about particular points render "further discussion... pretty useless."

Based on this exchange (and others about "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Ingmar Bergman) I'd definitely say that Rosenbaum and I approach the art of film, and film criticism, from radically different perspectives and values. We like a lot of the same movies/directors, and dislike a lot of the same movies/directors, but for entirely different reasons. Does that make further discussion useless? I don't think so. But you can't have a one-sided "debate."

Jim: It's funny you should mention your recent entanglements with Rosenbaum, because this does kind of seem like the culmination of the many expressed differences between you and him.

And I'd definitely agree with you that a direct focus on ideological principles often clouds real discussion about the film itself (often prompting comments like "further discussion [being] pretty useless."

As you said, it's much more productive when critics base their discussion on evidence in the film itself. But even these discussions are often ideologically charged, since our already established perspectives inform how we see those images. Two critics may see the same film and discuss its more objective components and still be speaking different languages. When two individuals standing on different grounds would rather assert their own respective views rather than engage others, than you don't have a debate at all.

I don't mean to suggest that productive debate is based on agreement. Nevertheless, the usefulness of a given critical dialogue really depends on how the parties engage each other's views. In this post/discussion, I've seen a bit of both (productive and unproductive dialogue), which is common of most critical debate, especially considering your recent history of going back and forth like this with Rosenbaum. What I like about this mix of debate and assertion is that it feels very real, and we see real critical thought blended with a frustration that someone else just isn't getting it. It has all the drama of a heated argument, but still a fair amount of critical insight. That's what gives this particular discussion such life.

In the end, ideology underlies all discourse, whether it's based on generalities or evidence. But, as you said, a debate more focused on more specific aspects of the film tends enables individuals to engage each other on a conrete level before launching into their differening views (based more on ideology). A mix of the objective and subjective is essential, provided that the stated subjectivity emerges from considerations of the more objective elements of the film experience. This, I think, more often yields better discussion and broadened perspective.

When films depart from everyday reality so radically - serial killers with supernatural powers, small towns that embrace their sexually-fucked up weirdos - it's reasonable to ask why, and further, why are audiences so willing to suspend their disbelief. Using film technique and genre as covers is no excuse for not asking these questions, either for the filmmakers or for the film's admirers.

I hasten to add there’s more to this grim, ambitious movie than a psychopathic assassin of the highest order whose carnage is gorgeously shot, though I seriously doubt it would be garnering so much enthusiasm without such perks.

I haven't seen the new Coen brothers movie, and probably won't for several months. I live in Czech Republic and we may or may not get it. However, over the years I have tended to agree, more or less, with what Rosenbaum has said about their movies. The class condescension in Fargo, in particular, made me so angry that I wanted to find the Coens and pelt them with icy snowballs.

I also remember having a discussion with a quite intelligent punk kid in Chicago after we'd watched Silence of the Lambs. He'd completely bought into the notion of "serial killer as modern shaman" premise that made the film work. The punk kid pontificated on the ideas that Lecter had espoused. I just kept saying, "Yes, but he's a serial killer," to everything he said, partially as a way of taking the piss but also because, listening to him talk, I came to understand Rosenbaum's objections to the film.

Rosenbaum's review - which, if I remember correctly, hilariously bore a bullet, meaning "Worthless" - may not be the last word on Demme's Oscar-winner; but if you refused to engage his arguments, you were just running for cover.

JE: Rick, I'm addressing Rosenbaum's arguments directly (despite his evasive protestations) and I'll do so in greater detail when I write about the film after getting the chance to see it again. I don't care if he likes the movie or not. The problem is, he writes about it without citing any "direct observations" from it whatsoever. What I wrote is that his claim the film "strokes some ideological impulse" (apparently having to do with a collective support for and denial of mass murder in Iraq) is not supported by anything he writes in his review about the film itself. It is a nebulous assertion he doesn't even begin to explore, evidently rooted in seeing the film as a generic "psycho-killer" movie. I gave examples of how it is not a "psycho-killer" movie (and how Chigurh is quite different from Hannibal Lecter in Demme's movie) and he replied: "My basic concern is how we deal with our own remorseless mass murder, which I personally consider more of a burning issue than what genre that Coen brothers movie belongs to." So, his reading of the movie (if, indeed, it can be said to be a reading of the movie) is that it has to do with "how we deal with our own remorseless mass murder" because he says that's more of a "burning issue" for him. Therefore, he does not find it necessary to address the film (or articulate any parallels to Iraq), because how "we deal with our own remorseless mass murder" (who or what is "remorseless" in that phrase?) is simply more important. To him, personally. So, how DOES the film deal or not deal with that remorselessness? Rosenbaum does not say. Talk about unquestioned assumptions -- that's all his review provides. Because the review is about how he feels, divorced from whatever is on the screen in this particular movie. I'd love to engage him on his arguments. If only he would make one.

Jim,

thanks for your response. A couple of points here:

While some of Chigurh's killings are 'pragmatic', as you say, many of them are utterly gratuitous. Indeed, that's commented on many a time, and Harrelson even states that Chigurh's got a twisted sense of principles.

It's this kind of too-neat moral inversion that invites us to view Chigurh as a glamourous, attractive figure whose brutality we get a visceral kick out of - the very fetishization of killers, serial or otherwise, that Rosenbaum mentions. In my opinion, to think that this character tells us anything about the nature of evil in the real world is ridiculous. And sober reflection should hopefully yield the conclusion that comparing this lone psycho character in a good pulp entertainment to the Holocaust makes the former appear even thinner as moral commentary than it was in the first place.

I've touted this film pretty highly many times before, but if you want a better portrait of truly realistic, truly pervasive evil in a contemporary film, check out James Gray's We Own the Night, where the drug dealer characters are far from glamorous, far from attractive, resolutely quotidian, and utterly terrifying. Phoenix's descent into the drug lab is not only a marvelous piece of atmospheric filmmaking, but it says (silently) more about some of the real scariness of the world than any of the pop philosophizing delivered (very well) by Jones and others in No Country.

As to whether I think a genre film can be more than an "enjoyable time at the movies", I'd have pretty slim pickings as to great films if I didn't think so! My problem with No Country is not its genre origins, but that it is deliberately creating the illusion that it's transcending those origins by layering on facile pronouncements about morality, fate, death, etc. It's the self-consciousness and calculation of the Coens in creating this aggrandizing illusion that I resent, the sense I get that they're not truly invested in these themes. That's a subjective response, I suppose, but one I think is justified by evidence from the film itself (which I went into more detail about in my original review).

That's all for now - God, this blog commenting is like crack.

Jonathan Rosenbaum mentions torture and the Iraq occupation as being at the core of his argument, a daily narrative "that we simultaneously support and strive to ignore." I'm not exactly sure who he means by "we," but never mind. A useful foil for his argument is the ever popular Armond White's rave in the New York Press: http://www.nypress.com/20/45/film/ArmondWhite2.cfm

As White puts it, "this is a crime movie/western exercise that contemporizes the miasma of a world at war." Par the course for an enthusiastic AW piece, it latches onto a perceived seriousness about the post-9/11 world. JR's piece finds nearly the opposite: a film that indulges recent American amorality, and whose attempts at seriousness are tacked on at best. Maybe this is a comparison worth exploring here, or in another thread.

For what it's worth, I agree with a lot of what JR says. Admittedly, that a good portion of the audience I saw the film with howled every time a life was snuffed out may have colored my perceptions. The deference to Jones's character often seemed forced, boring, at odds with the Coens' general slapstick impulse (best exemplified by the bulldog chase). Yet I nevertheless found the bookending monologues rather moving, and it's worth considering whether the last cut before the credits wants us to examine our horrified/amused response to the film's brutal violence.

On a side not, did anyone else think of Josh Brolin's character as an updated version of The Dude? The hospital robe scenes sold it for me.

Andrew restates the reservations I have with the movie quite a bit more eloquently than I did in my original review, but yeah, we're both saying the same thing, more or less: the Coens are on shakier ground when they violate the cardinal rule of storytelling, which is "show, don't tell." There's quite a lot of pseudo-profound dialog about what a force of nature Chigurh is, which is a disservice to the power of Bardem's performance. My particular double bill was a screening of this and a (paid) screening of Eastern Promises. I was kind of in the mindset of career killers with fundamentally mutated moralities.

I've stayed out of this conversation for reasons Ted covers, also much more eloquently than I would have put it: We are at the point where the disagreeing parties can't do much more than gild the lily that is "sorry, I just disagree," or "yeah, I thought so too."

Nonetheless, here I go: I don't think this movie is trying to say much of anything about current events or how rad we are with how we absorb it. The analogy I'm about to use won't mean much to folks here, but unfortunately it's the best one I can think of: I'm a fan of Garth Ennis's comics, and he is a man who jumps between commentary and simple myth creation frequently and fluidly, using exactly this kind of moral and storytelling sensibility to do both. So it's terrain I'm familiar with. I think what we're seeing here is the attempted creation of a story that transcends from the mundane to the mythical, but without making any kind of actual Statement beyond the tag lines on the posters ("no one gets away clean," etc). They're fables with morals. I get the impression from Mr. Rosenbaum that he feels differently; that this film is pointed commentary and not myth. I just disagree, that's all.

We see this a lot with horror movies that end up having legs, too. Critics have a lot of fun deciding which modern anxiety "explains" the success or resonance of, say, 28 Days Later, as if a horror movie catching onto the greater consciousness is an aberration and not simply a continuation of one of the oldest storytelling traditions in history.

(Remember? 28DL was equated with SARS, the non-event to end all non-events. Even sillier, I remember people arguing -- quite seriously -- that the American adaptation of The Ring was all about the anxiety over avian bird flu. It was an absurd argument then and downright farcical now, when we're not sitting in the middle of a media-generated panic.)

To me, Chigurh represents a sort of inevitability, and the pleasure of the movie comes from watching him transform from a creepy hitman into an undeniable force of nature. Hence my annoyance at the overbearing dialog; I just wanted the Coens to lay off already and trust their artistry. Doing wrong -- and it's important to note that Moss is amoral, at best, and never really qualifies as a "hero" -- can sometimes lead to complete disaster. No one gets away clean, like I say. Sometimes, just existing in the world is enough to bring hell down on you. There's no good reason for it (Chigurh never provides one, nor does he feel much reason to), and there's no way to avoid it. Just the way of the world.

The story is archetypal, in other words. Sure, it can apply to current situations, but that's because we are essentially the same people now that we were a thousand years ago. Our collective knowledge grows, but everyone's born with the same jumbled wiring in their head. We fear and dread what we've always feared and dreaded, regardless of what manifestation those fears take today or tomorrow; the actors may change, but the script is the same.

It's valid to assign modern anxieties and concerns to the movie. It's also silly to suggest those lenses (Iraq, avian bird flu) are the only legitimate ways to view that material. The archetypal defies such easy dismissal.

Jim, why were you (a)"preemptively defensive" about No Country for Old men and then (b)spend 2 blogs quoting from and replying to the only reviews you could find that were less than cock-a-hoop about the film?

For the record, Metacritic gives the film an extraordinary US critics'rating of 94%, with David Edelstein's "near masterpiece" listed, believe it or not, as one of the less enthusiastic reviews, with only a 90% approval rating!

(Granted that the way these percentages are arrived at is open to question, but they do at least give a rough guide to a critic's disposition towards a particular title.)

That makes it by a wide margin the most favourably reviewed film currently screening in US cinemas.

So why the apparent urge to round - albeit relatively gently - on those few who don't agree? What are you so touchy about? Not trying to enforce a party line, are you?

Personally I admire the film, despite not being a big fan of much of the Coens work - but hey, can't we make room for a diversity of views?

I always find it interesting when reviewers and theorists dislike a film and try as hard as they can to force a film into opposition against their own values merely because they do not enjoy it. If J.R. were to consider the film a little more thoughtfully and not view it as a simple genre film, I believe that he would find that it is very much in line with his own political views.

Think for a moment about the two central characters: Chigurh and the Sheriff. Both have a set of strong principles that guide them. Chigurh is completely uncompromising. I don't think that he is insane or a psycho killer, but, like a good soldier, he does whatever necessary to accomplish his goals.

On the other hand is the Sheriff. He is a man with strong principles and a sense of right and wrong. He also seems to understand the patterns in the brutality he witnesses, making him keenly in tune with a man like Chigurh. He knows that he will return to the hotel to get the money and he knows that Chigurh is nearby when he sits down on the bed. He realizes that if he pursues this man, he will die, so he waits, giving him time to escape. That is why he gives up his job at the end. He states early on in the narration that a lawman must be willing to die and he is no longer capable of sacrificing himself for his job or his sense of duty. That is what makes him the good man. He is human. He is the soldier that can not shoot an unarmed man because he is ordered to do so. His principles, though strong, can falter under certain circumstances. Chigurh would never have hesitated if they had switched places and that is what makes him evil. The closest he comes to making independant choices is when he flips his coin and even then he does it so he doesn't have to think. He isn't just toying with his victims, he is setting up a situation where he does not have to look inside of himself.

Having Tommy Lee Jones play the Sheriff is also a clear statement. Like John Wayne before him, no one can accuse any of his characters of being unmanly, but suddenly he gives us this vision of a tough man who is thoughtful in his actions. If we view this film as a commentary on Iraq (which is not exactly what J.R. was saying), I think it makes a very powerful statement about the importance of individuality and conscience within the people who we trust "protect" us. There will always be wars, whether it is a drug war in Texas or a oil war in Iraq, but I think that certainly we can all agree that we wouldn't rather have a man like the Sheriff fighting it than a man like Chigurh.

I previously posted a comment on this discussion and I slightly chided Rosenbaum for his thoughts without having seen NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Well, I've seen it, and I have to say that I agree with Rosenbaum on many points.

Rosenbaum's usage of the Orwell quote in regards to NO COUNTRY's critical reception could be interpreted in a different manner: sometimes people get so distracted by form (i.e. the wall) that we completely overlook the content, even if it's atrociously akin to something like a concentration camp. That's how I feel about NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: it is a finely made movie, and the formalistic qualities of it are exceptional, but the content is disgusting, pointless and (like Tommy Lee Jones' character) completely defeatist.

Now, I imagine a common retort to my judgement of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN would be 'well, that's the point that the Coen Brothers and Cormac McCarthy are making-- since there is so much violence, vice and destruction, everything is pointless and absurd,' but because I think that argument is just simply too reductive (and a philosophical cul de sac of sorts) I still disagree with the majority's opinion of this film. To me, it's still a disgusting, pointless, and completely defeatist movie.

Also, I like to add, there are many movies that have already said what NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN says. What are these films? I don't know-- TAXI DRIVER, UNFORGIVEN, MYSTIC RIVER, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, BLOOD SIMPLE, FARGO, and so forth.

Furthermore, I've seen both NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and THERE WILL BE BLOOD, and because I suspect there will be a year-end match-off between the two films, I have to chime-in early with my opinion: hands down, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is the better movie. I won't be surprised if ten years from now, people will think of THERE WILL BE BLOOD as a modern classic.

JE: My problem with Rosenbaum's piece is not his opinion but his reasoning and his failure to base his opinions on observations of the movie in action. It reads like some notes based on reading a screenplay, not on watching a movie -- or this movie in particular (since it focuses on "No Country for Old Men" only in a few paragraphs somewhere in the middle).

We can differ over what we think the movie is "saying" (or over what other movies may have "said" something similar, or whether what they've said is worth "saying," or whether they can be reduced to "saying" one thing in particular apart from their existence as movies), but how about if we give examples of how we think the film is "saying" it? Otherwise we have no common basis for a discussion or exchange of ideas -- just for contrary assertions based on individual tastes or predilections, without ever having to face the movie itself. Paraphrasing something Manohla Dargis once said: To read most reviews today, you'd never know that film was a visual medium. To me, it's like trying to talk about Henry James without talking about his sentences. You can summarize what he's "saying," but what makes him an artist is not just what he says but how he says it.

Sorry, Lynden, for not replying earlier -- your comment was wrongly nabbed by a spam filter (apparently for use of the word "cock"!). As I replied to John D.:

After seeing "No Country" in Toronto, I had not even seen the Cannes reviews, but I wrote in response to, and anticipation of, the same predicable criticisms of the Coens that have been doled out over the last 20 years, attempting to show why I think such criticisms have been misguided all along -- missing the trees for the forest, if you will.

Sure enough, when "NCFOM" went into limited release Friday, some critics recycled their old schtick once again, as if the movie never existed and they'd just read a script or a synopsis of some movie with the word "Coen" on the cover.

Yes, I think there's plenty of room for a diversity of views -- I would hardly expect or desire anything else -- but (as I often do on this blog) I'm more concerned with the type of criticism (particularly when it's a vague, ideological approach all too typical of newspaper/magazine reviews) rather than somebody's verdict. Opinions about a movie don't mean squat if they're not rooted in observations of the movie itself. That's why it matters to me, for example, when a movie is dismissed with a vague assertion that it "strokes some ideological impulse" -- criticizing a hypothetical audience before the film is released, rather than dealing with the film itself.

I hope that after "NCFOM" opens in Seattle Friday I'll be able to stop reviewing the critics and offer my own memory-refreshed response to the movie.

I really don't see any point in criticizing criticisms (i.e. this critic didn't offer any evidence, this critic generalizes too much, etc.). Circles upon circles of rhetoric and argument wherein they instead of the film itself becomes the point of discussion. Rosenbaum is a different breed of writer, and he doesn't need to conform to any of your criteria that makes for a "good review". Your own critique of the film is sufficient a response to Rosenbaum's piece.

Again, there is the same over-defensiveness here that appears in a lot of your pieces. To be frank, it turns me off on most of the films you advocate (and this is, of course, a very subjective and perhaps unfair response on my part). But I can't deny that this is what happens.

And it's not as if No Country for Old Men needs any defending. It's the Coen bros. It has Tommy Lee Jones. Even Entertainment Weekly knows it exists. There are so many bloggers talking about it that one can easily find a whole spectrum of reactions and readings. On the other hand, how many people are talking about, say, Tirador? The narrow focus of so many film blogs has always left me disappointed.

Dottie -
This is called discussion. As long as it happens in blogs/talkbacks and not in newspapers and (most) magazines, I disagree with your complaint.

I'll second Dottie's comment that it's okay for Rosenbaum to be a "different breed of writer". There are a lot of different kinds of filmgoers out there and one size of critic will not fit them all. That said, Jim, you would be a different breed, yourself, if you didn't engage (or attempt to) directly with these other breeds, so be (over-) defensive with my blessing.

Now I haven't had the opportunity to see this film yet and I mostly agree with the complaints about Silence of the Lambs and its saintly, superman serial killer but I will say that I'll be shocked if some of the particular criticisms of No Country turn out to be true. A lot of the negative comments seem to boil down to the film being a genre exercise masquerading as a morality play. This from the Coen Brothers who are the masters of the morality play masquerading as genre exercises? Roger Ebert's review of Raising Arizona is still the most inexplicable to me in his illustrious career and Rick Powell's talk about Fargo's class condescension makes me scratch my head (I've said a lot of this before). I can certainly understand anybody not liking anything but a lot of the (past) specific criticisms of the Coens are just baffling to me so no surprise if the same holds true this time. I await No Country with a decade's worth of anticipation.

I love film, the films of the Coen Bros, and the novels of Cormac (not his real name) McCarthy.

But this is all the worst kind of intellectual masturbation. It's a minor adaptation by superficial, self-conscious filmmakers of a minor novel by a hit-or-miss, arguably superficial, certainly self-conscious novelist- and now you're reviewing other people's reviews of it- and reviewing reviews of reviews of it- and now I'm reviewing reviews of reviews of reviews of it- soon we'll all explode.

No but really, everybody go outside, find a nice state or county park, sit down with a notebook, and start writing detailed descriptions of birds.

ps
My only comment to do with the argument on its own terms is that Rosenbaum's assertion that audiences somehow like violence and serial killers more during war time, and that this is responsible in whole or in part for the success of this film and TSotL (btw, WHAT success has this had? has it had popular success that I've missed, or are we only referring to critical success?), is patently ludicrous and entirely without basis. What war was on when Se7en was released to critical and popular success? I also think Rosenbaum overstates the violence in Silence of the Lambs, and the reason for its having proved such an enduring and beloved work- it's not particularly violent (it has, in fact, only a single scene of what could be called 'gruesome' violence), and the audience identifies throughout with Clarice Starling, and only likes Lecter because 1) Clarice is so endearing and 2) Lecter likes Clarice, whom we like. For all his wit and intensity and novelty, Lecter does not make a particularly sympathetic character where Clarice doesn't, because he depends on her for the viewer's favor- see Hannibal, where with Julianne Moore playing a much less likeable Clarice, and Lecter separated from her, the viewer finds himself rooting for the pickpocket, the greedy policeman, et al- Lecter's victims. Rosenbaum has misread that movie, at least.

Dottie: This blog is often about analyzing film criticism as well as analyzing movies. The foundation is the principle stated by Daniel Dennett at the top of this page about "bad arguments."

I suppose, though, you could argue that it's fruitless to even attempt a discussion when only one party is willing to acknowledge the elephant in the room: that is, the film itself. We can differ in our interpretations of a film, but only if there's some basic agreement that 1) the film exists; and 2) it's relevant to a discussion of that film. So, the logic of a "review" that says:

A. "No Country For Old Men" = B. "our own feelings about killing masses of people on a daily basis"

... may indeed be unique, but it's not an argument. It's simply a non sequitur, an equivalency, an opinion -- but it's not film criticism, because no attempt is made to demonstrate how A relates to B, or even what is meant by A, =, or B. No definitions of any of these terms are offered. Logic and empirical observation are necessary to any critical analysis -- otherwise one has no basis for appraisal, discussion, or even communication. So, for example, I may opine:

A. "No Country For Old Men" = B. "our own feelings about stereotyping masses of people on a daily basis"

What does that mean? I don't know. (And what are "our feelings"?) But if I were making that assertion in a review, I'd hope I'd have the integrity to attempt to explain what specific connection(s) I was trying to make between A and B.

"To ignore such things in order to focus on something else says more about the critic's values than it does about the movies."

But you can't ignore such things. Maybe it's you who doesn't understand what movies are. Movies are not a collection of isolated little great moments, like your black shadow or ringing phone. There's a broader picture that has to be viewed in order to value the film's worth. It's not petty, and certainly not irrelevant, to complain about unsettling tonal shifts, etc., because that's what movies are, the parts that make up the sum total of the film. Do you think we should ignore, say, The Birth of a Nation's racism and only focus on the innovative camera techniques? Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

Robert: I think you're setting up a false dichotomy where none is necessary. I'm not at all saying that movies are "a collection of isolated little great moments" -- I'm saying that those moments aren't isolated and should not be ignored in favor of generalities. Without considering specifics -- "the parts that make up the some total of the film," as you so aptly put it -- there is no "broader picture," because, as you say, "that's what movies are." So, that's why I say that how and what a critic chooses to write about is an indication of that critic's values.

You'll notice that in the sentence you quote, I do not advocate "ignoring" anything, but rather NOT to ignore the broader picture of a film -- not to reduce a multi-layered experience to a one-dimensional literal concept. I don't think noticing tonal shifts is petty or irrelevant in and of itself. But noticing (while crucial) is only the first step in criticism. The next would be to give an example and explore, for example: Why does the tone shift in this way? What is the effect? What is the context? Go ahead and argue that something doesn't work, but cite an example from the film.

I trust your "Birth of a Nation" question is a rhetorical one. Obviously, it's certainly possible to focus exclusively on the racism OR on the innovative camera techniques, but those approaches are not mutually exclusive, and to adopt one OR the other is to avoid dealing with the film as as a whole, and that's precisely the opposite of what I'm advocating. I'm saying: Look at the evidence on the screen when you talk about film, because that's what film is.

I think the strongest criticism that can be mounted against Rosenbaum’s review is the double standard he accords to the ideas of Orwell and O’Conner in comparison to McCarthy and the Coens. Rosenbaum suggest that No Country provides “an explanation for our defeatism and apathy in the face of atrocity.” What does he think of Winston’s fate in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four? And why can the Misfit in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” act as an “emblem of religious despair” while Chigurh only serves as an “alibi for violence?” McCarthy is not the first author to create a disturbing and fatalistic portrayal of human nature. To condemn McCarthy and the Coens while simultaneously praising Orwell and O’Conner is nothing short of doublespeak. Rosenbaum is less concerned with an honest evaluation of this material than he is with infusing his review with personal politics. Thank you for your spirited defense of this film.

I saw "NCFOM" last night and I have two or three different ideas in my mind as to what The Coen Brothers truly intended viewers to believe. I would really enjoy a few of you sharing and discussing what you think actually happened in the end in detail. Thanks.

Now that I have finally seen the film, I was also (like Jonathan Rosenbaum) reminded of Silence of the Lambs, though in a very specific, non-ideological way. I had a similar reaction to Chigurh as I did to Hannibal Lechter in "Silence" - I simply couldn't figure out whether I was supposed to be scared or if I was supposed to be laughing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you.

Is Chigurh supposed to be menacing or is he meant to be a caricature of a sociopathic killer? I realize the two are not mutually exclusive, but Chigurh strikes me as a cartoon figure plopped into the real world (or, rather, the "real" movie world). Cartoon characters can be terrifying too; it took me years before I was brave enoug to watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas all the way through. But is this how Chigurh is meant to be received?

It might be just me; I had the same feeling about Hannibal Lechter in "Silence" and still can't watch that film without stifling a laugh. And after seeing the full-blown cartoon-version of Lechter in "Hannibal" I sometimes wonder if I was "right" to feel that way.

I can think of another instance when a sociopathic killer in a film felt like a cartoon and was still genuinely menacing; Robert Mitchum in "Night of the Hunter", the magnificent full-blown expressionist fairy tale where Mitchum makes for the scariest version of the Big Bad Wolf ever conceived.

I don't see Chigurh the same way, perhaps because the film's style (stylized, but not overtly expressionistic) doesn't support such a reading. He plays more like a joke without a punch-line and thus saps the film of much of its potential impact, at least for me. But maybe I would feel differently after a second viewing.

Or not. I still can't take "Silence of the Lambs" seriously.

I agree that there must be more than cinematic style. Symbolism is nothing if we don't know what it represents. Then it is just taken literally. There is a certain appeal that it has some of the best shoot-outs because of the careful, detailed cinematography. Movies should be examined on how they entertain you second by second. The sound, camera-work, and editing give you a frame of mind of what the characters are thinking, seeing, and hearing, making the scenes more intense. Although it is beautiful to look at, I would not find the cinematography worth mentioning if it didn't reveal things about the characters, such as Moss' awareness and Chirugh's methods.

It is only because of that the cinematography is brought up. If critics don't specify, they rob their readers of informed reasons to appreciate.

Simple ... yet intricate. Truly the work of Genius.

Jonathan Rosenbaum couldn't be more mis-guided if he'd had his brains scrambled by the judicious application of Chigurh's air compressed version of the trusty Ball-Peen Hammer.

See this movie. It's like a sane, less excessive version of a Quentin Tarantino film. It's BRILLIANT!

...Vlad

Christopher: There's a scene in the movie that explicitly addresses the natural relationship between humor and horror, where Deputy Wendell laughs involuntarily as Sheriff Bell is reading a newspaper story about a Jame Gumb-esque crime. It is, after all, perfectly human to react to horror stories this way -- and people always have. (I worry about people who don't understand, for example, how funny Kafka is.)

I think the most telling detail is that Chigurh himself is the only character in the movie who has NO sense of humor about himself or anyone else. If he's an inhuman monster, that's what has made him one. The killing is a symptom of his humorlessness. He's not a joke (like Lester Smalls in "Raising Arizona") -- but his relentless absurdity ("Do you know how goddamn crazy you are?") is as laughable as it is deadly.

I don't understand people who think you're not supposed to laugh at these figures, who are as old as the bogeyman...

If you think back to Chaucer's PARDONER'S TALE, one of the three rioters says about their plans to go after DEATH for killing their young friend - "Death is dead!"

Of course their greed allows them to be supremely confident that they could actually do such a deed - which of course DEATH knows full well will only bring them to him even faster. Chaucer did this story before, well, over 600 years ago so please don't give too much credit to the Coen Brothers - they are just borrowing from a long standing tradition and reaffirming what the Bard said in many different ways: "nothing is but what is not."

i saw "no country...." today and enjoyed every minute until the last minute when, "soprano style" the screen fades to black and the credits start to roll.
everyone was on the edge of their seats for the two hours or so of the movie, but i got the feeling that most of the crowded theater was bewildered or angry or both at the bizarre ending.
questions unanswered:
did shigurh kill moss' wife?
did shigurh get away at the end, or did the sheriff, come out of retirement, and hunt him down?
what was the symbolism of the sheriff's dream?
the movie, for two hours, was a good old fashioned shoot 'em up and hunt 'em down, and then at the last minute went existential on us. i liked the movie so much, and was so disappointed at the ending, that i almost asked for my money back.
i have seen and enjoyed films like memento and mulholland drive and have been bewildered by their message, but i enjoyed them, because right at the beginning you knew you were in for viewing one of the fascinating "artsy" films. "no county..." fooled the audience. i think as word of mouth spreads, "no country for old men" will become "no movie for anybody."

Does no one understand "No Country For Old Men"? I find it to be one of Cormac's best works, a novel which is a companion to "The Road". The movie does a great job of reflecting this. Chigurh has the ONLY moral compass in the film. He alone holds to absolute moral truths. Everyone else is a loser to some degree. The sheriff makes the only smart decision, and that is to walk away. This goes against his morality entirely. Yet, in the face of such a moral monster, it is the only choice to take.

Ever see a greek tragedy?

That's what this is, except the Sheriff wins by walking away.

The book does fill out this a little more, but the ending ofthe movie does its own fairly good job of fleshing out this morality.

The sheriff dreams of some sort of "reward". He dreams of a heavan, as it were, and then he WAKES UP.

There is no God. The only moral code is that of a vengeful killer (old testament at its best) and only to understand that is to save yourself. Why save yourself?

That's where I think "The Road" takes over and becomes a companion piece.

Cormac is all about our morality in a godless world and what human beings can do in the face of the nothingness to create something that is lasting and real or to form any sort of "goodness".

As a lover of all things Coen Bros., including their 'minor works', I'm frustrated by the meme that runs throughout the critical world about their supposed condescension to their characters. I've never seen that in any of their films, and even in their broadest creation, "O Brother, Where Art Thou", they threw in a Busby Berkley Meets the Klan dance number to reinforce that the film is a cartoonish version of reality. The Coen's do their best work when they create a unique world and throw it out of balance. In Raising Arizona, the catalyst is Leonard Smalls, a mashed up creation of H.I.'s Id & anxieties. Barton Fink and his smug NY theater superiority are placed amidst the hellish world of Hollywood, where all literary illusions come to be shattered (I've always thought BF was the Coen Bros. answer to their critics - "You want condescending, we'll show you condescending, and then we'll show him the life of the mind!") Fargo and The Man Who Wasn't There punish the denizens of their respective worlds who would dare try to escape what the world wanted them to do (Jerry Lundegaard sure as hell wanted to be more than a nepotistic car dealer, and Ed Crane THE BARBER dared to dream of being a DRY CLEANER at any cost). The Coens' films are almost Taoist exercises designed to show you how little the universe thinks of those who refuse to remain still and in harmony with their place in it. No Country is no different; Anton Chigurh is a similar creature to Leonard Smalls (it's no accident that he mirrors LS's action of shooting at an innocent animal). Leonard Smalls told Nathan Arizona that he was a tracker and that he could find anything for the right price, and his disdain for the police - "You want to find a Dunkin' Donuts, call a cop" - is replayed by Chigurh's easy dispatching of the officer in the station (and some might say Sheriff Bell was dispatched in a completely different way). I don't see where this idea that they scoff at their creations comes from at all. I worked with a wine distributor in Fargo, ND, and I had to put her on hold the first time because I was laughing so hard at how much she sounded like a character from the movie. Carla Jean is a sweet, simple girl who loves her husband, and those kind of women are universal; she has a regional accent that someone in Los Angeles or Chicago might associate with 'stupid', but that's not even close to what Kelly McDonald and the Coen Bros were going for.

In the Coen Bros., I've found my generation's Preston Sturges and Stanley Kubrick. Ther were filmmakers who also trafficked in characters who were alien but all too human, but I never felt their lack of love for their creations. I watched No Country one night and 'Full Metal Jacket' the next morning, and the thing that struck me about their similarities was the cruel nature of fate and how taking a person or creature out of their natural environment and putting them in an alien world is the most evil thing that we can do. It's horrific to watch the results, but it's hard to look away, just the same.

Thanks, Tully for those comments. I appreciate you returning to the theme of this blog, which is to discuss the film, not criticisms of the film. So I just saw this tonight, and I am buzzing with questions. I feel like the Tommy Lee Jones character sitting in the coffee shop, slowly putting the pieces together. But I can't yet. Here are some questions, of which there are so many I believe there to be a designful pattern that has not been revealed to me yet.

1. What was Javier Bardem being arrested for in the beginning of the movie?

2. Did anyone ever connect him to the killing of the lawman? Was this scene out of sequence with the rest of the movie?

3. Did Javier Bardem kill Moss'wife? Why was she not shown? Why was the body in the morgue not shown?

4. When TLJ approached the hotel at the end of the film, was Javier waiting for someone? Or just waiting to leave? Is that why the window was shown with a closed latch, implying that no one had left through the window?

5. Why did his mother in law die? Did this happen recently after LM's death? It seems odd she would die so quickly. Plus they had a nive little house. Did this happen years later or something? What was the date of her death on the tombstone? I remember they made specific mention of the date (1980) in the scene where Javier was toying with the gas station clerk. There was really no reason to call this out unless the Coen's are up to something...

6. Why did Javier predict the satchel would be laid at his feet? Did that actually happen? It seems like Javier was right about everything else...

7. I assume Javier got the money because he NEVER used money in the film to buy anything until the end when he paid the kid for his shirt.

8. Why did one of the kids at the end have weird nipples? They seemed distended or something. (Okay you can ignore that)

9. What did the randomness of the car crash mean?

10. Who was Javier working for? Why did he kill those two men in the desert?

11. The conversation with TLJ's father seemed very important, but why? What did his spirituality have to do anything? Why did his retirement seem so empty in the last scene? The hopefulness implied by his dream about his father seemed inconsistent.

12. What actually happened at the Sands Hotel? Why did someone hide the satchel in the vent again? It looks like the Mexicans caught up with LM by quizzing his mother-in-law on where they were going. And then they were dispatched by Anton?

13. Was it important that LM got killed as he was trying to give the money up to his wife?

14. Why did Anton kill Stephen Root? I loved him in Office Space. Seriously, though, why did he hunt them down in the office, and how did h know who hired Woody?

I have more but that's enough for now. Can somebody help me put the pieces together?

I think one trick about the Coen's films that their critics miss is there awaenerness of how we make sense of reality by, in Bahktin's phrase, "assimilating the words of others." Some of the stilted ironicness of their films comes from their characters recycling language, sometimes incompetently, for their own ends. It's not making fun of the characters (well, not always), it's acknowledging that they are in over their heads. NCFOM probably demonstrates this dynamic at its deepest, and for that reason, if no other, I think it's one of their very best films. (Up there with "Fargo.")

Case in point, the brilliant, brilliant scene towards the end of NCFOM when the two sherriffs sit around the diner and talk about the "old times." The two men are genually shaken by the tide of violence around them (Kudos to Tommy Lee Jones, and to the unknown, by me anyway, actor playing the other Sherriff for the depth of feeling this simple converstation carries), but their hackneyed responses follow a useless script. The nostagia they drag up as a response to the violence around them is wholely inadequate. The emotion in the scene plays as a perfectly appropriate response to what these men have seene, but their language fails them. They do not understand this.

And Chigurh pretty much stays outside of anybody's understanding. He's so scary because he doesn't make much sense. Even though his objectives, to find the money and kill anybody who's seen him, are perfectly reasonable, he is not reasonable to anybody who meets him. Why does the wife deserve to die? Her death serves no purpose, but since Chigurh promised he'd kill her, he does.The Coin flip that seals her fate only makes it seem more arbitrary. For that matter, how do any of the murders in the movie make any moral sense?

If we want to follow Rosenbaum's effort to relate this to Iraq, the "why" question I brough up in the last paragraph seems like a better way that to just ramble about our fascination with violence. When we look at Iraq from a distance we find lots of footholds to argue about, and perhaps even understand, "why" the thousands of deaths there happend, but from the perspective of anyone there who lost a family member in the crossfire, the war is a perfectly cold and arbitrary machine. Like a hord of Chigurhs have decended.

Woody Harrilson's character further suggests our inability to wrap our minds around horror. He thinks he's got this guy figured out, but the knowling wink he uses to talk about him suggests that he's just reading a different script, that of the knowing insider. Of course, we see that he doesn't really understand what's going on either when he pitifully tries to reason with the guy.

This awareness of how we borrow ill fitting tropes to make sense of our lives informs their lighter movies. In "Big Labowski," notice how the Dude keeps appropriating phrases from other characters as a way to adopt some posture of authority ("This aggression will not stand, man!"). Notice the psuedo-poetic language that Nick Cage's inarticulate character adopts to try to add weight to his story in "Raising Arazona" ("Her womb was a rocky soil in which my seed could find no purchase.")

Anyway.....I think what's often described as ironic distance or cynical film school cynicism in the Coen's work is in fact much more serious. Do there character's say profound things? No. Do there films provide "moral centers"? No. But that's the point. That we make sense of our lives by recycling the same old scripts, whether those scripts fit or not. Because NCFOM is structures as a series of terrifying, almost nihilistic set peices followed by genuine, but still inadequate efforts to explain them, it cuts very deep indeed. I suppose Rosembaum has a kind of point in his critique because the film does reject the more optimistic kind of humism implicit in his dislike of the film, but complaining that people like the film just because its "trendy" or something seems to miss the point. He might have a point about certain film critics (plenty of good movies have been praised for the wrong reasons), but I'm not sure he has a leg to stand on when we are actually talking about the film.

In reponse to Lawrence Peterson's first question: Chigurh checks his boots (I infered for blood) as he walks away from Carla Jean's house. So yes, he kills her. Michael Calahan does a good job of answering the other two questions (a terrific insight, by the way). The Coens choice not to show something that happens, but to infer it has been discussed a lot here - which is one thing that elevates it above the genre that Michael was expecting. I bet if you see it again you'll like it better.

Also, Jamie, I don't think there was a coin toss that sealed Carla Jean's fate. She refuses to "call it." She chooses death instead. At least it was her decision.

I want to preface this statement by saying that I really enjoyed this film, but it left me with so many questions that I couldn't stop thinking about it. By treating the conclusion the way they did, the Cohens are leaving the door open for interpretations from the audience. Whether the Cohens made the movie with real answers for all the questions that are raised, or if they purposely wanted these questions to remain ambiguous, I cannot say. However, to me, the ending required that I find answers to those questions and by doing so create a meaning for myself.

In my opinion the character that is the key to my meaning is Anton Chigurh. We have to think of the character as any sort of terrible thing that can happen to a person, and the clue to this line of thought is provided by the Cohens in the film. When Llewelyn is in the hospital, Woody Harrelson's character (refering to Chigurh) says something along the lines of "He's not Ebola". The thing is he pretty much is Ebola, or at least he operates in the same way. For example, what kind of people does Chigurh kill? Answer: anyone who comes in contact with him by either choice or chance. Now what kind of people does Ebola Kill, again anyone who comes in contact with it by either choice or chance.

Now you might say that there were some people who came in contact with Chigurh and lived, which would be very true. I respond by refering to Ebola again. Not everyone who comes in contact with Ebola catches it. Say ten people enter a place where Ebola is present, eight get infected, two never do, it's the luck of the draw or fate. This element of chance/fate is very obviously represented by Chigurhs coin flip in the film. Most people who come in contact with Chigurh die in the film, but some live, and the reason for both cases is that they either purposely or by chance came across Chigurh and are thus at the mercy of this chance/fate element.

Consider this, Llewelyn never comes in direct contact with Chigurh, whether accidental or by choice. Actually he avoids him the entire movie. Who does he involve himself with though, that's right the Mexican drugdealers. And who ends up killing him, again, the Mexican drugdealers. Coincident, I think not.

I know what some people might say, "Carla Jean neither sought out Chigurh, or ran into him by chance. He sought her out" This is true, however, I do have my own explaination. In the same scene mentioned early with Llewelyn and Woody, Woody's character talks about the strict and complicated principles that Chigurh lives by. To me these are the "Ebola Principles": Kill anyone that by choice or chance comes into contact with you, and let chance/fate (ex. the coinflip) decide who survives. While Chigurh lives by this principle he seems to have a control over chance/fate. In the case of Carla Jean he breaks his own rules, by first going out of his way to find her, and secondly because she refuses to let chance/fate decide her destiny she forces Chigurh to make the decision again breaking his rules. This infraction seems to have cost him his control over the chance/fate element, as is evidenced in the next sequence where Chigurh is badly injured when a car running the redlight slams into his vehicle. In the same sequence Chigurh is again a victim of chance/fate when a generous boy offers him his shirt. In a similar scene Llewelyn was not so lucky, and had to overpay for a jacket. You might argue that Chigurh was injured earlier, when shot by Llewelyn. However, I contend that that injury was simply a hazard of his goal, and not a result of the chance/fate element.

A clue to this theory is in the Sheriff's story to Carla Jean about the guy who executed steer. By sticking to his rules, paying attention, and taking his task seriously he denies the chance/fate element. But as the story goes the moment he loosens his procedure he allows a opening for the chance/fate element to enter, and as a result he was shot by his own bullet. I think that the Sheriff's story is a good analogy for what happens to Chigurh.

You might ask, "What about the Sheriff? He's seeking out Chigurh the whole movie, why doesn't he die". Well, yes and no. He is seeking Chigurh, but doing so mostly from the sidelines or coffee shops. Although there is one scene where he reluctantly chooses to get a little too close,and I believe that that scene is at the hotel room. Fortunately for him Chigurh is not there. This luck seems to be represented by the heads up dime that Chigurh used to escape through the vent. The Sheriff seems to realize that he was lucky to have survived, and he retires almost immediately after.

These are just some of my thoughts, take them for what you will. I liked the movie and really enjoyed trying to figure things out for myself, so kudos Cohens. In closing I leave a quote from one of my favorite artists Jenny Holzer that I find particularly relevant to this film, "You are a victim of the rules that you live by"

"You'll notice that in the sentence you quote, I do not advocate "ignoring" anything, but rather NOT to ignore the broader picture of a film -- not to reduce a multi-layered experience to a one-dimensional literal concept."

Yeah, I don't know where I got the idea that you were advocating ignoring something. Somehow, in the small space of time between reading your comment and writing my response, my thoughts got tangled. I think what I was trying to say is that critics of the movie are not necessarily ignoring those things you mentioned. It's possible to appreciate those great moments and still come away