by Dennis Polifroni
CATEGORY: Neo-Western Films
“Films in this category reflect the traditions of the western film genre but are set in the contemporary, even urban, American West or frontiers beyond. While many films of this sub-genre can be considered Revisionist Westerns, the two are actually distinct categories. For example, the films of Roy Rogers were set contemporaneously to when they were produced, and one of Rogers’ sidekicks drove a jeep called “Nelliebelle”.
In distinguishing the sub-genres of films that use Western storytelling conventions, it’s useful to keep in mind the following distinctions: Revisionist Westerns are traditional Westerns in setting but incorporate contemporary values (Unforgiven). Contemporary Westerns use traditional genre conventions and values but transplant them to a contemporary setting (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia). Neo-Westerns adopt the conventions of Western storytelling but incorporate old values, transplanted to other settings (Star Wars).”
From Wikipedia
As damned near perfect a film to fire up the big screen in the past several decades, so Joel and Ethan Coen’s glorious adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winning writer Cormac McCarthy’s novel, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN makes the vie for placement as THE defining Western film of our generation.
Some bemoan the lack of personal reflection that THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES claims in droves, many turn their backs on the film for its lack of intense character analysis as seen in Anderson’s THERE WILL BE BLOOD. However, with those bitchings aside, the plot-heavy NO COUNTRY is so much more than just its nifty narrative. Looking closer at the film after many years since it’s sweep at the 2008 Academy Awards (where the film won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor), one knows that what they are seeing is far more than just a predicament driven foray into the realms of Noir story-telling.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, by rights, is a classic Western for the modern age. It’s a brutal study of the lawlessness that seemed to go into effect the moment the decade of the 70’s took it’s step into 1980 and the drug cartels that have been in place ever since cut a bloody swath on the South as they moved their product, violently, into the United States for even bigger mass consumption and financial gain. Thinking back to Brian DePalma’s over-the-top look at the same period, SCARFACE, NO COUNTRY shares with that film the same sense of doom that riddles the earlier, and in my view, lesser look at the greed and corruption that plagued the borders and dotted the States with more trouble than most ever thought possible. Ordinary people of the region were beginning to run from their homes in fear of getting caught in the cross-fire, and many stumbled in their intentions to join in for a piece of the action. It was a time and an area where ordinary people looked to join in on the inevitable to make a quick score and live like millionaires without much thought to the process and what it took to survive in a hysterical time. More often than not, those same ordinary people fell to the pavement, riddled with bullet-holes (or worse), and were never given more than a moments thought before they were forgotten and deemed an unfortunate soul that bit off more than they could swallow.
The plot of the film, and it’s a classic one, is a story about chance and how it befalls an innocent whose luck has hit the bottom of the barrel. By happenstance, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), an on-again off-again construction worker, whose laziness seems to exceed his disdain for a marriage he only half cares about, inadvertently stumbles upon a crime scene after the bullets have cooled and most everyone involved lays bleeding or dead on a desert clearing just north of the Mexican border. Tracking the blood trail of the last man standing, he comes to find the prize of the skirmish: A leather satchel loaded with millions of dollars that would have been traded for the Mexican brown heroin that lines the back of a pick-up truck that was ravaged in the battle. Looking over his shoulder only once, Moss silently makes off with the swag and a few discarded guns with the thought that his crime will see no victims or violence beyond what has come just a few hours before and didn’t involve him.
From a film-NOIR point of view, this is a classic plot structure that befalls the seemingly innocent. Yet, had Moss seen films like DOUBLE INDEMNITY, he’d have known that no ill-deed goes unpunished and, as the film progresses, he’s made all too aware that the machine-like structure of the noir genre will be set into motion and SOMEONE will be coming for the money.
But, you may ask, what does all of this have to do with the WESTERN GENRE?
Well, as the definition from Wikipedia (above) clearly notates, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a cross genre film that dots the plot with classic western themes and attributes that tip their hats to visionaries of the form, even though they take place in modern or contemporary times. If one were to take, simply, the work of, possibly, the greatest director of the western, John Ford, into account, then the taste and aroma of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN triggers off certain key flarings in the hypothalamus that bring us back to films like MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, THE SEARCHERS, STAGECOACH and many others from the great directors canon. The settings for NO COUNTRY are the first tip off and the deserts of the region and the tin-roofed dwellings of many of the key players are an immediate reminder we are in the territory of Ford and Mann and Leone. There is a desolate, silent vastness to these skylines that quickly remind us that death is often not heard or witnessed with so many miles of nothing in any direction. In the skies, we see clear hotness in the day and ominous blacks for the night. Shout as you might, no one will come running to help and, like many of the best moments in any of the classic films of the repertoire, gun-play and violent acts are often witness-less and the ripples of the act are often stumbled upon, days later, or related by a lucky, lone survivor that has crawled back to town to tell the tale.
The Brothers Coen, Joel and Ethan, have worked in this territory before. Their debut film, BLOOD SIMPLE, told the tale of crossed, criminal acts in the southwest and the doom that befalls the seemingly ordinary slackers of society quick to make a buck or fuck over someone that they think have worse coming to them. FARGO, though set in the snow, sees a lawman (or in that films case, law-WOMAN), hot on the trail of the ordinary man trying to get away with murder that befalls a get-rich-quick scheme that has balled out of control. There are the pure people from classic Western film tradition in both and, even more memorable, a villain (or group of villains) that try to roadblock the plight of the antagonists at every turn.
These characteristic can also be seen in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, but with one key difference.
I think that the real hook for the brothers, in there want to adapt McCarthy’s novel, was the presence of the Uber-villain. In so many classic Western films there is one man whose evil tops even the worst that will ever ride into town. With a film like MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, that evil is represented in the smiling anarchy that washes over the kindly Newman Clanton (a never better Walter Brennan), a man whose age and kind words disguises a psychopathy driven by what he sees as his rightful claim of every inch that is the region surrounding the town of Tombstone. In THE SEARCHERS, the evil will show in the racial paradox that courses through the veins of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne in, possibly, his very best performance). Edwards is a relentless figure who will stop at nothing to destroy the clan of Indians that kidnapped his beloved niece and, more than likely, willingly destroy her in the process for ever giving herself up to that clan when her own life was threatened during a violent kidnapping when she was just a little child.
Smiling psychopathy mixed with relentless drive to get what the villain thinks is rightfully his?
Look no further than NO COUNTRY’s Anton Chigur. In the role that won him critical accolades and the Oscar to boot, Javier Bardem’s automaton with the wild disco hair-bob is the essence of the western whacko on a mission from hell. Set out by the financiers that bank rolled the “monumental cluster-fuck” that became the bloody battle in the desert; Chigur is out to retrieve the money that was lost, kill anyone that stands in his way, and then, in the final coup, kill the financiers and make off with all the loot for himself. He is dead-eyed, emotionless, brilliantly intelligent, resourceful and, seemingly, everywhere you don’t want him to be. Like a train out of control and headed straight for a baby carriage left on the tracks, Chigur is a machine that cannot be stopped and whose moral code can not be compromised. If you think you have a chance for a reprieve, Chigur will only allow a pardon if a call to the flip of a coin favors your prediction. Llewelyn Moss, our so-called “innocent” protagonist, is now in the baby’s carriage and doesn’t realize how big the train is that’s coming.
The fascination in Chigur’s character by the brothers signifies the open door for them to explore the western form and then elaborate on it once he invites them in. As with the examination of some of the same themes in their later A SIMPLE MAN, Chigur represents the possibilities of the directors/writers want to examine the almost simplistic religious nature of doomed fate. It’s a theme in which fate is predicted from the start, as if God is moving the characters around like pieces on a chess-board and their success or bloody failure has already been pre-determined by the Almighty watching us from above. We all know, once Chigur is introduced, that Moss has sealed his fate by accidentally stumbling across that bloody patch of desert sand and, to bring back the points of reference that remind of the classic western form, will lead to a blood soaked showdown leaving the ill-prepared dead. What I have always admired about NO COUNTRY is that (both in book and film form), the story always points to an ironically savage denouement. We watch the first few minutes of the film and we KNOW that the bad will prevail in the end, the protagonist strung up by his miscalculations and misguided thinking in himself as stronger than pure evil. This itself, though not one of a kind, is a architectural blue-print for many of the films and TV shows that will rise in the wake of NO COUNTRY. Whereas the outcome of the plot seems to smile hopefully on William Munny in the film UNFORGIVEN (1992 d. Clint Eastwood), a classic western that sees goodness emerging from wickedness, the outcome, and themes, of NO COUNTRY predicts a wickedness inherent in all men, including the seemingly good, that is the thrust of Vince Gilligan’s immense neo-western television series, BREAKING BAD. That show, like NO COUNTRY, looks at evil lying dormant until a trigger sets it free. Walter Hartwell White, as played by Bryan Cranston on the show, is a relentless maniac hibernating until his time comes to take action and, in many ways, the character evokes many of the calculative, ingenious and murderous attributes that make Bardem’s portrayal of Chigur so monumental in the realms of character acting.
Finally, though, the thing that cements NO COUNTRY into the genre of the western film is the sense of time and place as evoked by the words spoken and the feelings of despair exuded in the words. Wisely, the brothers, keep the main character of the piece off the screen in the opening moments of the movie and allows Ed Tom Bell’s (a never better Tommy Lee Jones) thoughts about the times to act as a soundtrack to the desolate images of the region that flood the introduction of the movie. Here, with his thick southern drawl, Jones as Bell laments over the times gone by and the kind of moral code that seems to be the victim of a sudden, violent rape of the region he has acted as Sheriff in for well over two decades. There is a foreboding feel to his words, as if he is predicting our basest fears for the future of the world. They feel apocalyptic and, considering what has happened since those times, might be prophetic…
ED TOM BELL: “I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he’s pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough’d never carry one; that’s the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn’t wear one up in Camanche County. I always liked to hear about the old-timers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can’t help but compare yourself against the old-timers. Can’t help but wonder how theyd’ve operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the ‘lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn’t any passion to it. Told me that he’d been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he’d do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. “Be there in about fifteen minutes”. I don’t know what to make of that. I sure don’t. The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He’d have to say, “O.K., I’ll be part of this world.‘ ”
In those words, Bell recalls the classic western themes of films that made Ford the most well known director of his time. They are words recalling the moral code, that differentiate the good from the evil. But, as this is a “neo-western” it’s precisely those codes and themes that are set on their ears and allowed to be denigrated and molested by the evolution of ears passing by. It’s interesting, for when we recall films like Eastwood’s monumental UNFORGIVEN, we can see, easily, the hopefulness that was so much a part of the “classic” genre and the hopes that the antagonist had in thinking he’d put wickedness at bay forever.
Forever is a long time though, and what NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN does so exceedingly well, is remind us that the hopefulness for the future was just that, hope, and that, to quote Chigur, “you can’t stop what’s coming”. Like the old, classic westerns of years gone by, the hope is tainted with the possibility that the glorious age of simplistic values will slowly dissipate and a harsher, newer, slicker world will rise up. It is, truly, no country for old men…
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
(USA 2007 122m) DVD/Blu-Ray
p Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Scott Rudin d/w Ethan Coen, Joel Coen novel Cormac McCarthy ph Roger Deakins ed Joel Coen, Ethan Coen m Carter Burwell art Jess Gonchor
Tommy Lee Jones (Sheriff Ed Tom Bell), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells), Kelly MacDonald (Carla Jean Moss), Garret Dillahunt (Deputy Wendell), Tess Harper (Loretta Bell), Barry Corbin (Ellis)
Well your prose certainly highlights how much you love the film Dennis and enjoyed reading your analysis despite the fact I can’t agree with everything. I do agree it’s a masterpiece by any stretch but it didn’t make my list. I simply feel like a case could be made, as you hinted at, that this could be labeled a film noir. There is so much overlap going on in this film that it prevented me from highlighting it as a western. If it is a western it’s certainly in the neo western category. However, films like Bad Day at Black Rock with its contemplation of old west mob rule and racism is a bit closer to the pin for me. Additionally something like Lonely are the Brave is another neo western that I like alot. But this countdown saw more than one person that I greatly respect who voted for it and it was an individual thing that we based our criteria on.
Some will argue for the film as a western and some will argue against it’s inclusion. To be fair, I myself thought the film barely crossed the line from purest NOIR to NEO WESTERN. However, upon re-watching it again a few weeks back when we were originally making up our ballot on what we thought should be included, I began to notice many of the key ingredients that put it firmly in BOTH genres.
I like to think of NO COUNTRY as a NEO NOIR/WESTERN.
As always, JON, thank you for the support and kind words…
A terrific read. And I definitely had it on my list as a western (but I really liked the definitions at the beginning of the piece). BTW, I miss the rundowns on who voted on each film!
Yes! I was wondering the same thing. But, to be fair, the work that goes into re-reading all the ballots and then getting the results up on WordPress, I understand, can be an increasing annoying pain in the ass.
Thanks so much for the kind words and appreciation for the review, DEAN!!!!!
A fine review on one of the most wrote-about and talked-about films of the new millenium. Javier Bardem’s performance was and is impossible to shake. I think it is up for discussion as to whether one would classify this as a western.
Ahhh, FRANK…. One of my biggest supporters whenever I write my ponderings out… You always have something kind and interesting to say and I am always flattered and sincerely grateful for the words of encouragement.
Bardem is usually the deal sealer in the film even if the viewer is feeling touch and go with the film, on a whole, itself. His performance dominates every scene he is in and there is a foreboding sense of impending dread in the other characters of the film because his presence is always felt and anticipated. Only one other performance in the supporting category, I felt, was better (Paul Dano in THERE WILL BE BLOOD), but I made no disparaging comments or ill expressions when the lions-share of accolades in that category went to Bardem.
To be honest, though Bardem has the most obviously explosive character in the film, and he grabs your attention from word go, it’s the quiet, contemplative and deeply perplexed veteran lawman played by Tommy Lee Jones that wins my biggest affections and praise. I don’t think I have seen the actor better than in this role and he has such a comfortable lived-in feel for the character that I forgot I was watching one of the most famous actors in the world. Had it not been for Daniel Day-Lewis’s monumentally brilliant turn in THERE WILL BE BLOOD, I’d have pushed for Lee Jones as BEST LEAD ACTOR on my ballot in Allan’s “alternate Oscar” poll a few weeks back.
Finally, though, the thing that cements NO COUNTRY into the genre of the western film is the sense of time and place as evoked by the words spoken and the feelings of despair exuded in the words.
Persuasive point Dennis!!! Terrific incorporation of Thom Bell’s speech at the end laced with Fordian flavor, great examination of the Coens’ filmography, the apt definition of the western genre and a compelling explanatiopn of why this film qualifies, (time and place superly defined), the discussion of Bardem and the Uber villain, and reasons why the film is basically revisionism with this terrific sentence here:
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, by rights, is a classic Western for the modern age. It’s a brutal study of the lawlessness that seemed to go into effect the moment the decade of the 70’s took it’s step into 1980 and the drug cartels that have been in place ever since cut a bloody swath on the South as they moved their product, violently, into the United States for even bigger mass consumption and financial gain.
In the end your powerful assertion of lawlessness with an especially brutal context may provide the strongest case for the film as a western.
Top-drawer essay!!! Really masterful!!!!
The narration by Bell in the opening of the film, I feel, perfectly sums up the themes that will be explored in the film as it follows. Lee Jones reading of those carefully picked words and the longing for the things of the past sets the tone of the film and, in my mind, also firmly hones in on Bell as the main character even though he has less time on screen as the story progresses.
The change in the region from the 70’s into 1980 were almost frighteningly sudden (something that DePalma explores in far more graphic and violent ways in the cartoonish SCARFACE), but I think it’s the ideas of evil inherent in all men that interests me the most about NO COUNTRY and why I think it’s one of the major influences on Vince Gilligan for his tremendous NEO WESTERN series BREAKING BAD.
I also feel that the Uber-Villain, as represented in Chigurh, is directly connected, in some ways, to the kind of diabolical ingenuity of Walter White. They share the same lineage in many ways as both are calculative to the point of always being a step ahead of everyone, seemingly everywhere when you don’t want them and uncompromising in their intent. Chigurh, like Heisenberg, hibernates until his time comes to show himself….
As for this review? Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU so much for the praise. As you know, I was seriously trying to learn to pair down my pieces from the gigantic, probing essays I normally commit to paper. Both you and Allan have had an extremely helpful hand, in criticism and suggestion, about me saying more with less and, though this is no small piece, it’s more in tuned with the capsule reviews I like to read here on Wonders. That you really liked this piece tells me I am heading in the right direction. Don’t get me wrong, I think my essays on IT’S A GIFT and NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS are just the right length for everything I felt needed to be covered. However, with this one, I felt the themes and several key attributes of the film was enough to get my point across…
Thanks again, SCHMULEEEEEE!!!!!
I don’t believe I ended up voting for this film as a western. That is because it seems to me to be a straightforward film noir (neo-noir, I suppose), that happens to take place in Texas. Those are damned arbitrary reasons, and I’m not going to try to defend them. I think, as the Coen brothers show, more than once – and when we get to the Manns and Boettichers and the like in this countdown, we shall see a few more times – the difference between noir and western was never very clear cut. They invaded each other quickly, in settings and themes and everything else. You could probably make a case that Greed was both (long before noir was a recognized genre), with its California settings (city and country) and its corruption and venal tragedy… and certainly after the war, there’s a lot of overlap. And considering the fact that noir itself is a bit of a California phenomenon – Chandler and Hammett were California writers, and LA in particular is a significant site for noir – and often, the issues (land development, water and oil, etc.) are straight out of westerns – it’s hard to pull a wall between them.
Anyway, all that aside – amen to Dennis’ post. It’s a hell of a film…
Again, as with JON, it’s really a matter of opinion as to where the film places strongest in the respective genres. I feel it’s a cross genre piece and could be labeled NOIR or NEO WESTERN…
However, where you and I both agree is that NO COUNTRY is, has been, and always will be one terrific film with nary a skip in it. Truthfully, I always saw it as a pretty perfect film. The plotting is impeccable and never leaves a loose end. The themes are all perfectly explored. The atmosphere is perfectly realized in Deakins photography, Burwells wonderfully restrained score and the flawless use of locations and production design.
The performances are all perfect up to and including even the smallest characterization (I happen to think Kelly MacDonald is so spot-on in her portrayal that you are kinda surprised to hear her Irish accent on Boardwalk Empire or to realize she’s not really American-one of the best performances of 2007 in the supporting actress category), and the writing and direction is as tight as any of the top ten films of that year or, even, the best work from these filmmakers in their entire career.
It really is, when you look at it a second or third time or more, a really flawless work of cinema…
Dennis, i have mixed feelings about including this great film in the western countdown. We can all agree that there would be neither book nor film without the western genre tradition, and this story’s setting is obviously a strong argument for inclusion in the genre. While there are compelling arguments for seeing this as a western, I didn’t want to put it on my list because the more we get away from the time as well as the space of the classic western, the more questionable “western” itself becomes as a genre label. The viability of the western as a distinct genre depends either on setting — and here I allow for such outliers as Don’t Touch the White Woman, which stages a period western in 1970s Paris — or on the premise that the founders of the genre were telling a kind of story that had not been told before and thus could not be described simply as “adventure” stories. I note that Wikipedia refers to “western storytelling conventions.” This should mean storytelling conventions found originally in stories set in the West, or else it’s a false label. If we can agree that the western was a new and distinct kind of story and not just an old story in a new setting, we have license to find “westerns” all over the world. I suppose I’m uncertain enough about that to give priority to period westerns in my own countdown, but as you show, there are lots of good reasons to give No Country the benefit of the doubt.
Book and film can be seen as revisionist, especially in light of McCarthy’s The Road, which echoes No Country’s critique of a go-it-alone attitude represented by Llewelyn Moss and identified with the western genre. Chigurh is built up into an inexorable nemesis precisely so McCarthy and then the Coens can drive home the point that going it alone does not guarantee success. Whether it was a viable idea in the past or not, the implication is that by 1980 rugged individualism is neither remedy for or refuge from the sweep of evil. McCarthy seems worried that the entire moral tradition he treasures has been boiled down to rugged individualism, and seems convinced that rugged individualism alone is inadequate for carrying the fire, as it were. The Coens’ film is a great literary adaptation because it illustrates that point convincingly while sustaining the suspenseful illusion that Moss might prevail. Having Moss meet his fate offscreen, denying him a dramatic last stand, is a masterstroke aimed at the audience’s genre expectations that the filmmakers themselves had built up.
Meanwhile, how brilliant are the Coens? They managed to parody themselves twenty years in advance! For what is Anton Chigurh, for them, but the Biker of the Apocalypse portrayed in deadly earnest? Maybe that’s why they couldn’t help making him look a little silly.
SAMUEL,
I agree with you on so much of this.
The idea of rugged individualism as a failed response is certainly one of the biggest themes that McCarthy hones in on and the Coens have reacted to. It’s this base that also fuels BREAKING BAD, a show that owes a lot to NO COUNTRY, and proves that rugged individualism, while giving the protagonist just enough to satisfy him in the end, will likely result in demise because of the screaming hysterical individualism he feels separates him from lesser individuals or groups. Basically, bot bite off way more than they can swallow even in their ingenuity and resourcefulness.
Moss ends up dead and Chigurh is definitely wounded in both body and spirit in the end. But, what of Bell?
In my mind, the Coens and McCarthy are stating that the pulled-together institutions (many men with the same moral values) will prevail in the end, even if that end isn’t for many centuries to come. Sure, Bell retires and is perplexed by dreams that are a result of his confusion about the times that are upon him. However, in the sanctity of his loving home, he is safe and safe to believe that the moral code, though tainted, is still the best way to navigate the course.
Both Bell and the Sheriff he has coffee with in the diner towards the end of the film speak of Chigurh as a “ghost”, and perhaps he really is. But, one things for certain, the ghosts that Chiguhr and Walter White become (and this idea is brilliantly brought to visual pontification in the final episode of BREAKING BAD), are fleeting and know that their end time will come sooner rather than later. Chigurh walks off into the sunset in the end, horribly maimed and quite a bit dizzy from Gods fateful finger reaching down to stop him from being 100% successful. I think he’s heeding the warning that he should finish up quickly before he becomes a corpse like the ones he’s left in his wake…
Time and tide wait for no man.
God, if Samuel Wilson does not post spectacular comments here.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Sam….
Very fine thoughts which I
mostly agree with. As for McCarthy, is that Blood Meridian ever going to get made into a film? I fear it may not.
I actually hope it doesn’t. If it does, for it to be a really successful adaptation, the amounts of violence depicted on screen would be unprecedented. It’s just unrealistic.
I should clarify- the violence itself wouldn’t be unrealistic, but expecting a director to really depict it the way it was written in the book is unrealistic. Hope I didn’t confuse anyone there.
Yes, I agree….
If they really are going to do a FINE adaptation of this particular McCarthy novel, then one would be under the impression that the viewer had better be warned before entering the theatre. BLOOD MERIDIAN is a great novel and one of the most bloody violent books I have ever read…
I jumped into McCarthy after the success of NO COUNTRY on screen and just after he won the Pulitzer for THE ROAD (by the way-I loved the screen adaptation to that novel as well)…
The film is a combination of a lot of things, but I don’t think I would classify it as a western. These distinctions are all fairly arbitrary, and you make a good case for its inclusion as a neo-western, but personally I think the western is a genre that is so closely identified with particular iconography (i.e. the cowboy, frontier, small towns, etc.) that simply story telling themes/morals and archetypes aren’t enough to qualify it as a western, as opposed to something like noir which has a looser definition. All in my opinion of course- you make a terrific case for the film anyway.
Nearly two years ago, I started watching films seriously (or, more accurately, became a cinephile) and NO COUNTRY was at the forefront of this “great awakening”. I was so involved with the story that when it ended I was shook, in a good way. But I think I wore out its power by re-watching it so many times. First of all, it is such a hard film to approach knowing the outcome. Cynicism hangs heavy from the first lines, and that idea of predestination you talk about, that Moss’s fate is sealed once he takes the money in the desert, is part of what makes this film so hard to watch for me. It’s an old fashioned philosophy that God is in control of your fate and you are doomed to whatever the Almighty One has chosen for you, and frankly I don’t really agree with that. Where is the idea of reconciliation? Moss is fucked from the get go because all men are inherently evil? In McCarthy’s and the Coens’ world this is the impression I get, and I like to believe in real life this is not the case.
Another thing about the film that I’ve cooled on significantly is the character of Chigurh. I was once fascinated by his character but now he just seems to ring hollow for me. He’s just there. We don’t know anything about his past, how he came to be so evil, why he is so evil, and eventually I stopped asking these questions and just accepted him as a fancy plot device that ties into the whole predestination thing. I mean really, no one is like that in real life. Of course there are sociopathic criminals- just look at Marlo from THE WIRE or Walter White from BREAKING BAD, but in both cases we are given plenty to go off of when determining how and why they got to where they are today. Which leads me to say NO COUNTRY has a good deal of horror elements, and Chigurh is a fine horror villain, but little else. In short, his character is there for mystique and a lot of that has worn off for me.
I still like some things about the film though- it’s brilliantly directed, very economic and admirable in its formalism. The thriller/horror elements do work well in the set pieces, the initial chase in the motel is easily the film’s best scene. But they do wear off by the time Moss is dead, and that’s where the movie starts to lose me. Either way, stellar review, and subsequent comments (from everyone).
MIKE-
I think the predestination of the story and themes of the film are EXACTLY what I loved so much about NO COUNTRY.
In my own personal belief, I do think that much of what we call life is predetermined, that fate does have a lot to do with the person we ultimately end up sharing our lives with, when it’s time to die and how and the reactions to certain life decisions we make, seemingly, by our own accord.
Call it God if you want, but I cannot (as hard as I have tried) see us wandering the planet without some sort of guide pointing us in certain directions once decisions have been made by our actions or thoughts. The film is NOIR in the sense that every action has a REACTION from fate. The film is a WESTERN because of the various themes and visual attributes that can be found in classics of the form. Like I said in the review, I see NO COUNTRY as a cross-genre piece and its neither MORE Noir than it is MORE western.
As for the character of Chigurh. After Tommy Lee Jones portrayal of Ed Tom Bell, I think it’s the most arresting character portrayal in the film. While I have known NO sociopaths in my life, personally, I have had the fortune (I won’t say good or bad) of meeting people in my years of working in the bar business that were so driven in their work that they became scary and impossible to compromise with. Chigurh, I think, is meant to be an otherworldly spector of a sort. He’s the answer to the foulness that resides in all men who believe in fate and I think he’s a classic character that finds comfort in the world of noir story-telling.
To be honest… If the character was just a drug dealer our for revenge and stumbling as much as Moss does, then I don’t think the film or the book would have taken on such monumentally entertaining proportions as they do. I like the idea of the juggernaut screaming its way towards the unprepared.
Dennis I tap my stetson – my fedora is at the cleaners – to your enthusiasm and the effort you have put into your piece.
In anticipation of the Countdown I have been doing some homework on the Western by looking at some readings on film and genre, to get a better handle on what tagging a movie as a Western really means. I must say I am only more confused now than I was before. Granted I had a simplistic view to start with. I thought hey a Western is a Western – it’s not rocket science to figure it. In my reading I came across a couple of essays by Andre Bazin from a 50s issue of Cahiers du Cinema, which have me perplexed. Bazin makes a couple of comparisons that challenge my conception of a great Western. You know the French, they had this thing for auteurs. Guys like Nicholas Ray and Anthony Mann. So Bazin says Ray’s Johnny Guitar trumps High Noon, and Boetticher’s Seven Men from Now is superior to (btw my favorite Western) Shane. I read somewhere that a great Western is not necessarily a great film and vice-versa! which gives me some comfort. But Bazin does say something I can agree with: that great Westerns have a lyrical quality. Perhaps another translator would have written elegiac. If you look at Ford’s oeuvre across his silents to his prime this is a defining element. There is tension and ambivalence, but always an underlying depth.
All this by way of saying that you can feel No Country For Old Men is a great film – btw I don’t – and a great Western, but I don’t think you can invoke Ford as evidence that it is a Western. NCFOM is flat and characterisation slim. Not much is going on apart from a violent chase. It certainly can stand muster as a neo-noir, but there is very little to my mind that justifies calling it a Western or a “Neo-Western”, a term which is pretty tenuous and seems to have been pulled out of a hat with little or no thought. It is agreed universally that the Western is a genre, the conventions and tropes essentially established before 1939 and Ford’s Stagecoach. One film historian estimates Hollywood made over 5,000 Westerns before 1939, so if we are talking neo, then it is old already.
As for noir and the Western feeding on each other, I can’t see it. Firstly, film noir it is pretty well established is not a genre, more a style or aesthetic. Secondly, the Western genre was established well before Hollywood noir began to appear. Thirdly, noir is post-modern, a response to alienation in the emerging metropolis, while the Western is historically placed and pre-modern. Granted films like Blood on the Moon and Pursued have noir elements, but the noir and the Western owe nothing to each other.
My two cents.
TONY,
I understand, completely, the points that you make and they are definitely food for thought. The fine line between this film being a “Neo Western” and a straight forward “Noir” film are pretty razor-edged, and, the film itself sees as many detractors as it does fans.
The work of the Coen’s is not to everyone’s taste. The brothers seem to gain as many haters to their work as they attract lovers of each film. They have a bizarre outlook on everything, seem to be keeping an in-joke to themselves that not every one can readily decipher.
For me, the movie is a deadly accurate look at the hysteria that went into effect almost over night as the decade of the 70’s took it’s first step into the 80’s and the lawless craziness of the drug trade coming over the borders hit a fever pitch.
I was very aware of your dislike for the film from prior posts and reviews for NO COUNTRY in the past. The film is not everyone’s cup of tea.
However, part of the fun is in the diversity the film inspires in the criticism leveled at it. If there were no nay-sayers, these blog threads would be quite boring and we’d learn nothing in the process.
Still, your kind words for the review, in and of itself, are taken with a smile and a lot of thanks…
Dennis, this is a fabulous piece of writing. The critique is excellent but I am just in awe of some sentences which evoke visual images such as
..inadvertently stumbles upon a crime scene after the bullets have cooled…
That show, like NO COUNTRY, looks at evil lying dormant until a trigger sets it free. ..
I always felt this film dove in neo-noir territory like BLOOD SIMPLE but the topography appeared Western. However, the film didn’t inspire the same reactions in me that I know many friends had when this came out. I have not revisited the film since it first opened commercially but I am curious how I would react to it now, especially dipping in Westerns for the better part of the last months. And your essay does give me something more to think about since you evoked Mr. White.
Thank you, SACHIN!!!!
Without going into the kinda personal connection history that usually forms the basis for most of my reviews (example: see my pieces on NOSFERATU or IT’S A GIFT)…. Here, I took the crossing of two distinct genres (NOIR and WESTERN) and tried to play up the verbal artistry of writers of western bubble gum novels and Elmore Leonard. I was trying, in certain passages, to give the piece the kind of hard bitten descriptive prose that guys like Chandler used to so often to hysterically biting effect.
As for Mr. White?
In my many discussions about Gilligan’s BREAKING BAD with SAM, I have often said that the influence that NO COUNTRY has had on that series is incalculable and acts as a sort of blue-print for it in gritty theme and atmosphere…
I don’t think I need to tell you, as I am sure so many have seen in posts to Monday Morning Diary’s of the past several weeks, that I am deeply saddened by the loss and the finality of the show. It’s been a favorite of mine for the past 6 years, I consider myself one of the supreme fans of the show, and I never missed an episode. I don’t know what I am supposed to do with television from the States now that Heisenberg and company are a thing of the past…
I’m just so glad that the show went off the air on such a high, critically acclaimed and fan-loved, note.
Yes, BREAKING BAD is also my fav TV show. My second fav is JUSTIFIED which I think unites the two genres you mention, NOIR & WESTERN. It is not a surprize that Elmore Leonard wrote the original story from which JUSTIFIED was made. I think Leonard found a way to fuse the two genres he wrote and made an Urban noir Western. I have only seen the first 3 seasons of JUSTIFIED and I love almost every episode. JUSTIFIED does not come close to having the intricate plot & narrative arc of BREAKING BAD but the dialogues in JUSTIFIED are incredible. Also, the running time of each episode of JUSTIFIED is on an average 10 min less than most shows, so that allows each episode to trim off some un-needed time.
So if you have not seen JUSTIFIED, you should give it a go. It won’t make up for BREAKING BAD but it will help provide some Southern Comfort 🙂
The “Southern Comfort” you speak of isn’t the reason I fell head over heels for BREAKING BAD. No, there was a pure fascination about the game that Heisenberg was playing, one that he liked (and we all knew this way before he revealed his true feelings in the end), one that he controlled, I think, from the get go. For me, it was ALWAYS about Heisenberg out-witting and staying one step ahead even though everyone thought he was falling behind.
Then there are the great individual moments that dot the series that just are, cinematically, one of a kind (SPOILER ALERT). The airline accident, Jane’s demise. The introduction of Saul. Mike using the balloons to help ransack the chemical warehouse. Walter coming to Jesse’s rescue and telling him to “run”. The Leone-esque meetings in the desert with Gus. Mike’s haunting and chilling story about “half-measures”. The fly. These are moments that give much of what is up on the big screen a run for the money with it’s endless ingenuity, brilliant performances and cinema worthy visual design.
The show is so much more than just a nifty neo-western for the 21st century. It’s proof that the future of movies is no longer only in theatres…
As for JUSTIFIED? Thank you. I was considering it for one of the next series I wanted to explore and I’ve almost jumped on it a few times in the past. Now, with a glowing recommendation I will waste no time and grab up the Blu-Ray’s as soon as I can get my hands on them!!!!!!
Dennis, I meant southern comfort in relation to JUSTIFIED. I would never associate it with BREAKING BAD 🙂 JUSTIFIED is all about the region & that adds to its atmosphere. Oh and it about the bourbon as well.
I also used southern comfort because bourbon & a glass of drink are an integral part of JUSTIFIED, even though southern comfort & bourbon are not the same. When E15 of BREAKING BAD S5 ended with a shot of an alcohol glass, I felt the show finally tied a thread to JUSTIFIED. But I have no idea what Walt was drinking. Whiskey perhaps..that could be close enough. I lost count how many times bourbon is drunk in each JUSTIFIED episode.
That was a brilliant review Dennis. I love this film, its my favourite film of the last decade, so much depth.
I know what you mean, MOVIEFAN, it’s a movie that is so hard to dislike. It’s gripping, bizarre, brilliantly plotted, horrific, sometimes funny and always, and this is the key with just about any Coen Bros. film, so much fun that you cannot look away…
Thank you for the kind words. As always, your support is always taken to heart!!!!!
Late to the party, but like others I’m ambivalent about classifying the film as a Western – to the extent that I worry much about classification at all (I’m also that rare eccentric who prefers to make genres – including styles or even mediums, i.e. “noirs” or even “documentary” or “animation” – mutually exclusive, at least when drawing up categories, directories, and the like; this admittedly makes little sense when something like Snow White is quite clearly animation AND musical, but I digress…).
To me, a Western must be a period piece (pre-World War I) – to relate an amusing example, nobody would classify Fast Times at Ridgemont High as a western, yet it takes place in (roughly) the same region and time period as No Country. The difference, I suppose, is that – at least in part – No Country uses locations and images that haven’t changed drastically since the days of the Old West. But then I find myself asking in what proportion must those locations/images predominate? What if there was half an hour less of the empty desert, and half an hour more of motels and cityscapes in No Country? At what point would the Western classification seem unjustified? Better to draw my line in the sand or stake my claim or choose-what-Western-analogy you will…
Of course, such considerations are ultimately fun but trivial. Whether or not No Country is a “Western” or “neo-Western” it obviously plays on and with Western motifs in very compelling ways. I was blown away by this film in ’07 though I haven’t seen it since (and am now reminded there is a copy sitting in my closet just ten feet from where I’m typing this now). I’ll have to see it again soon, and enjoyed reading your essay which will perhaps inspire me to do so soon..
And no, I haven’t seen Breaking Bad yet either. But I know it will probably be as addictive as Meth, so I’ve been postponing the plunge…
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