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No Country For Old Men
Johnny C:
The reason I think it's one of their best is because as much as this is a Coen Bros. film, it's also a film that breaks some of their own motifs and explores them in scenes that are not just minor turns on their own style but compelling scenes in their own right.
--- Quote from: Roger Ebert ---If there is a favorite image in the movies by the Coen brothers, it's of crass, venal men behind desks, who possess power the heroes envy. Maybe that's because, like all filmmakers, the Coens have spent a lot of time on the carpet, pitching projects to executives. In "Blood Simple," the guy behind the desk was M. Emmet Walsh, as a scheming private detective. In "Raising Arizona," it was Trey Wilson's furniture czar. In "Miller's Crossing," it was Albert Finney, as a mob boss. In "Barton Fink," it is Michael Lerner, as the head of a Hollywood studio. All of these men are vulgar, smoke cigars, and view their supplicants with contempt.
--- End quote ---
No Country, suddenly and violently, reverses this. The man behind the desk is powerless. Never mind it's a great scene in and of itself - it takes this notion they've been exploring and casts it into new, ambiguous light.
It also explores the aftermath of violence in greater detail. I guess that's a result of having three characters separately cross a particular bloodbath, right?
KvP:
I'd agree with you if the violence didn't get gradually turned down as the film goes on. By the last third of the film, all the murder takes place off-screen.
Johnny C:
We're left instead with scenes where people pry bullets from wounds and check their shoes for blood. The latter scene is haunting.
KvP:
The film's dark, of course, but the wanton slaughter decreases notably over time. At the beginning of the movie we're treated to Anton graphically strangling and bolt-gunning people, and by the end of the film we don't see him kill people, but we know that he does. Dark, but not graphic. Either the mercenary or his employer (I don't remember which) is the last person we see die.
est:
--- Quote from: TheFuriousWombat on 04 Dec 2007, 10:30 ---(SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER)
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I didn't think it was "random violence" as you put it. Remember that the Mexicans were talking to his wife's mother?
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