No Country for Old Men (2007): Joel and Ethan Coen Brilliant Version of Cormac McCarthy Novel

Cannes Film Festival 2007 (World Premiere, Competition)–Brilliant from first frame to last, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men,” a mesmerizing adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Cormac McCarthy, is their best film to date, an undisputed masterpiece that impresses on any number of levels. As of Day 4, it’s easily the best film in the festival’s main competition.

After a whole decade of making disappointing features, including the goofy and trivial “O Brother Where Art Thou” the unwatchable Tom Hanks-starring remake “The Ladykillers,” and the silly screwball divorce comedy “Intolerable Cruelty,” the Coen brothers have smartly gone back to their roots and to what they do best, as manifest in their “smaller,” more regional films, such as “Blood Simple” (1985) and “Fargo” (1996), arguably their last great work.

In many ways, the 2003 novel represents a perfect match between McCarthy’s uniquely American literary sensibility and the Coens’ uniquely American cinematic sensibility, resulting in the helmers’ most mature and poignant work to date, a contemporary Western that is effective both as a suspenseful thriller and as a philosophical meditation about the roots and nature of violence as an integral part of the American Way of Life.

In this and other respects, “No Country for Old Men” is the Coens’ least movieish work, one that is self-reflexive without being self-conscious, a film that is based on strong literary material rather than old Hollywood movies. Each of the Coens’ films up until now paid a tribute, or was inspired by, or was homage to a particular Hollywood genre and often a specific film. For example, the stylish black-and-white noir “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001) was more of a tribute to “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and countless classic noirs of the 1940s than a movie that had life and identity of its own.

In contrast, “No Country for Old Men” seems to be deceptively simple but is actually highly ambitious in its intellectual and metaphysical concerns, yet amazingly without being at all pretentious or overreaching.

The book (and the film’s plot) is set in 1980, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners, and small towns have become free-fire zones. However, as a movie, “No Country for Old Men,” like most good Westerns, transcends its particular historical time and geographical locale.

Anchored by three terrific lead performances, from Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem, and three supporting ones, by Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, and Tess Harper, “No Country for Old Men,” displays meticulous attention to detail, from the precise mise-en-scene to the calibrated tone to the visual look and ominous sound.

Visually striking, the first reel consists of two or three sequences that are nothing short of brilliant. A crime suspect, whose identity is unclear at this point, is arrested by an officer, but as soon as they arrive in the station, the suspect strangles his captor to death in the most primitive way–with his handcuffs. He then kills an innocent driver to get a car, using a gun made for slaughtering cattle. From that point on, the criminal– Chigurh (Javier Bardem)–walks around with one or two of these huge guns, often evoking nervous laughter just by his sheer appearance and serious way he goes about his “job.”

Story proper begins when hunter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds a pickup truck surrounded by a sentry of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. Later that night, when Moss returns to the scene of the crime (with a bottle of water for the one wounded man who’s still alive), he’s chased and shot by Chigurh. Missing his target, Chigurh unleashes his nasty dogs into a nasty chase that continues in the water. The river scene, with Moss trying to escape the swimming dogs behind him, is so powerful and outrageous scene that it inevitably evokes laughter and cathartic release when the dogs get shot in a close-up!

When Moss takes the money out of impulse, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the lawembodied by the aging and disillusioned Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones)–can contain. A single, random act of theft thus ricochets in many unforeseen and unpredictable directions, affecting the lives of numerous people along the way, with a carnage ratio seldom seen in an American movie (and that would include works by Tarantino and Rodriguez).
Moss’ decision to lift the money posits a moral dilemma for us as viewers, asking us to take stance, namely, given the situation, could we resist the temptation of doing the same thing Would we have gone to the police to report about the cash

As Moss tries to evade his pursuers-in particular the mysterious mastermind Chigurh who flips coins for human lives–the film simultaneously strips down the American crime drama, broadening its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as contemporary as headlines torn from today’s newspapers.

Like the book, “No Country for Old Men” features a visceral, multi-layered and contemporary saga, a sinewy, suspenseful, humor-spiked thriller that revolves around an honest American man who happens upon $2 million in cash on the Texas borderlands. Also like the novel, the movie offers a provocative meditation on good and evil in the modern American West, a place that has grown into a land more violent and lawless than the mythic frontier of yore.

Set in West Texas, the film is brilliantly shot by the Coens’ regular cinematographer Roger Deakins, who captures the austere and rugged landscape in stunning tableaux that match perfectly the spare dialogue and somber tone of the film. (According to the press notes, the movie was shot in New Mexico).

The film’s first hour is almost silent, with little dialogue and almost no music, depicting Chigurh chasing Moss, and then the Sheriff bringing up the tail. As co-writers and co-directors, the Coens emphasize the darkly humorous and humanly revealing interplay between Llewelyn Moss, after discovering the money in the wreckage of drug deal gone wrong, and the two antithetical men who are tracking him: the chilling psychopath Chigurh on the one extreme, and the towns profoundly decent Sheriff Bell on the other.

“No Country for Old Men” is the closest the Coens have ever come to making an action feature, in which most of the screening time is taken by numerous chases, of different kinds and lengths. Nonetheless, as usual, the Coens play with genre conventions and subvert genre expectations. For starters, the movie dispenses with simplistic psychology and dramatic motivation. There is no attempt to explain or to understand the behavior of the psychopathic killer Chigurh, or, for that matter, that of the good old American cowboy Moss, who not only risks his own life, but also the lives of his naive country wife (beautifully played by Scottish Kelly Macdonald), whom he clearly loves, and those around her, including her mother.

The movie is all about physical details, and quite impressively, the Coens don’t “cheat” in what they show or don’t show, or trick the viewers in any manipulative way, as the helmers have done in former films. Through bravura crosscutting and parallel montages, we get to see the “resourceful” ways in which Moss and Chigurh go about their business: How Chigurh kills in cold-blood after “chatting” with his victims, how he takes care of his endless wounds, how Moss hides the cash in one motel after another, how they almost meet or miss each other.

What adds considerable colorand humorto the proceedingsis the gallery of men and women the hunter and hunted meet along the way, from gas station attendants to store owners to motel managers to innocent teenagers and children, all of whom become crucial players in the labyrinth-like plot that continues to surprise up to the very end. Two or three sequences in which youngsters are involved across the border, with Chigurh and Moss negotiating (separately) for a shirt or another item are mesmerizing to watch, not least due to the cultural differences they accentuate.

The dialogue, most of which is sharp and crispy, conveys in brief strokes what we need to know about the characters, and then comes the last reel, in which Tommy Lee Jones (who was born to play the sheriff’s role) delivers a metaphysical speech about good and evil and basic mores of the American Way of Life. The very ending is quite poignant, but might upset some viewers since it’s abrupt and, once again, defies genre expectations.

Like Peter Bogdanovich’s elegiac (but not nostalgic) “The Last Picture Show,” based on Larry McMurtry’s seminal novel about life in Texas at the end of the 1940s, “No Country for Old Men” is at heart a story about the fast-approaching end of an entire way of Western life. The movie deals with the last stand of honor and justice against what’s become a broken world; the ongoing human struggle against the sinister; the dark comedy and violence of post-modern times; and the interplay of temptation, survival, and sacrifice.

The movie is very dark and extremely violenteven by standards of the Coen brothers—but it’s a rather faithful adaptation of McCarthy’s novel, its distinctly American themes, its rapid-fire pace, and its inky black comic tone. The Coens are able with their distinctive skills to transform McCarthy’s rich, wry, resonant, and often humorous storytelling into a bravura movie, based on striking images, spare dialogue, darkly humorous tone, and splendid acting from all around. (This review is already 1900 words, thus I will analyze the acting in another column)

It’s hard to imagine a better match for the dusky wit and stark humanity of McCarthys characters than the Coens. Watching “No Country for Old Men” inevitably brings to mind Billy Bob Thornton’s failed rendition of another McCarthy seminal novel “All the Pretty Horses,” several years ago. If memory serves, McCarthy has written about ten novels, and there is no reason why they should not provide fertile stories for other gifted filmmakers like the Coen brothers.

Credits

Running time: 122 minutes
MPAA rating: R

Paramount Vantage and Miramax Films
A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss production
Directors-screenwriters: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, script based on the novel by: Cormac McCarthy
Producers: Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Executive producers: Robert Graf, Mark Roybal
Director of photography: Roger Deakins
Production designer: Jess Gonchor
Music: Carter Burwell
Costume designer: Mary Zophres
Editor: Roderick Jaynes

Cast:

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: Tommy Lee Jones
Anton Chigurh: Javier Bardem
Llewelyn Moss: Josh Brolin
Carson Wells: Woody Harrelson
Carla Jean Moss: Kelly MacDonald
Wendell: Garret Dillahunt
Loretta Ball: Tess Harper;
Ellis: Barry Corbin
Man who hires Wells: Stephen Root
El Paso sheriff: Rodger Boyce
Carla Jean’s mother: Beth Grant
Poolside woman: Ana Reeder
Sheriff Bell’s secretary: Kit Gwin
Strangled deputy: Zach Hopkins
Man in Ford: Chip Love
Agua man: Eduardo Antonio Garcia
Gas station proprietor: Gene Jones
Managerial victims: Myk Watford, Boots Southerland
Desert Aire manager: Kathy Lamkin
Cabbie at bus station: Johnnie Hector
Waitress: Doris Hargrave
Gun store clerk: Rutherford Cravens
Sporting goods clerk: Matthew Posey
Mexican in bathtub: George Adelo
Hitchhike driver: Mathew Greer
Nervous accountant: Trent Moore
Hotel Eagle clerk: Marc Miles
Pickup driver: Luce Rains
Border bridge youths: Philip Bentham, Eric Reeves, Josh Meyer
Flatbed driver: Chris Warner; INS official: Brandon Smith
Well-dressed Mexican: H. Roland Uribe
Chicken farmer: Richard Jackson
Boys on bikes: Josh Blaylock, Caleb Jones
Odessa cabbie: Dorsey Ray
Norteno band: Angel H. Alvarado Jr., David A.
Gomez, Milton Hernandez, John Mancha

xosotin chelseathông tin chuyển nhượngcâu lạc bộ bóng đá arsenalbóng đá atalantabundesligacầu thủ haalandUEFAevertonxosokeonhacaiketquabongdalichthidau7m.newskqbdtysokeobongdabongdalufutebol ao vivofutemaxmulticanaisonbetbsport.fitonbet88.oooi9bet.bizhi88.ooookvip.atf8bet.atfb88.cashvn88.cashshbet.atbóng đá world cupbóng đá inter milantin juventusbenzemala ligaclb leicester cityMUman citymessi lionelsalahnapolineymarpsgronaldoserie atottenhamvalenciaAS ROMALeverkusenac milanmbappenapolinewcastleaston villaliverpoolfa cupreal madridpremier leagueAjaxbao bong da247EPLbarcelonabournemouthaff cupasean footballbên lề sân cỏbáo bóng đá mớibóng đá cúp thế giớitin bóng đá ViệtUEFAbáo bóng đá việt namHuyền thoại bóng đágiải ngoại hạng anhSeagametap chi bong da the gioitin bong da lutrận đấu hôm nayviệt nam bóng đátin nong bong daBóng đá nữthể thao 7m24h bóng đábóng đá hôm naythe thao ngoai hang anhtin nhanh bóng đáphòng thay đồ bóng đábóng đá phủikèo nhà cái onbetbóng đá lu 2thông tin phòng thay đồthe thao vuaapp đánh lô đềdudoanxosoxổ số giải đặc biệthôm nay xổ sốkèo đẹp hôm nayketquaxosokq xskqxsmnsoi cầu ba miềnsoi cau thong kesxkt hôm naythế giới xổ sốxổ số 24hxo.soxoso3mienxo so ba mienxoso dac bietxosodientoanxổ số dự đoánvé số chiều xổxoso ket quaxosokienthietxoso kq hôm nayxoso ktxổ số megaxổ số mới nhất hôm nayxoso truc tiepxoso ViệtSX3MIENxs dự đoánxs mien bac hom nayxs miên namxsmientrungxsmn thu 7con số may mắn hôm nayKQXS 3 miền Bắc Trung Nam Nhanhdự đoán xổ số 3 miềndò vé sốdu doan xo so hom nayket qua xo xoket qua xo so.vntrúng thưởng xo sokq xoso trực tiếpket qua xskqxs 247số miền nams0x0 mienbacxosobamien hôm naysố đẹp hôm naysố đẹp trực tuyếnnuôi số đẹpxo so hom quaxoso ketquaxstruc tiep hom nayxổ số kiến thiết trực tiếpxổ số kq hôm nayso xo kq trực tuyenkết quả xổ số miền bắc trực tiếpxo so miền namxổ số miền nam trực tiếptrực tiếp xổ số hôm nayket wa xsKQ XOSOxoso onlinexo so truc tiep hom nayxsttso mien bac trong ngàyKQXS3Msố so mien bacdu doan xo so onlinedu doan cau loxổ số kenokqxs vnKQXOSOKQXS hôm naytrực tiếp kết quả xổ số ba miềncap lo dep nhat hom naysoi cầu chuẩn hôm nayso ket qua xo soXem kết quả xổ số nhanh nhấtSX3MIENXSMB chủ nhậtKQXSMNkết quả mở giải trực tuyếnGiờ vàng chốt số OnlineĐánh Đề Con Gìdò số miền namdò vé số hôm nayso mo so debach thủ lô đẹp nhất hôm naycầu đề hôm naykết quả xổ số kiến thiết toàn quốccau dep 88xsmb rong bach kimket qua xs 2023dự đoán xổ số hàng ngàyBạch thủ đề miền BắcSoi Cầu MB thần tàisoi cau vip 247soi cầu tốtsoi cầu miễn phísoi cau mb vipxsmb hom nayxs vietlottxsmn hôm naycầu lô đẹpthống kê lô kép xổ số miền Bắcquay thử xsmnxổ số thần tàiQuay thử XSMTxổ số chiều nayxo so mien nam hom nayweb đánh lô đề trực tuyến uy tínKQXS hôm nayxsmb ngày hôm nayXSMT chủ nhậtxổ số Power 6/55KQXS A trúng roycao thủ chốt sốbảng xổ số đặc biệtsoi cầu 247 vipsoi cầu wap 666Soi cầu miễn phí 888 VIPSoi Cau Chuan MBđộc thủ desố miền bắcthần tài cho sốKết quả xổ số thần tàiXem trực tiếp xổ sốXIN SỐ THẦN TÀI THỔ ĐỊACầu lô số đẹplô đẹp vip 24hsoi cầu miễn phí 888xổ số kiến thiết chiều nayXSMN thứ 7 hàng tuầnKết quả Xổ số Hồ Chí Minhnhà cái xổ số Việt NamXổ Số Đại PhátXổ số mới nhất Hôm Nayso xo mb hom nayxxmb88quay thu mbXo so Minh ChinhXS Minh Ngọc trực tiếp hôm nayXSMN 88XSTDxs than taixổ số UY TIN NHẤTxs vietlott 88SOI CẦU SIÊU CHUẨNSoiCauVietlô đẹp hôm nay vipket qua so xo hom naykqxsmb 30 ngàydự đoán xổ số 3 miềnSoi cầu 3 càng chuẩn xácbạch thủ lônuoi lo chuanbắt lô chuẩn theo ngàykq xo-solô 3 càngnuôi lô đề siêu vipcầu Lô Xiên XSMBđề về bao nhiêuSoi cầu x3xổ số kiến thiết ngày hôm nayquay thử xsmttruc tiep kết quả sxmntrực tiếp miền bắckết quả xổ số chấm vnbảng xs đặc biệt năm 2023soi cau xsmbxổ số hà nội hôm naysxmtxsmt hôm nayxs truc tiep mbketqua xo so onlinekqxs onlinexo số hôm nayXS3MTin xs hôm nayxsmn thu2XSMN hom nayxổ số miền bắc trực tiếp hôm naySO XOxsmbsxmn hôm nay188betlink188 xo sosoi cầu vip 88lô tô việtsoi lô việtXS247xs ba miềnchốt lô đẹp nhất hôm naychốt số xsmbCHƠI LÔ TÔsoi cau mn hom naychốt lô chuẩndu doan sxmtdự đoán xổ số onlinerồng bạch kim chốt 3 càng miễn phí hôm naythống kê lô gan miền bắcdàn đề lôCầu Kèo Đặc Biệtchốt cầu may mắnkết quả xổ số miền bắc hômSoi cầu vàng 777thẻ bài onlinedu doan mn 888soi cầu miền nam vipsoi cầu mt vipdàn de hôm nay7 cao thủ chốt sốsoi cau mien phi 7777 cao thủ chốt số nức tiếng3 càng miền bắcrồng bạch kim 777dàn de bất bạion newsddxsmn188betw88w88789bettf88sin88suvipsunwintf88five8812betsv88vn88Top 10 nhà cái uy tínsky88iwinlucky88nhacaisin88oxbetm88vn88w88789betiwinf8betrio66rio66lucky88oxbetvn88188bet789betMay-88five88one88sin88bk88xbetoxbetMU88188BETSV88RIO66ONBET88188betM88M88SV88Jun-68Jun-88one88iwinv9betw388OXBETw388w388onbetonbetonbetonbet88onbet88onbet88onbet88onbetonbetonbetonbetqh88mu88Nhà cái uy tínpog79vp777vp777vipbetvipbetuk88uk88typhu88typhu88tk88tk88sm66sm66me88me888live8live8livesm66me88win798livesm66me88win79pog79pog79vp777vp777uk88uk88tk88tk88luck8luck8kingbet86kingbet86k188k188hr99hr99123b8xbetvnvipbetsv66zbettaisunwin-vntyphu88vn138vwinvwinvi68ee881xbetrio66zbetvn138i9betvipfi88clubcf68onbet88ee88typhu88onbetonbetkhuyenmai12bet-moblie12betmoblietaimienphi247vi68clupcf68clupvipbeti9betqh88onb123onbefsoi cầunổ hũbắn cáđá gàđá gàgame bàicasinosoi cầuxóc đĩagame bàigiải mã giấc mơbầu cuaslot gamecasinonổ hủdàn đềBắn cácasinodàn đềnổ hũtài xỉuslot gamecasinobắn cáđá gàgame bàithể thaogame bàisoi cầukqsssoi cầucờ tướngbắn cágame bàixóc đĩa开云体育开云体育开云体育乐鱼体育乐鱼体育乐鱼体育亚新体育亚新体育亚新体育爱游戏爱游戏爱游戏华体会华体会华体会IM体育IM体育沙巴体育沙巴体育PM体育PM体育AG尊龙AG尊龙AG尊龙AG百家乐AG百家乐AG百家乐AG真人AG真人<AG真人<皇冠体育皇冠体育PG电子PG电子万博体育万博体育KOK体育KOK体育欧宝体育江南体育江南体育江南体育半岛体育半岛体育半岛体育凯发娱乐凯发娱乐杏彩体育杏彩体育杏彩体育FB体育PM真人PM真人<米乐娱乐米乐娱乐天博体育天博体育开元棋牌开元棋牌j9九游会j9九游会开云体育AG百家乐AG百家乐AG真人AG真人爱游戏华体会华体会im体育kok体育开云体育开云体育开云体育乐鱼体育乐鱼体育欧宝体育ob体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育亚博体育开云体育开云体育棋牌棋牌沙巴体育买球平台新葡京娱乐开云体育mu88qh88