Interesting... I thought it was a lock for Best Picture. I hadn't been so sure since Crash.
No Country for Old Men
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
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Interesting... I thought it was a lock for Best Picture. I hadn't been so sure since Crash.
Thinking of it now Temis is probably right about the ending. That being said, it is a good story, with its own set of interesting ramifications. T
Still, that doesn't mean its a best picture type movie in my book. For the most part, it's two hours of one guy chasing and being chased by another guy. It strives higher only for those who want to read between the frames and even for those that do, they come empty, as you realize that underneath it all, it's all about evil, violence, coincidence and stupidity. For me, best pictures should do more than that, they should be engaging, and rousing. They should break new ground cinematicaly. Oh sure, we get repetitive shots of the inside of an air avent, and the old gag of the air compressor taking out dead bolts (I doubt that would work all the time) a rather unbelievable bad guy who doesn't express physical pain the way most people weill. We get a major character ..the only one we're connected to (Moss) dying offscreen.
If violence, typical plot devices (AKA MacGuffins), executions, evil, stupidity (Moss's first actions, and anything done by Harrelson), giving up (Jones), are the mark of a "great" film in the eyes of critics and the acemy then it's no wonder why no one watches or cares about the oscars.
Still, that doesn't mean its a best picture type movie in my book. For the most part, it's two hours of one guy chasing and being chased by another guy. It strives higher only for those who want to read between the frames and even for those that do, they come empty, as you realize that underneath it all, it's all about evil, violence, coincidence and stupidity. For me, best pictures should do more than that, they should be engaging, and rousing. They should break new ground cinematicaly. Oh sure, we get repetitive shots of the inside of an air avent, and the old gag of the air compressor taking out dead bolts (I doubt that would work all the time) a rather unbelievable bad guy who doesn't express physical pain the way most people weill. We get a major character ..the only one we're connected to (Moss) dying offscreen.
If violence, typical plot devices (AKA MacGuffins), executions, evil, stupidity (Moss's first actions, and anything done by Harrelson), giving up (Jones), are the mark of a "great" film in the eyes of critics and the acemy then it's no wonder why no one watches or cares about the oscars.
My take is a little different. The crimes were shocking, but what shook Sheriff Bell the most wasn't how evil or deadly the bad guys were, but that he was afraid to die. The key to the movie is Bell in the motel room after dark. Chigurh, whom we can take as symbolizing death, lay in wait, but the sheriff decided to not to face it. This decision is what bothered him the rest of the movie.
Bell tried to tell himself that it wasn't him, it was the criminals that were getting worse and worse. But his Uncle Ellis reminded him that there was a time when outlaws rode right up to a relative's home and shot him dead on his porch just for being a lawman. It's the wide open, un-civilizable land they live in, where evil men feel free to do their dirty work, that only a young man can stand up to. And there's your title. Bell, older and with a wife and home life to live for, is past the age where he can be an effective lawman in that land. He realizes that, but then has to wonder, how does he fit in the world? And he also wonders, through his dreams, what his dad would have thought about his decision.
I realize that a lot of people don't like the ending, and this is common with ambiguous or downer endings. NCFOM has done barely over half the box office that the feel-good Juno has, which I enjoyed but didn't feel was in the best-picture league. I am a little surprised at some people finding the ending "un-emotional." Just speculating, but perhaps when you get a little older the feeling of life passing by and leaving you behind, and more of your family having "gone on ahead," has more emotional resonance.
It is interesting, since TWBB also has a "non-tradtional" ending. Two of the NCFOM threads came along after the DVD release, so perhaps there will be some TWBB discussion in a few weeks when the discs come out.
I liked TWBB quite a lot, but not near as much as NCFOM. I thought the Plainview character was well developed, if somewhat one-note, but Ely, even with some powerful scenes, remained pretty flat. The theme of greed driving people to lose their humanity isn't new, and I didn't find its treatment as nuanced as NCFOM's was of its theme. The whole thing looked great, though, and sounded great. Day-Lewis was really good, and though many people have remarked on how he evoked John Huston I thought he did it with such assurance that I bought it. I thought he was even better in Gangs of New York, though.
--Justin
Actually, shortly after my post, JacksonArcher started a There Will Be Blood thread here. I think some interesting points were raised, and I agree with you that Blood is not as nuanced a picture as No Country.
The film took a detour when Sheriff Bell started ruminating about changes (i.e. heightened violence) in his region. There was also a needless scene where some other old fart complains about kids with green hair and sticks in their noses. It was unintentionally amusing; was the Punk Rock revolution finally arriving in West Texas? Wow, even there! The directors take this theme further when Bell visits his old, cat-loving friend (Barry Corbin), and the two trade anecdotes about how bad the world has become. Didn't Bell have any more investigating to do?
That's all well and good, but I think most audience members would have preferred to see the film maintain its focus on Moss (Josh Brolin) and his looming confrontation with Chigurh. The film promised such, but I guess that would have been too "conventional" for the Coens. So Moss' death at the hands of faceless Mexicans becomes an almost incidental detail. I'm glad that Scorsese didn't use this approach in The Departed.
Fantastic movie, I really enjoyed it......until the last ten minutes! WTF was that???? That's how you deliver your pay-off, by giving the audience a big fat smelly "Eff you!!!"?
I could care less if it followed the book to the letter, the ending SUCKED!!!! The hero is killed offscreen, the killer kills everyone and walks away from an accident with a broken arm, and Tommy Lee Jones doesn't do a goddamn thing for the entire movie! What a complete waste!
I like breaking Hollywood convention and all, but NCFOM was a total steaming pile with no redeaming values. You don't fuck with your audience like that.
I could care less if it followed the book to the letter, the ending SUCKED!!!! The hero is killed offscreen, the killer kills everyone and walks away from an accident with a broken arm, and Tommy Lee Jones doesn't do a goddamn thing for the entire movie! What a complete waste!
I like breaking Hollywood convention and all, but NCFOM was a total steaming pile with no redeaming values. You don't fuck with your audience like that.
The film was set in 1980.
I didn't care for The Departed; actually. Sure, I'm glad Scorsese finally got the Oscar; but it's not that great of a film. It's a condensed version of the Infernal Affairs trilogy and it feels like it; particularly with the contrivance of collapsing two female characters into the same one.
We know, we know.
Okay. Well, did Punk Rock significantly predate 1980 and/or was past its heyday at that time?
"Punk" and its fashions became popular in the mid-to-late 1970's.
Wasn't too bad. The air hammer device was really inventive, but the silenced shotgun was positively absurd.
TrekkieGirl
Lieutenant
I enjoyed it, it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel (which I loved)...Definitely deserved Best Picture over crap like Juno.
My first thought upon finishing the movie was "perhaps post-modernism has run it's course with me".
In other words, I thought the ending was deliberately oblique. There was a time when I might have thought that was novel, or witty, or something. It didn't really work for me here, though.
The first 2/3rds of the movie is excellent stuff though.
I think Fargo is the better of these two similar pictures, and get the feeling that "No Country" being given the oscar is sort of a proxy win for Fargo (which was passed the first time), though maybe that's a bit specious.
edit:
Eh, I should probably clarify- the part that I thought was "postmodern" was Chigurh's last scene. It resolved absolutely nothing, and could be interpreted any number of ways. The resolution of the Ed Tom Bell storyline was fairly satisfying, but based on screentime alone that's really the b-story.
In other words, I thought the ending was deliberately oblique. There was a time when I might have thought that was novel, or witty, or something. It didn't really work for me here, though.
The first 2/3rds of the movie is excellent stuff though.
I think Fargo is the better of these two similar pictures, and get the feeling that "No Country" being given the oscar is sort of a proxy win for Fargo (which was passed the first time), though maybe that's a bit specious.
edit:
Eh, I should probably clarify- the part that I thought was "postmodern" was Chigurh's last scene. It resolved absolutely nothing, and could be interpreted any number of ways. The resolution of the Ed Tom Bell storyline was fairly satisfying, but based on screentime alone that's really the b-story.
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i was going to post pretty much the same thing. It seemed like it was leading to something and then when we see moss dead all of a sudden the movie becomes about tommy lee jone's sheriff who was essentailly a background character up until that point.
the last third just seemed like it didn't fit the rest of the movie quite right.
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