Like the post.

I still won't relinquish my feeling that Chigurh is the lead character. He's the only one we get to know well enough to understand his tics. Sure Carla Jean's fate is sealed off camera, but he checks his boots. And what is it that we know he doesn't like getting on his boots? We don't get to know any of the other characters this intimately. He's the only character talked openly about as having a code, which as I've written before a main character will either come around to a common belief or believe so strongly in something that the other character's in the filmcome around to his - Anton falls under the latter. He's really the only character others react to within any level of emotion for goodness sakes! I'm sorry but if Hopkins can win for best actor as Lecter, then this a lead role. But no, instead the character that we don't get to see until several scenes in, the one whose demise we don't even get to witness, whose face is hardly seen when we realize he's dead, who merely steps into this story that's already happening without him and would continue without him...who really just holds things up briefly in the grand scheme of things (boy if he represents mankind in this mess we're in trouble!) is made to be the lead character. Only because he's the closest thing to a "hero" we have. He's fighting for his life after all, right? Just like we do every day. But we know better, just as Chigurh does when he tells him over the phone, the best deal he's going to get is the one offered, and no offer says he'll live. Does his life have the same meaning as even Tom Bell's does? Is there hope for him afterwards, someone waiting for him? He doesn't even make it to be one of the old men that the title refers to. We have no idea what he does for a living until he's practically dead!! Main character my foot.

Speaking of Bell, Jim, you mention the idea that a "key" character exists. I feel that here we have the anit-key character in Bell. We've seen in other Coen Brother films their flippant use of narrator, like "In the Man Who Wasn't There" when Ed (Thornton) returns from killing Big Dave Brewster (Gandolfini) he picks up his narration as if nothing happened. In "NCFOM" Bell acts as the anti-narrator. The anti-key. Like the narrator he thinks he's wise at the beginning, he's going to tell us this story, but how can he when even our narrator doesn't want to be a part of the story for the longest time? And when he does, it's too late. Then to have those beliefs that we know as an audience to trust in because he is the narrator turned on him and in doing so us, well what kind of narrator is he, what kind of "key"? To me though, he's the closest thing to a key. He's the closest thing to a character that knows what is going on and what Anton is (though he doesn't meet him) he's the only one that truly understands the danger, and that there's something even beyond Anton.

The Coens have crafted something that lies on the outside of the awards boxes and even the studio. The characters appear to follow the standard outlines, the studio wants us to believe they do, and they are probably meant to. It's one of the things that makes "NCFOM" so watchable to the general public - the chase scenes. Good guy running from bad guy. But it's far more complicated than that, and far more interesting.

This reminds me of discussions we (me and my fellow actors) used to have in college with professors about what makes a lead and what makes supporting. The question in pretty much unanswerable which is why it's such a good question.

At the time Peter Schaffer's Amadeus was being performed at our theatre as well as Will's Othello which of course both have a titular character who influences the mood and actions of another character (Salieri, Iago)and that other character's influenced actions propel the story. So who's the lead? Both Salieri and Iago have more stage time and dialogue but everything they do is meaningless without the title characters.

But we don't have to worry because the Academy members voting for performances to be nominated seem to randomly pick and choose anyway with no regard to anything. Usually they go with screen time but not always (Al Pacino 72 Godfather, Haing S. Ngor 84 Killing Fields - Both nominated for Supporting). But I wouldn't go telling them that Bardem isn't a serial killer. That's one of the few things that might get him a nom - playing a killer. They're already confused enough because it's a Coen's movie Jim, don't confuse them any more.

It's funny, the "lead character" in this film, Josh Brolin's Llewelyn Moss, is probably the third most important character, behind Chigurh and Sheriff Bell.

*Spoilers*

I think Bell's the actual main character -- the film is his story, and this is re-enforced by the abrupt shift of focus back onto him towards the end of the film. Moss's death is elided from the picture both to create a sense of resigned despair, as well as to underline the fact that it isn't his death in itself that's important within the context of the picture, but how his death affects Bell. The entire Brolin story is a kind of protracted McGuffin, to me, that cattle prods Bell from the growing sense of helplessness past the brink, to where he more or less withdrawals from life at the end.

And you can add Dave Kehr to the list of critics who completely missed the boat on this one (and the Coens in general). He just posted a typically condescending and disdainful criticism of the Coens' (perceived) condescension and disdain for their characters over at his blog, along with a wild misinterpretation of the emphasis on the linoleum floor at the sheriff's station in the beginning of the picture.

Just a minor point of confusion, which contains spoilers: By my recollection, Carson Wells is not the only one who dares speak Chigurh's name, though he is the only one to do it to his face. The Man Who Hires Wells (Stephen Root), I think is the first character to speak Chigurh's name during the course of the film ("You know Anton Chigurh by sight?") That both men end up dead may not be a coincidence.

In any case, I think Chigurh's confrontation with Carla Jean and his subsequent car accident reveal him to be just as much a pawn of chance as he claims himself to be throughout the film. His character may be diminished, but only in the eyes of an audience that saw him as somehow impervious to the kind of bad luck his coin deals. If anything, it's a reaffirmation of the role of luck in Chigurh's journey, which Carla Jean cast into doubt when she tells him that he doesn't have to kill her.

And the boy offering Chigurh the shirt off his back for free is an obvious contrast to the earlier scene where Moss buys a jacket from the young men crossing the border who try to bilk him. But Chigurh persists, shoving the bill in the boy's hand, which initiates an argument between the two boys as to how the money will be split. It's the money that corrupts, and Chigurh is quite literally a slave to it, in the form of his coin. I'm not sure there's a single contrasting character who represents any kind of "key" to understanding Chigurh, but that sequence strikes me as being as close to a deconstruction of his character as the film comes.

Here's an observation that occurred to me a while ago that I want to throw in, and this seems as good a place as any.

A lot of people seem baffled as to whether we should consider Chigurh a "real person" or some kind of "ghost", as Sheriff Bell sees him. In fact, this has put off a lot of critics who are searching for a "depth" in Chigurh that they cannot find. I think that in the figures of Anton Chigurh and Judge Holden from Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy has created demonic parodies of the doctrine of the Incarnation, characters who are both fully divine and fully human.

Thus Chigurh sustains terrible injuries and is a victim of chance as much as his own victims are, yet he always walks away and endures. And of course, as always in McCarthy, our only hope against the persistence of evil and brutality is the faintest glimmer of a possibility of a small, selfless act of human kindness - as represented by Ed Tom's dream here and the woman who takes in the destitute Billy Parham at the end of Cities of the Plain.

OK, I have to get to work. Thanks for letting me ramble.

P.S.: I should have said "paradox" or "mystery" rather "doctrine." It's an important distinction, I think.

In the book, Carla Jean does answer to Chigurh's coin toss. The scene is longer and McCarthy does say that Chigurh shoots her. I found this a glaring difference between the film and the book. Obviously this means she psychologically defeats Chigurh in the movie. But this does not seem to have been McCarthy's idea.

To my recollection of the novel, it's was really Sheriff Bell who was the protagonist--he's the one who is truly changed during the course of the novel. Chirgurh's pursuit of Moss is sort of, um, an "objective correlative" of Sheriff Bell's internal existential struggles. The difference in this regard in the film, the Coen's obvious fascination with Chirgurh vs. either Bell or Moss, was one of my small dissatisfactions with the film.

One thing I can guarantee is that if I ever find a "name" actor's performance in a "big" movie to be truly unimpressive, almost everyone else will disagree with me.

I came out of "American Beauty" thinking Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening had delivered two of the most laughable lead performances of the year.

I thought Halle Berry completely embarrassed herself in "Monster's Ball."

I thought Charlize Theron's pitiful attempt at mimesis in "Monster" was almost unwatchable.

And I thought that Bardem was truly ill-cast as the truly ill-conceived character of Chirgurh.

Time to engrave his statue right now.

I think of Chigurh as an agent of death, if not death itself. If the theme of the film is the inevitability of death ("you cant stop it from coming"), it is through Chigurh that this message is delivered. He is relentless, unstoppable, and indiscriminant. It is difficult for me to see Chigurh as a main character because he does not have much of an arc - he doesnt grow or change to illustrate any themes. He just is what he is - consistently. If he is death guess this is kind of the point : he is a constant. Some might argue that the scene where he is hit by the car shows some inconsistency in the character, but really all this proved to me was that death is inevitable even for its agent.

While I found Bardem to be completely compelling and fascinating, I have to wonder how difficult a task it is to play a character like Chigurh. I remember trying out for the character Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. The director argued successfully that Tybalt was not a very interesting character. Sure he has the most violent scenes, but his character is pretty much a constant and therefor not very interesting to play as an actor. Chigurh reminds me of Tybalt. Everybody loves the badass but apart from his badassery who is he really?

As far as who the main character of the film is, I dont really think there is one.

We are led to believe that Moss is the main character, but he is discarded early. Our expectations are that there will be a final showdown between Chigurh and Moss, but it does not happen.

Is the narrator (sheriff Bell) the main character? I dont think so. He's more of a passive observer. He always arrives after the scene, and is not a catalyst to any of the actions that unfold. I liken him to the cowboy in Lebowski. He helps do deliver the theme to the audience, but does not affect the plot, even though he interacts with the main characters.

Chigurh as discussed above is a vehicle for the theme, but has no dramatic arc, so its difficult to say that the film is his story.

Do we have to have a central character? Is it nessisary to impose this artificial classification on this work? I dont think so. I found all the actor's performances to be compelling. For awards purposes perhaps the actors should be all be treated as supporting actors.

What's interesting to me is that Bardem's main competition for most of the supporting actor awards seems to be coming from Casey Affleck for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." And, unlike with "No Country for Old Men," there's really no disputing who the lead in "TAoJJbtCRF" is: it's Affleck's character. The movie's arc clearly traces the development and transformation of Robert Ford. But, since Brad Pitt is a big star and Affleck is not (yet), Pitt gets first billing and Affleck gets demoted to supporting status. A bit like how Robert Ford ended up a supporting player in his own life...