The Philosophy of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN – Wisecrack Edition

What's up, Michael joke? Here and today we're talking about cinema's other coin-flipping nihilist, while most agree that no Country for Old Men is brilliantly made somewhere frustrated by watching a high-octane Western end with an unsatisfying monologue about the dreams and not with a heated anticipated confrontation how did you sleep I don't know you had dreams well you have time for them now there is always something interesting for the party involved so what does this conclusion mean and why didn't the movie end with a bang? but with a groan, let's find out in this witty

edition

on the

philosophy

of no

country

for old men and, as always, spoilers ahead, okay guys, let's do a quick summary adapted from author cormic mccarthy's 2005 novel of the same name, no Country begins when cowboy Llewellyn Moss stumbles upon a desert drug deal gone wrong in a moment of weakness.

Moss steals a briefcase containing two million dollars of a large corporation's money, leading them to send the ruthless Killer Anton Chagur is after him, meanwhile, elderly Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is tasked with following in Sugar's footsteps. Grizzly trails in an attempt to reach Moss before Chigurh does, the corporation sends another murder train after Moss and a Mexican cartel seizes the cash killing Moss in the process, there are more gruesome murders, the money disappears and Chigar escapes, causing a despondent Sheriff Bell will hang up his spurs at the end. Bell reflects on what happened and reflects on a pair of seemingly unrelated dreams, cut to black.

First part. Classic Westerns to understand what exactly is happening in this movie. We'll have to start at the beginning. In the film's opening scenes, the Coen brothers borrowed tropes from the classic Western genre, such as in the opening sequence in which sweeping landscapes contrast with highways, power lines, and other man-made structures, a common juxtaposition in classic Westerns. which highlights the American colonists' struggle to domesticate a Similarly, classic Westerns often deal with justice as the colonists attempt to build societies and administer law and order. These films are based on clear binary archetypes and symbols. Film scholar Will Wright lists some of these simple oppositions in his book Six Guns in Society, One Character Is Inside. or outside of society, strong or weak, good or bad, these clear divisions imply an absolute morality that law enforcement officers must fairly enforce, enter Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who wears a royal white hat, a classic indicator of virtue and comes from a long line of sheriffs.

The lawman, the father, also throughout the story, Bell believes that as an officer of the law, he is subject to a strict moral code, what does he say about truth and justice? Oh, we're dedicating ourselves daily again, something like that, I'm going to start dedicating myself twice. daily could reach three times before it ends with belle is an almost flat representation of justice that a good sheriff seeks in contrast anton chagura seems to represent the classic western villain he is dressed in black when we first meet him he is handcuffed immediately indicating his anarchy, oh and if you weren't sure he does this, we later see Sugar shoot a bird for no reason, another hallmark of the Western villain often called a kick-the-dog moment.

Famous examples of this include Seekers and Hondo, all of which feature bad guys. killing or abusing a dog, letting us know that they are the worst, this trope is also spoofed in burning saddles and even the coen brothers' own upbringing in arizona, so at first glance it seems that no

country

could be a classic western, but the cohens quickly complicate things. second part revisionist westerns sheriff bell's opening monologue hints that times have changed and so has crime you can't help but compare yourself to the veterans i couldn't help but wonder how they had operated in those times after he and wendell find the The trigger of the burning car is was left behind and when Bell theorizes that the trigger changed the vehicles, they have this exchange that is very linear.

Sheriff's deputy flattens the Wendell man here. Bell recognizes that this old dog can't keep up with the new tricks of the modern west, in other words, Bella. a relic of the classic Western's past can't comprehend this new reality that seems more akin to the next phase of Western movies. Revisionist Westerns began in the 1950s and 1960s. The heroes of these films, sometimes called revisionist Westerns, represent a morally gray or morally relativistic world in which people have to adapt to survive. In his book The Six Gun Mystique, the sequel, historian John G. Kalady explains that revisionist Westerns often display critical and ironic attitudes toward some of the more traditional mythical characters associated with the Western, such as the heroic gunslinger, in others In other words, revisionist westerns are modern stories in a classic western setting that wrestle with America's disillusionment and soul-searching, so in No Country for Old Men, Belle is juxtaposed with Llewellyn Moss, the real hero. or rather the revisionist Western antihero of history who does dubious things like stealing briefcases full of money but then returns to the crime scene to bring some water to a dying man instead of a white-hatted paragon of justice, is an opportunistic attempt to navigate a morally ambiguous world, another kick-the-dog moment further distinguishes our two heroes from the start, Moss is forced to shoot an aggressive dog minutes later when Belle and Wendell arrive at the scene of the drug business, they are horrified that the bad guys have also killed. a dog, oh hell, they even shot the dog one that looks almost identical to the only one moss shot here bell's clear ideology is complicated by the morally ambiguous situation moss found another important aspect of revisionist westerns has to do with nature of justice in these films, justice often takes the form of karma or you reap what you sow, a kind of cyclical retribution rather than coming from the law, so people who make a living from violence often die. because of violence.

We see this version of justice when the moss on the brink of death crosses over. to Mexico and they extort him for money look you have to give me this money I have no other reason to protect you the scene creates a kind of cyclical moral logic moss is reaping what he has sown when he wakes up in Mexico the song that a mariachi group sings translates as you wanted to fly without wings you wanted to touch the sky you wanted too much wealth you wanted to play with fire in the revisionist western tradition no country seems to suggest that justice could come from outside the law, but it still exists and is understandable, but there are still elements that complicate this understanding and perhaps suggest that justice cannot be done.

Part 3: chaos reigns. Let's go back to sugar at the beginning. He appears to be a traditional, flat villain, but in reality he is much more complex. Take this fundamental gas. station scene, a traditional villain would simply murder the station owner, but instead, Choker leaves the man's fate to chance. There is something wrong in the world with anything. That's what you're asking me. Is there something wrong with something here? It mocks the very notion of Good or Evil, in other words, sugar is not in fact a strictly evil force, but rather an agent of chaos. Similarly, although we see Triger shoot the bird in a classic kick-the-dog moment, the next time he encounters an animal, the cat in the hotel leaves.

It Living Chigurh's actions again seem random and follow no apparent rule except the rule of absolute chaos. Sugar explains this to Carla Jean Moss at the end of the film when he insists that she call a coin toss to decide her fate. Carlo Jean attempts to reason with sugar, but he rejects his logic, call it the coin, I have nothing to say, it's just you, I got here the same way the coin is in Jakur's mind, there is no order, only possibility, another form of cohen, so chaos is by introducing intruders. characters that functionally introduce unpredictability or chance.

Author H.H Monroe, also known as Saki, popularized this idea with his 1911 short story. Intruders In the short story, two men confront each other in the woods to resolve a family dispute, but after becoming trapped under a fallen log, the men They make peace. only for them both to be devoured by wolves the intruders of the same name at the end in no country for old men there are many intruders that randomly and unexpectedly interfere with the plot we meet our first intruder from the beginning mosh shoots a deer but a black dog out of nowhere and steals the wounded animal for himself, in fact, the dying man Moss finds warns him that more intruders lurk nearby. and wolves there are wolves.

Moss insists that there be no wolves, but when he returns to bring the dying man some water, he does indeed encounter wolves. The form of the Mexican drug cartel, which functions throughout the story as unpredictable interlopers, clearly reigns supreme in Cohen's Western chaos, but the film's strongest rejection of all Western tropes really coalesces in the third act. , when things get even stranger. Sugar has the opportunity to recover what was stolen from Moss. money, but he says, no, you can keep the money, anton, why? Because, as we've seen, Chager isn't here to make money or make sense.

Its violence is chaotic and nihilistic and relies heavily on the notion that fate is an uncontrollable force that governs all our lives. They strike the neo-Western note that gender terms are constantly questioned by theorists who could call no country a new western, late western, postmodern western, or any number of other terms that exist to make us feel a little crazy, but others consider it simply to be the next phase of the post-western revisionist tradition, but let's use the term neo-western as it is conventionally understood. to refer to contemporary stories that incorporate generic Western themes and tropes to critique the myths of the West while also incorporating Other genres range from film noir to horror, so, anyway, the neo-western of which no country is basically an example is often characterized by a much darker vision of the American West, something important, as scholar Lee Clark Mitchell explains in his book Late Westerns, these films are usually I trust their viewers to understand the language of the Western and use our familiarity to undermine our expectations because the Cohens know we'll register the film's cinematic language, from the Stetson boots to the distinctive Texas drawing, like a Western they can have fun playing with.

In our minds and hearts, this is where we must keep in mind that neo-westerns that do not include any countries often draw heavily on the traditions of another classic American film genre, film noir. This is nothing new for the Coen brothers, who have been called the epitome of the neo-western. film noir's push into the 21st century its genre instincts are certainly on display in no country. This is made clear in the opening sequence that we already reviewed the way in which wide-angle shots of extensive landscapes are shown to place us in a classic Western comfort zone in the At the same time, although these images are accompanied by the voice-over of 90 seconds of Sheriff Bell about his own life's feelings and reactions to social violence, killed a 14-year-old girl.

The newspaper said it was a crime of passion, but he told me yes. If you're passionate about it, this technique is much more characteristic of noir films, which often use voice-over to establish the mood and give insight into the psychological plight of a protagonist. You say to yourself: How hot can Acapulco get? You discover that he knew him. She had to end here because if you want to go south this is where you get the ball. This immediately establishes the two genres the film will struggle with. Cohen's noir intentions are also signaled to us when Carla Jean watches the flight to Tangier in a black and white tv a classic film noir that actually reflects the plot of no country featuring a search for a huge amount of money and three central characters wandering around in cars and crossing borders between countries throughout its tense hours, no country fully employs the black language if I liked closing deals why wouldn't I deal with this guy, honey?

Oh no, you don't understand, you can't make a deal with him, even if you give him the money back, he'd still kill you just for bothering him so much. that Mitchell argues that the film basically has dueling genres with the western literally facing off against film noir in a way that our villain never fully confronts the hero. This is seen in several ways: the filmquickly abandons the open desert for the dark interiors of motels and automobiles, much more typical of film noir, which frequently explores themes of morality lost in the labyrinth of modern life, high contrast lighting also abounds, with many solitary characters sitting in a ramshackle room lit by a long-suffering lamp.

Use of high and low shots that serve to disorient us and dissociate us from our characters, while the film relies on aggressively intense close-ups that create a feeling of deep isolation that is only magnified by each character's tendency to be alone in the screen, what's more, the plot, instead of being simple, is full of dead ends that only serve to disorient us, such as the late introduction and almost immediate elimination of Carson Wells. All of the above is again typical of the film noir seen here. The way Sheriff Bell is basically a classic Western character airdropped into a neo-Western, hence his complete bewilderment at the violence and depravity surrounding him.

Luellen Moss as a revisionist Western character who is morally gray but is still someone you can root for and who has also been transported to a neo-Western world where there really is no fundamental sense of justice; Instead, the film ultimately stays true to the most classic themes of film noir: that the world is filled with inexplicable evil and that humans are helpless against the forces of destiny, as scholar Christopher Wells put it. Every film noir is the shadow land of a lost paradise, a fallen state that represents the underbelly of the American city as a world of violence and chaos.

It sounds familiar, but it's Cohen's ultimate subversion of the audience. Expectations occur during the climax—whether we're watching a classic or revisionist Western or a comedy thriller about a top executive in diapers, we expect the hero and the villain confront each other, but instead, a random unknown character takes Moss's life off-screen, no confrontation with sugar, no meeting with carla jean, just the ultimate narrative, blue balls and this is where we have to talk about violence in the west, typically violence in classic and to some extent revisionist western films can achieve justice, the good guy kills the bad guy and all is well. in the world, but in no country, violence does nothing, it's so useless, in fact, it eventually just disappears completely with the deaths of Carla Jean and Llewellyn happening off screen and the violence ultimately amounts to nothing, no Will there be justice in Cohen's dark vision of the American West or will there later be teased with the possibility of a climactic confrontation when Bell returns to Moss's hotel room and we see Chigurh waiting inside, it's time for a showdown, not so fast Instead, all we get is nothing more. that his shadow on the wall, a nod to the confrontation we all wanted, the shot perfectly displays the film's fundamental tension between western and noir tropes, presenting shades of classic noir while depicting the typical western cowboy who has literally become a shadow of what he once was, however, there is one last chance for cosmic justice when Trigger gets into a random car accident and we can hear the police approaching.

It is a kind of higher power that provides justice. No, just pay some kids who, like all the other characters, fight over money and unleash chaos personified. walks into the sunset as the western hero, he definitely isn't in the end, it's a lot of bad things for the audience, like Bell, we don't understand why the higher powers, i.e. the filmmakers, deny us any morally sound sense of justice , If there is one. the form of justice prevails its triggers who at least keeps his promise to kill carla gene i am a man of his word this perverted vision of justice seems much more film noir than western meanwhile bell gives up essentially admitted defeat almost like the western admits its defeat against the nihilism of film noir.

Later, when Bell reflects on the unexplained crimes, he expresses his desire to gain meaning from a higher power, again sounding like a film noir character, looking back regretfully on his life. I always thought when I grew up that God would somehow come into my life, he didn't, I don't blame him, I advise him to have the same opinion with me and he does. Bell's final monologue reflects our desire to be comforted with morally satisfying outcomes, but as we are about to see that that won't happen for either Bella or us because it's chaos, but what do you think isn't a country? for old guys who borrow Western tropes only to confuse our expectations by concluding as a film noir or that the Coen brothers are just cinema?

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