Okay...so I just got back from this movie.

And I'm really not sure what to think.  It wasn't a bad.  In fact it was probably a good movie.

But I'm not sure what to make of the whole thing.

Has anyone else seen it and wants to discuss their thoughts? 

never heard of it....

Don't worry you're not alone. I've got no idea what's the point

Have you seen other movies from the Coen Brothers? Fargo, Big Lebowski, etc? Their style is a bit different from typical movies, but I love it. No Country for Old Men was interesting, and I liked it. I wasn't expecting the movie to end like it did, but then I don't think most did. I id like the ending though.

I love the Coen Brothers. I definitely liked this movie...I'm just trying to get a grasp on what exactly they're going for. I'm thinking I just need to watch it again. I know that Tommy Lee Jones speech at the beginning is very important, for instance, as is the discussion he has with that old guy about his uncle.

I don't need a movie to make sense to like it....but I just like to discuss it with people to see what their take was on it.

Other than "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," No Country is the best film I've seen this year.

It's fairly straightforward, really -- it's a story about the irrational, unspeakable evil inherent to society. The key scenes take place near the end of the film, and largely rotate around Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). The first key scene takes place between Jones and his fellow officer, right after the main character, Lewelyn, is killed. They discuss the slow degradation of the world -- they talk about green hair and bones through noses -- and talk about the "rising tide" of decay. As they walk out a door, they discuss the Anton Sagur, the killer; they describe him as insane: a ghost, so irrational and violent that he walks right back in to murder scenes and kills a retired army vet (The officer say something like: "How do you defend against that? Implying that the forces of justice can't cope with his violence and insanity). The next key scene takes place between Tommy Lee Jones and his father's former deputy, another old man. Tommy Lee Jones states that he feels "overmatched," a statement emphasizing his sense of being overwhelmed by the awful, horribly cruelty that Anton (Javier Bardem) displays throughout the film, and is generally represented by the awful violence this drug-deal-gone-wrong has generated.

The other old man tells another story of awful, senseless violence, from the early 1900s -- this story tells us that the Anton Sagurs -- the cruel, senseless violence -- is not unique to our times, and is an omnipresent plague on society (the deputy warns Jones not to think he's living in particular times. "That's vanity," he says, if one believes as such. ALL times are violent and insane, not just our own). Instead of being a story about how civilization is slowly decaying, it becomes a story about the general violence and cruelty inherent, always.

The title reflects this: "No Country For Old Men" implies that the cruelty of the world leaves no place for gentler, older folk. They are, as Jones says, overmatched.

Does that help? Any specific questions I can address? If you ask about a specific scene, I can explain how it relates to the central themes. And ALL the scenes do relate, by the way, as this film has almost no extraneous material. Every line is relevant. 

 

Ok Bod...

I see all that, but you don't make a movie just to say that.

There's something else going on here.

Relate to me how the dreams of his father tie into your theory (or take).

I just took from it:

at the end of the film, Jones' character sits across form his wife.....with a cold realization that hes grown old and hes seen the rotting of society. anton brutally killing people...people pushing drugs in his little town, death to innocent good people....its cold, he sees the world as a very dark cold place, and it hits him hard. He feels helpless and his dream, to me, is essentially his realization that anyones time can come at teh hands of another....and theres nothing he could do, he will one day join his father, perhaps too soon, as his father died.

the thing about Cohen bros. movies is they are smart, but they arent pretentious. The ending kind of leave speople with a "wtf ami not smart enough" when i dont think they are meant ot be like that. Its a very simple old school plot, man finds drug deal, folks try to get back drugs/money. Chase ensues. The coehn bros. do a great job of adding smart dialogue and very intense acting, but in the end the beauty of it is its simple.

super_etecoon said: Ok Bod... I see all that, but you don't make a movie just to say that. There's something else going on here. Relate to me how the dreams of his father tie into your theory (or take).

 Obviously you do make films for such simple reasons -- when you boil movies down to a single statement, they seem simple; the reason why you make film, rather than just saying "Life is hard," is to imbue that statement with more meaning and significance than it otherwise has. Heck, most war movies can be simplified down to "War is hell," but the trick of the movie is to really make you feel it. 

His father's dreams, especially the second, are quite relevant. Jones' father represents "older times," which for Jones seemed simpler and kinder (this can also be intuited from the speech at the beginning of the movie, where he talks at great length about the "old timers," and how he compares himself against them, and how the world isn't the same anymore). The world -- which is snowed over in Jones' dream -- is a cold, harsh place, and he is following is father home, to the  warmth and gentleness of those "older times."

Most literally, that home (where his father is waiting by the warmth of the fire) is death, and Jones is pushing through the cold bleakness of this world to return to the simple warmth, where his father waits. Again, I'm deliberately simplifying this. 

Put another way, the trick of film (or any art) is to say something that cannot be expressed by language. It is ineffable. If you COULD just say it -- you would just say it, because that's shorter and simpler and a lot less expensive. The essence of "No Country For Old Men" certainly has more richness than the simplicity I've boiled it down to, but if we ARE going to use words, which is an obvious necessity when communicating these ideas to each other, then the core themes are going to seem simpler and less rich than they really are.

Yes, the central themes of the film really are "the world is an insane, cruel place," but you are correct that it's a lot more complicated than that. It's just... words don't justly express that fuller, richer meaning.