No Country For Anybody, Really
A brief thought about the much lauded and Oscar Winning No Country For Old Men, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy and adapted and directed by those typically wacky Coen brothers (they of Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother, Where Art Thou fame, among many many others):
(ATTENTION: PLOT SPOILERS FOLLOW. NOT EXPLICITLY, BUT IN THE FORM OF THEMATIC COMMENTS THAT WILL GIVE YOU SOME PRETTY GOOD IDEAS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THE FILM.)
I read the book on which the movie is based, and I have also seen a play written by Cormac McCarthy, and not coincidentally the theme of these two works was pretty similar. I'll get to the specifics of that theme in a minute, but for now let's just say that it is a theme that substantially contradicts my personal nature, right down to the core.
Because I knew what I was getting in to, I was able to watch No Country For Old Men with a significant amount of emotional detachment, focusing on the artistry rather than being dragged below the waves by the pervasive bleakness. Aesthetically speaking, in just about every aspect, it is one hell of a movie. Javier Bardem is downright terrifying. Tommy Lee Jones is vintage Tommy Lee Jones, a casting choice that any of us could have made in our sleep, but one that is nonetheless dead on. There was no other actor for that role. The other performances are also excellent. More than anything, however, the movie just looks amazing. It captures the spare, brutal beauty of rural Texas in perfect tones and shades. The interior shots are wonderfully lit. The action scenes unfold in an interesting and for the most part plausible manner. The near-total lack of a soundtrack is a riveting choice. Every single element of the movie fits perfectly together in terms of aesthetics and tone, and every one of those elements supports the same overarching theme in my mind, and that's where my disconnect comes along.
Here, in my personal opinion, is what No Country For Old Men has to say about America, about Life, about The Human Condition:
There is in this world a rising tide of pure, unmitigated evil, one that does not threaten, but rather promises to overwhelm us. It will destroy reckless dreamers, helpless innocents, uninvolved bystanders, and well-intentioned protectors alike without pause and without quarter. There is no hope. No amount of running can escape it, and no amount of opposing will overcome it. This rising tide is unstoppable, and the only choice is to succumb: die or get out of the way.
I don't think I'll get too much argument about this from those out there who have seen the movie. I know of one person who has a somewhat different take, and he might choose to offer that up, but I feel like I've pretty well nailed the intentions of McCarthy and the Coen Brothers.
And this, good people of America, is the Best Picture.
I'm not advocating a different choice for the award. I only saw this one, Juno, and Michael Clayton, but from what I hear Atonement and There Will Be Blood are similarly devoid of hope. The choices aren't the point. The point is this, and it echoes a long-running debate I've had with a good friend about the movie Seven: If you as an actor, a writer, a director, a producer, a designer (etc.) have the level of talent to create a movie of this artistic quality, why are you spending that talent telling me something that I can learn by reading three pages of almost any section of any newspaper? The news that you bring to me is that humanity is flawed to the point of despair? That people are capable of unspeakable cruelty to one another and there is nothing to consider beyond that point? That no amount of effort, no amount of will, no amount of good intention, no amount of innocence is sufficient to counteract - or, really to in any minuscule way mitigate - the forces of darkness, evil, and depravity? That essentially, finally, and fundamentally, the story of being human is the story of being without hope?
Really? This is what you bring me? Next time, take your hours and hours of work, your unspeakable talents, you amazing eye and your way with words, and keep them to yourself, please. I have divorce and Iraq and genocide and rape and infant mortality and cancer and infidelity and heartbreak and failure and every other grim fact of real life to make a pretty strong argument that hope and redemption are hard to come by.
And let me make this clear: I do not want rainbows and puppy dogs. I am not an idiot who believes that life is a simple happy ending. What I want is hope. What I want is the tiny moments of joy and beauty. What I want is the smile on Lester Burnham's face as he lies dead in a pool of his own blood. What I want is one tiny morsel to cling to that yes, this really is all worth it, and yes, it all really does mean something, and yes, we can get through it, and yes, there can be redemption.
This is not too much to ask. It just isn't.
Sermon over. Stepping down off the soapbox now.
posted by Tyler @ 12:25 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
While I understand the point that you're making, I must say that I disagree at least slightly. I took away a bit of a different meaning. That simply being Fate.
Tommy Lee Jones is struggling to deal with the fact that times are changing. And the world has gotten to the point where he doesn't understand it. He talks about in the beginning where the sheriffs prior to him didn't even carry a gun. The reasoning I believe is because if it was their time, then as the fatalists say, it was their time.
The world changes. People change. When Llewelyn finds the money. That was money he was never meant to have. He can't change the fact that he lives in a trailer and has very little money. He was fated to do so. Though he tries to hang onto and protect the money, he cannot because he's not fated to do so. The wise thing for him to do would have been to have kept the money and not gone back to give the dying man water. But he didn't. More importantly, he couldn't.
I think Jones' retelling of the dream at the end of the film cements this fact. When he says his dad passes him and goes into the cold night with materials to build a fire, he knew he wouldn't see him for a while, but he figured when he did, he knew his dad would be there. There wasn't anything he could do to get his father to slow down and ride with him, but only that when it was time to catch up to him, he would.
Jonesy, I agree with you that the role of fate figures pretty largely in this film, but I'm not sure that it really changes my take on the movie's message (not that you were trying to change that take, just to add to it). There is indeed a fundamentally fatalist bent to the whole story. Once Llewelyn picks up that money, the whole series of events slide right into place, and nobody can escape them. The Fates decided that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother, and he had about as much luck as Mr. Moss in getting away from that.
This really does just add to the bleak outlook, though. It just adds to the powerlessness of the human condition, especially in the face of the aforementioned evil. We're trapped. I don't like it.
Random but related theatre history dork fact:
Shakespeare was extremely popular on the rough and tumble 19th century American stage. Even the working class rowdy types (think Bill the Butcher loved Hamlet and all the bloody tragedies. But the Greek tragedies were of no interest to those audiences. Why? Because the Greeks believed in the dominance of Fate, while Shakespeare gave humanity more agency, more power. Sure, it all ended up in a pile of bodies, but not without some serious effort, action, and swordplay.
So I'm Bill the Butcher, and I slash your fatalist movie.
"This is a wound. This is a kill. This is a kill."
We have to believe in free will. We have to believe in hope. Without hope and free will, there is no reason to strive to be a better person, no reason to try to understand your fellow man, no reason to treat him with respect.
If there is no free will and no hope of obtaining redemption then no one can be held accountable for their actions. They simply were fated to be that way. There is no success, no failure, no mediocrity. There is only existence. The world would go mad if we believed in that sentiment.
However, it could be very possible that we aren't in control -- that there is some higher power pulling the strings, and we're just here doing the things we do without any real choice in the matter. But, nonetheless, we've got to believe in choice and redemption and hope simply because those are things that are worth believing in. There are certain mysteries to our lives and our world that we will never be able to discover all the answers to in this lifetime. But,it's important to go on believing in them just the same.
We need to believe that doing simple kindnesses for others really is worth it. We need to believe that good really does triumph over evil and that love can still conquer all. We need to believe that there is good somewhere within us all. These sentiments are trite and cliche, perhaps, but I would gaurantee more happiness, more love, and more life to those who believe in them, in comparison to those who submit to the messages of that movie.
In regards to his play I still contend that at the end of some performances White was not going back to the train station.
And I thought that that view of the play was exceedingly optimistic of you and, to be honest, not an accurate reflection of the text. I think that if a character is going to do something after the play is over, it's the same thing after every play, in the same sense that what they do during the play is the same thing (essentially) every night. It's like the stage manager says after the intermission of Recent Tragic Events: "Everything that you're about to see can only ever happen one way."
But that's just my opinion about art and authorial intention. It is totally legit to create better afterstories for the characters. Plus, you had to work on the show, so for your own mental health it probably shouldn't have ended in suicide every night.
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