Oscar Talk
Posted by TFG on February 23rd, 2008
Yes, another No Country For Old Men post, borrowing heavily, nay, completely from Mike Whybark:
All three films share with No Country (as well as the majority of all the other films by the team) a deeply misanthropic view of the world, which endears them mightily to me. However, all three present a traditional resolution to their events even as the films clearly present a disturbing and amoral outcome of the plots they convey. In No Country, the assassin’s unexpected wreck fills the role of the moral resolution, even as it remains ambiguous. Tommy Lee Jones’ retiring sheriff sits at his table and recounts a dream of his father leading the way to the underworld over a mountain pass, and the string of killings remains unresolved by the lawman, who has come to feel that he cannot bring justice to a world he believes he cannot understand.
Of course, the sheriff’s loss of faith is tragic precisely because we are shown that he does grasp the task he faces, even as he fails to protect his charges. He just doesn’t realize that he sees the pieces to the puzzle even as he tells others about them. In particular, when he muses out loud, distractedly, about the cattle hammer, we can see that his mind has assembled the parts of a puzzle we know he’s been thinking about, yet he never proceeds to an ‘aha!’ moment.
That pins down, with words, a lot of what I feel about both the book and the movie, and are too dumb to type.
So, anyway, I hope it makes more Oscars than that There’s Gonna Be Some Blood movie, just so I can do a fanboy dance for old Cormac, even if none of you internet bastards get what I’m going on about. 
February 24th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Dang it, FG - you’re gonna set Dick off again, now.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I think Dick’s had about enough of my unlettered lit-crit.
February 24th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Hey, I loved NCFOM, book and movie. Still think it’s the best movie I’ve seen in years. I was very impressed by what the Coen’s did, but with a faithful adaptation and in the minor changes they made.
Strongly looking forward t it coming out on DVD, or maybe I should just jump to Blu-Ray now.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Well, using Whybark’s quote there, how about this? If it’s true that the sheriff can’t bring justice to a world he doesn’t understand, that suggests to me that he’s lost his faith in God (whether that’s explicitly stated in the book/film I don’t remember/know) making his own senses his only guide to reality. Otherwise he’d know there was a fixed morality for him to bring justice to, regardless of his understanding or lack of it. That would comport perfectly with what I think of McCarthy, that his work is nihilistic, i.e. he writes of violence for its own sake and no other. Which is very popular nowadays and so a very convenient attitude for an artists to take if he wants to make money. Having the villain die in a car wreck (I don’t remember that in the book) would underline life’s essential meaninglessness since it would be random and not a just desert. I would not be surprised if the flicker wins an Oscar or three. The Coens are one of the industry’s icons and McCarthy’s nihilism is right up the industry’s alley–tarts, Godlessness, and all.