Brilliant. The beauty of the Coen brothers movie is that it perfectly captures the mystery of McCarthy's novel. Reading any of his works, you feel something deep and profound, but also vague and mysterious. Something you just can't quite put your finger on. It's a supremely enjoyable feeling, and all the more so because most mainstream entertainment today whacks you over the head with its symbolism or moral or "point". But life is never black and white, and even if you ever think you understand something, later you realize you probably do not. Tv and movies are sometimes enjoyable for their completeness. The twist at the end that sums it all up, the bad guy gets caught, the guy gets the girl, etc. Maybe that is why I found NCFOM so refreshing, and why I've now plowed thru all the McCarthy I can get my hands on.
Anyway, thank you Coens for respecting the audience enough to be vague. In the hands of a lesser director, Bell would have caught and sent Chigurgh to the gas chamber.

Blood Meridian is even more mysterious. I so wish the Coens were directing.

Here's a question. Was NCFOM the most vague ending ever to a movie? (probably not, but especially after the straight ahead first 3/4, the finale was jolting and off-putting, compared to other movies that are deliberately vague throughout) Anyway, If not, what are some of your other favorites?

Steve, I came here following promises of Brakhage, and I wanna see him now!

JE: Thank you for noticing that.

Interesting use of a Brakhage film in your blog title. I actually teach The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (which, for the uninitiated, documents autopsies in a Pittsburgh morgue) to encourage students to discuss films as corporeal bodies, which perhaps applies to NCFOM in an "exquisite corpse" kind of way.

Any significance to your title and Brakhage's brilliant experiment in documentary? Or is your title just boring old etymology?

I've been enjoying your many essays about this movie, Jim. I'm surprised this scene was an issue for many viewers. I wonder if these same people also had trouble during the FBI raid on the wrong house in Silence of the Lambs. I never thought about the "coin toss" parallel when it comes to which door Sheriff Bell chooses to open, but damn if doesn't fit.

You know, in all the discussions about NCFOM, the one I have been looking forward to, and have yet to see, is one comparing Anton Chigurh to Raising Arizona antagonist Leonard Smalls. The similarites occurred to me in that scene where Anton Chigurh gratuitously shoots at a bird while driving across the bridge. This struck me as somewhat uncharacteristic of him. He had reason (in his own demented logic) to kill every other character in the movie. But why take a random shot at a bird? It's worth noting that he missed the bird, likely deliberately. But what I found most interesting about that moment is that it was a page right out of Leonard Smalls' playbook. Leonard Smalls is, of course, the odious, Harley-riding bounty hunter. Among his more dispicable acts are randomly shooting small animals as he tears through the Arizona desert.

He first appears in a dream of the main character, HI McDonough. HI describes him as a "lone biker of the apocolypse with all the powers of Hell at his command". Like Chigurh, he is regarded more as a force of evil than a man. As if he's not real. A ghost. No explanation is given as to what his origins may be. It's as if Hell spit them both out. And although they can both perceived as evil, they have their own twisted moral code. They are loners, and more importantly, survivors. They are self reliant. Both have the uncanny ability to track down the people they are hunting, and they have a near supernatural ability to appear right where they need to be.

For both movies, there is a key scene the respective demons give a character a choice, and the wrong choice could prove to have nasty consequences. Obviously, in NCFOM, that choice is given to Llewelyn Moss. The wrong choice resulted in the death of his wife. In Raising Arizona, that choice is given to Nathan Arizona. He can hire Leonard Smalls as a bounty hunter to track down the kidnappers. In refusing this offer, Smalls threatens to "find that baby regardless". Presumably so he could put the baby on the black market as he had threatened, but it wouldn't surprise me (given the movie's insane logic) if he had ended up wanting to adopt him as his own "Leonard Jr". And eventually, both are felled by bad luck. Anton is struck by a car running a red light. Leonard Smalls does himself in by knocking back HI, not realizing that HI had his fingers in the pin of one of the many grenades strapped to his chest. Anton, on the other hand, lives to fight another day.

So I wonder if the Coen's were giving a nod to their ealier cult classic in NCFOM with the bird on the bridge scene. I have not read the novel so I don't know if that bit was Cormac McCarthy's or the Coen's own invention.

My apologies for going off on a tangent here, and especially if this has already been discussed ad nausuem. I can't claim to have read every NCFOM essay on this site.

But if Chigurh was in 112, he would be flipped around, since the layout of the room would be in reverse. He would be facing away from Sheriff Bell, who would be behind him. If Chigurh was facing that way, that means the camera would be pointing towards Bell's general direction, and then we wouldn't be able to see the gray of Bell's uniform in the cylinder(indicated by the script; I just see form reflected in the movie). Unless I'm missing something, this would seem to disprove the 112 theory. Am I missing something?
My theory: Chigurh is long gone. Bell is imagining him on the other side of the door. My evidence is that the closeup of the cylinder is from Bell's point of view, then a cut to inside the room that would indicate only a short distance of camera movement; Chigurh is on Bell's mind. Then a cut back outside, then back inside to Chigurh, connecting the two in Bell's thoughts. Bell knows he is putting his "soul at hazard." He knows what is on the other side of the door, even if it's not there.

I'm not sure if this has already been discussed but it seems to me that Anton's presence (and disappearance) behind the door is neither a ghost, nor the real Anton, but could simply be Ed Tom's expectation of a killer behind the door. An expectation which, once the door is opened, turns out to be false. Ed Tom is thinking, "Oh no, this guy is in there and it's going to be him or me," so he projects that fear into the room.

The only problem I notice with the idea that Chigurh is in room 112 is that the rooms are mirror images of each other. This would mean that in order for Chigurh to be standing where he is, he would be immediately visible when the door was opened only a crack. In addition, the light from the blown lock would fall on his arm, and the blown lock may even have been visible at the bottom of the frame in the wider shot of Chigurh. I think this is a really interesting interpretation, and for a few moments I was excited about it, but I don't think it holds water based on the motel layout. And he can't be in the room behind the one Bell enters because the window in the bathroom shows that there is no room behind, unless I'm mistaken. I agree with you that it's a mystery unlikely (or necessary) to be solved, but I for one love how in-depth you've gone in analyzing NCFOM.

JE: Another mystery: Why would Chigurh hide BEHIND a door with a big gun, knowing the door wouldn't even open all the way before he'd be pinned between it and the wall? Seems more likely to me he'd want to take advantage of the darkness and, perhaps, stand flat against the wall on the other side of the door, where he could get a better shot if he needed to...

I don't think the adjoining room theory fits. The Coens are among the most meticulous filmmakers out there, and the fact that the script does not leave room for the possibility of Chigurh being in room 112 tells me that, at most, it's a red herring discovered in the process. Well, maybe red herring is being a bit glib....but at most, it's increasing the sense of the unknown about the scene. Shifting the focus from room 114 (which, afterall, seems to be squarely the visual focus fo the first shot, being both in the center of both the frame and of the lighting) seems to be a rather easy answer for my tastes. 112 is as linked to 114 as the wall on the other side of 114.
I think the scene is something of microcosm of the film's structure. It bears all the charectaristics of a thriller, than shifts our perceptions. Once Ed Tom comes out of the bathroom and sits on the bed, it becomes something more, so much more. Just like the macrocosm of the film. The scene builds to a showdown, both on it's own terms, and in terms of the whole film...but it fizzles, and leaves us with nothing but an empty room, and once we face the relief of not having to face evil....it is just full of questions and dissapointments. I guess that room 112 does not contradict this...but although it is certainly not as easy as 'he's under the bed', it still strikes me as too easy.

Could the image of Chigurh lurking in the shadows, ostensibly in room 114, be Bell supposing what's waiting for him if he opens that door (even though he doesn't know what Chigurh looks like)?

In the second image, the one where "The lock on door 112 is... dark, obscured by a shadow" I can perceive the lock better than I can in the third image where "the door to room 112 is now in light." In the third image, we can see the gold rim of the side of the lock but cannot tell if there is a hole in it, but in the second image, if you look closely, it appears to be a black hole rather than filled with the gold lock mechanism.

Since the vent opening in room 114 is circular, obviously the rectangular satchel could not have been fit into it or removed from it. Are we to assume that Moss removed the money from the satchel to fit it into the circular vent?

JE: Great observations, Harry -- and they came up at CWA, too. I think the most important thing about the way the scene is presented is that Ed Tom has to imagine, at least, that one way or another his fate on the other side of the door -- which is why we're shown BOTH sides instead of just Ed Tom's POV. He has to feel he's calling it. Once he makes that choice, the rest is irrelevant. (That's what I meant about not imagining we were ectoplasmic entities who could wander back and forth through the doors and walls at will: We can only see and experience what the movie gives us to see and experience. As for the vent, it's hard to tell, but it looks to me like the opening is as large as the vent and the circular duct opening is set back a ways. You can see the scrape marks in the dust on the bottom. The rectangular opening may have been just big enough, and deep enough, to accommodate the satchel.

Thank you, Harry. The question of the vent, screws and coin in that room is the only thing in the whole film that bothered me. It seems that the vent, unlike the one that Moss used for a hiding place for the satchel, is too small for much of anything. Why would Moss spend precious time opening up that vent with a coin (a process a lot slower than using a screwdriver), aside from creating a lovely image to fade into the next scene?

But why would Anton have knocked the lock casing out of the room he rented next to Moss's?

I'm sure this was mentioned in previous discussions, but I found it interesting how the Coens trick the viewer by falsely foreshadowing an encounter between Bell and Chirgurh. When one sees the reflection of light in the lock(s?), one is reminded of the parallel shots of Bell and Chirgurh's reflections in Moss's TV earlier in the film. So those parallel shots on the screen of the TV end up foreshadowing not a physical encounter but one within the confines of the film frame (at the end of the film when Chigurh's retreating figure dissolves into the head shot of Bell about to describe his dreams.

The last we see of Moss, it appears he may (or may not) be doing a little dilly-dallying with the woman by the pool.

Is one of these two rooms the woman's room? Did Chigurh enter both rooms because he didn't know which one was Moss's?

It's been a while since I've seen the film, and I've only seen it once, but I remember wondering about this at the time.

Jim: I agree with several of your points, most of all that it doesn’t matter where Chigurh is in the end. There are numerous interpretations. It’s intentionally ambiguous, and that’s great. But while I also agree with your counterpoint above that Chigurh wouldn’t want to be pinned behind the door, there’s a problem beyond the mirroring layout of rooms 114 and 112 (which several above have mentioned) that suggests Chigurh is NOT in 112:

Your assumption is that Chigurh is in the adjacent room this time because he took an adjacent room before. But here’s the thing, he DID NOT take the adjacent room previously. Like others have pointed out, adjacent rooms provide a mirror reflection of one another, not an identical layout. At the previous motel, Llewelyn needed an adjacent room to fish the satchel out of the vent. Chigurh didn’t need an adjacent room. He wasn’t listening for sounds on the other side of the wall. He looks at the hotel map to find a room with the same layout as the one where the gunmen are hiding. He’s casing the joint. That’s why he goes into his hotel room, looks at it with the lights on and then rehearses breaking into the room and flipping on the lights and locating his targets. You wouldn’t do this in the adjacent hotel room because the layout wouldn’t be the same as the one you were about to enter.

The mistake people keep making in reading the first motel scene is to assume that since Llewlyn needs an adjacent room and consults the hotel map for that purpose that when Chigurh consults the hotel map he’s doing so with the intent to get the adjacent room. Not so. Their motivations are different. Also, he’s not that dumb: Llewlyn consults the map to find the number for the room facing the opposite side of the building (thus a shared back wall/vent). If Chigurh knew the hotel room number, he wouldn’t need to consult a map to ask for the number of the room directly next to it. He’d just state the number.

Also, though it’s hard to tell: in the moment when Chigurh walks in stocking feet toward the door to make his entry at the first motel, he appears to pass at least one other hotel room door, which would suggest he’s NOT in the room directly adjacent.

So, once you establish that Chigurh did not previously take an adjacent room, there’s no reason to think he would do so at the latter motel.

Again, there are multiple acceptable interpretations for where Chigurh actually is: Is he behind the door of 114 and slips into the shadows of the room like a ghost (but not actually a ghost) and then slips out when Bell moves into the bathroom? Is the image of Chigurh simply Bell’s nightmare of what lurks beyond the door? My personal vote is the former, because at no other time in the movie do the Coens show us something that isn’t there. Likewise, Bell never sees Chigurh’s face, so he couldn’t imagine Chigurh as Chigurh on the other side of the door.

Personally, I don’t need to know where exactly Chigurh is in room 114. But I believe he’s behind the door and then moves somewhere in the shadows and then disappears. It’s debatable. That’s just my reading of the film, and I think it’s consistent with the rest of the movie. What I’m adamant about is that there’s no evidence Chigurh is in room 112.

(One more note on that: if both lock casings were missing (and I don’t think they are) and Bell picks 114 in a ‘coin toss,’ then once he inspected the room he’d have to know there was the chance that Chigurh was hiding in 112 at that very moment. If you were Bell, would you sit down and let out a relieved sigh on the bed in 114? Or would you keep your gun ready and push open the other supposedly lock-free door and check out 112? Bell doesn’t investigate room 112 because it’s not part of the crime scene, nor is it missing a lock. It’s behind yellow tape, yes, but that’s so the tape can loop around the nearby pillar, etc. What police staff is so stingy with the yellow tape that they only cordon off a single door?)

I also came looking for an insightful take on Brakhage, but alas, it is not so. Only on scanners is there such a thing as Nocountryrolled.

JE: Well, at least you got the reference. I'm grateful to you for that.

No one is out to get you. It's just that people are monkeys.

Thanks for the insights, all. (Did somebody mention the raid in "Silence of the Lambs"? I can't find it now...)

Jason: You're right. It's Llewelyn who takes the room adjacent to (on the other side of) his own room at the earlier motel. He originally checks into 138 (which, by the way, also has two double beds), then gets the additional room, 38, too. When Chigurh pulls up outside, he stops opposite two adjacent rooms, 138 and 139, but the room he rents and scopes out is 130. He kills the Mexicans who are waiting for Llewelyn in 138. Still, it sets up a pattern. I agree, though, that whatever the "practical" explanation (if there is one), it's the metaphor that matters most. As I said in the earlier Uncertainty Principle post, we're talking pans and knives here. And either way, Chigurh has slipped off into the shadows...

As for why Chigurh might blow the other lock: We see a Mexican woman and child staying/ living in a room to the left of 114 when Ed Tom arrives. That may also imply that room 112 has been rented (even if nobody's there when Chigurh ducks in). Also, the crime scene tape stretched across both doors (for purely practical reasons, what do you attach it to?) indicates it's visually "off limits." Again, I don't want to insist on this too strongly, but the visual clues/cues are there.

As for Ed Tom's "coin toss" choice: His real "call" is whether to open the door or not. The two doors are another motif that illustrates the same principle. He's been putting it up his whole life and just hasn't known it....

Jim,

I love your blog and read it everyday. Each time a new NCFOM essay is posted my heart jumps! I absolutely love debating the finer points of this film and am very happy to see such well thought out comments from you and all the readers. Debates like this are what film is all about. This particular one reminds me of the debates after The Sopranos or The Conversation endings, especially when you point out how we are not invisible ectoplasmic entities.

Thanks, and by all means, keep it up!

By the way, that quote I posted earlier is by Brakhage. I am not a paranoid Maimouphobe.
Just sayin'.

Now you have to blog about Brakhage. The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes. And how well it goes with Acid Mother's Temple's "Acid Heart Mother."

I'm still trying to figure out why I called you Steve.

in the FAQ at imdb there's an entirely different interpretation of that scene. but I'm not sure if I am following them:

"Chigurh was in the motel room. Bell and Chigurh see each other's reflection in the shot-out lock (this is explicit in the screenplay). The next scene is key: when Bell enters the room he only 'sees' his own shadow and the unscrewed vent. (This scene explains why the accountant in a previous scene had a part at all: to explain that Chigurh doesn't shoot people who don't 'see' him). It is implied that Bell does encounter Chigurh and takes the coward's way out by agreeing that he never saw Chigurh. (Unlike the brave but dead girl who would not give in to the coin toss). This interpretation explains many aspects of the film, including his dreams (guilt over letting Chigurh get away with the money) and the scene where he says that he tries not to lie, but sometimes you have to. He is the storyteller, as the narration makes clear, and this part of the story is a lie"

Thanks for that excellent piece.

My media class and I have been studying NCFOM as a part of our 'Heroes' unit of study in filmmaking. I'd seen the movie 3 or 4 times before the class voted for it as our film text, so, needless to say, I was pretty excited to be able to spend a whole lot of time discussing it in school hours!

My teacher, a few students and I are big fans of the blog, so, after seeing this 'autopsy', we did our own in class. Watching 27-usually disconnected and uninterested sixteen year-olds yell at each other from each side of the room (shouting things like "The Coens are just being dicks and playing with us!" and "No, no, no, there's just no way this is purely a symbolic shot of Anton!" etc etc) was pretty exciting and fun!

Most felt either the 'Behind-the-door' theory was best, but a few still clung to the 'There is no answer/Ed Tom's imagination' answer.

Anyway, thanks for such insightful words.

Wow. The title of a Stan Brakhage film actually appears in the Sun-Times... or at least in it's "extended" online edition. Never thought I'd see the day.
That other Sun-Times film critic seems above such things. Still, I don't expect to see much (any) substantive writing on S.B. here at the S.T. (ps: remember the recent piece by A.O. Scott in NYT, where he states that Ebert's writing "shows a nearly unequaled grasp of film history and technique" -- I'm not making that up. Hilarious.)

What's even more hilarious is that you had to use a juvenile pseudonym to post that puerile gibberish.

"Look at me take potshots at Ebert, Emerson, and the Sun-Times on their own site!"

Look at me fall asleep.

I know this is cheating but if you read the shooting script, it's pretty clear that Chigurh is in the same room. That being said, that's all that is clear. The scene is written in great detail but intentionally doesn't reveal how Chigurh got out.

As to some of the arguments about Chigurh being in the adjacent room, I think they're not well taken. The punch out hole is a clear signal. And, as far as killing Tommy Lee, Chigurh didn't kill people unless: 1) his personal code required it; 2)they saw him while he was "on the clock" (the two boys at the end saw him at a time when he was not on the clock)

I also disagree with the statement that the film is about going on in the face of death. To me the film actually advocates the opposite position; the characters act in defiance of certain death, not in adjustment or adaptation, but because of their own personal moral codes. That is what the film is about, in my opinion.

As Jones's character says of Chigurh, "I don't think he's crazy" He's not, not in the Hannibal Lecter sense. He is a souless hitman. He kills because it is his job and his code. Bell doesn't want to go into the room and doesn't really want to find Chigurh in their, but he goes in reluctantly, because it's his job and his code. Even Moss's character won't back down because his personal code of honor won't allow it, and even he knows he' doing the stupid thing. Consider his lines when he decides to return to the scene of the desert massacre. His wife's magnificent final scenes with Chigurh I believe state the movie's point almost out loud. She won't back down even though she knows what that the man is a killer and probably won't react well to being told "no".

I think it's clear he's in the same room and it's intentionally unclear how he got out. Bell's repitition of his lack of understanding of this kind of anarchical killing is being demonstrated.

Then again, I could be wrong.

I've already made my rant, but this conversation got me to finally watch "No Country" on DVD. I'd been holding out because I liked reveling in the mystery and didn't want the ability to pause and scrutinize. But pause and scrutinize, I did, and I found additional evidence that 112 isn't part of the crime scene. You can find it here if you're interested: a detailed analysis of the motel scene, as well as a celebration of the debates like these at Scanners. Thanks, Jim!

No idea where Chigurh goes. I really need to see the movie again, been a little while.

But could it be that Chigurh is just as nervous about running into Thom as Thom is running into him? Why he hides behind the door?