But the epilogue here tells us nothing of interest - she never saw either of them again (which is kind of unsatisfying, dramatically; I'd much rather see some kind of resolution to the character relationships), Rooster dies, she has his body moved. So what? It doesn't feel like it says much about them.
Really? As I said above, the fact that she has Rooster re-interred with her family speaks volumes. The only man she really respected in the film was her honorable and upstanding father, and she put the disreputable Rooster on a near-equal footing with him after death. That's huge, especially in that place and time.
- Mattie paid for her relentless bloodlust (Rooster and LaBeef would probably have done a pretty good job of getting the baddies themselves) with the loss of an arm and a lonely life.
My impressions are a little different. I would make a distinction between what we normally call "bloodlust," which implies an uncontrolled or unreasoning impulse to violence, and what Mattie was doing, which was pursuing justice. Justice according to her personal code, a kind of Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye settling of accounts, but not simple revenge.
Mattie thrived on the law, she was always standing on legal principle and dropping her lawyer's name everywhere. It's only when she sees that there's a good chance that Chaney will go scot-free that she takes things into her own hands. She found a lawman with proper jurisdiction instead of a bounty hunter or hired gun. She said she would kill Chaney only
if the law failed to do so. It is true she insisted that he be brought back to Arkansas rather than to Texas with LaBoeuf, but I think that was partly out of her sense of jurisdictional propriety and partly that she trusted Judge Parker over the Texas courts to hang Chaney.
As for her life being lonely, that may or may not have been the case. She never married, but I think that had more to do with the fundamentals of her personality than with the events of the movie. She was independent, outspoken and stubborn and was interested in what at the time was men's business rather than "woman's work." She could also be judgmental and condescending. I think there was a good chance that she would never have married even if the events of the movies hadn't taken place.
She may have been lonely, but I think that it was more important to her that she be content that she had done her duty, whatever the cost.
[I must admit that some of my opinion here is probably influenced by the book, where IIRC Mattie is content in looking after her business affairs and going to church and suspected any suitors were after her money.]
I find that I rarely find the way the Coens end their films to be completely satisfactory.
Yeah, I remember some lengthy discussions here about the ending of
No Country for Old Men (which I loved). It seems to be a polarizing aspect of some of their movies.
And I don't mind it being depressing. I don't think it SHOULD be a happy ending. So, she killed the guy that killed her father. What did it gain? What did it cost? The scales didn't move.
She thought the scales were balanced, and that is all that was important to her. I don't think she ever would have questioned if it was "worth it." Of course it was. It's who she was, she couldn't
not do it. If she regrets anything, it's more that she wasn't a better friend to the man who saved her life.
If there's a question I think it's more "What price justice?" than "What price revenge?" But mostly I think it's just a great story about a bunch of interesting stuff that happened to a woman with a peculiar and singularly strong-willed personality.
YMMV, of course!
--Justin
