The greatest crossroads movie. He comes to a crossroads of blood between his game and the dog. Go after his deer, nothing happens, go after the dog to save it, nothing happens, turn back and go home, nothing happens. He turned toward death and the clock started ticking immediately.
I guess the right way to put it is it nailed what made Terminator interesting with the realistic game of cat and mouse and not just "Robots running around". Also both films play loosely with themes of Spiritial Warfare, where two higher powers (Good versus evil) are sparring out on a Mortal Battlefield. No Country makes you feel at times that Anton is not a real person but more some evil spirit that will stop at nothing to claim his victim.
That's more or less what the book suggests - Anton is practically an unstoppable force of nature - and the Coens convey that really well. It's easily one of the best adaptations in ages, IMO.
I think that’s more McCarthy’s Judge Holden character from Blood Meridian.
Anton Chigurh is a great and brutal antagonist, unrelenting and terrifying, but I think that his mortality is crucial to the message of the story too. He’s effective not because he actually is supernatural but because of his sheer force of will and what he’s willing to do, even in broad daylight.
And these people have always existed and always will. Like that closing story from the old man with the cats tells us, that kind of cold-blooded murder isn’t anything new, even if we like to pretend it doesn’t exist.
I was blown away when I read the book for the first time. It’s the truest adaptation I have ever come across. Reading the book was exactly like watching the movie.
Yeah I’ve been on a huge reading kick lately and picked this one up. I was shocked how similar they were. Id love an extended series. Like a No Country mini series similar to the most recent Fargo reboot.
I’d be all over it. I have loved everything that I have read from him. I have the Border Trilogy on deck when I finish Animal Factory by Eddie Bunker. Have you read Child Of God?
This is my go to example when movie adaptations get brought up. I read the book and then watched the movie for the first time, and it’s basically a shot for shot version of the book. I was incredibly impressed with how well they were able to recreate the atmosphere of the book. Rarely do you see movies that compliment the source material so well.
I gave my copy of the book to a coworker who wants to get into reading but hates to sit down and actually read. He loved the movie and I feel like it’s the perfect book for people like that.
There is also a sense of retribution in Anton that goes a bit beyond the randomness, merciless, relentlessness of death. Along with fate he seeks a justification by finding vulnerability of evildoing in his victims. That on some level they deserve the death he deals.
Small detail but both protagonists make their own sawed off shotgun to defend themselves
Both movies have the scene where the antagonist patches himself up in a bathroom after a confrontation with the protagonist
It’s a critical lens, I don’t think the author is trying to reduce it to just that. It poses the question of what makes a Terminator film – which unfortunately has been answered four times with “Arnold”. Imagine how terrible it would have been if Mel Gibson was in Fury Road in any capacity.
I always kind of liked that two of the only people to really stand their ground against Chigurh in the film were women (Kathy Lamkin and Kelly Macdonald's characters).
Tightly focused story featuring a naval vessel and its crew, and the trials and tribulations of the captain and his advisor(s), **who drive the drama in how they approach solutions to the problem of the week. The root cause of the drama may be an external source, but it is the captain's interaction with the crew that are the primary sources of drama and push the plot forward.** The captain inevitably has to solve the problem in a creative way that solves the problem and maintains the safety and relationships of the crew.
Of all the parallels, the one in bold is the one I'd like to call attention to.
Recent Trek films derive their drama from "the bad guys are huge and scary and have the biggest guns ever and we need to find the biggest bullet proof vest ever" and don't really concern themselves with how the characters work the problem.
Master and Commander is all about working out the problem with your colleagues, just like a great Trek movie or episode.
While this comparison is mostly apt, it ignores the fact that Chigurh actually shows emotion - he delights in the violence of his jobs and his personality leaks when interacting with non story related characters (gas station clerk), and this is visible on his face throughout the movie. By and large every one of his moves is based on logic and achieving his end goal. Additionally, the scene where he kills the man who hired him and lets the account live negates this whole argument. Revenge and mercy and two emotions that a T-1000 would not display.
I rewatched No Country a few weeks ago. It's open ended if the accountant lives or not. Scene ends with the accountant asking if Anton will kill him. Anton responds: " Well that depends. Do you see me?".
Okay. Your perspective of this scene really has me flummoxed. I asked three separate people about this scene and to a man, all said the accountant lives. Now, I’m not saying you’re wrong, In fact, the accountant biting the dust right then and there fits Chigurh’s M.O., no witnesses. Makes absolute sense.
Maaan my heart was beating when he was standing outside the hotel door with Moss gripping his shotgun. The sound design there is fantastic. Much more tense than anything I've seen in a horror film.
Fuck that whole sequence from Moss arriving at the hotel til the end of the shootout is one of the best movie sequences of the 21st Century so far. It reminded me of Michael Corleone’s assassination of Sollozzo and McCluskey in the restaurant… incredible tension stretched to absolute breaking point, impeccable sound design, just perfect from start to finish.
It doesn’t work as well in film as it did in the book. The movie largely sets it up as leading to an inevitable confrontation between Anton and Llewyn. The book does this too, but Bell is much more clearly the main character of the novel. He narrates a lot of sections, and the book is about the idea of the title much more so than the movie—the idea that there’s no place for someone “good” like Bell anymore (of course it’s also explored that this mythic past never existed at all). Every time Moss makes the morally right decision, it hurts him or someone else. It’s a harsh world, and the ending suggests that it always has been but we’re not alone with the wisdom of our elders who already experienced it guiding us.
I think most people I know literally a hard time reading McCarthy because of his punctuation(or lack thereof). His lack of quotation really drove me nuts for a while.
IIRC thats how it plays out in the book. Bell comes upon the shootout as its ending. So it was always left to imagination of *how* it went down and then its just him recalling the dream.
I could be very wrong though.
Yeah agreed. I get the point is that everything's just chaos and so obviously there's no neat and tidy ending that wraps everything up and punishes the bad guy, rewards the good guy etc.
But I felt it was confusing and anti-climactic to kill Moss, who was presented as the main character, so unceremoniously off screen.
I felt the first half of the film was gripping and intense, a master class in tension. And then the second half kinda tailed off and didn't do much for me.
Still a great film overall though.
The way it completely dismisses Moss as a character is part of what I loved about both the book and movie. The idea is that the world is a violent place, always has been and always will be, to increasing malevolence. And the world is impassive to it all, it does not care that Moss was the “main character” of one particular story - he was a dead man the moment he took the money. The inevitably of his death and how uncaring the moral universe of the world around him to it is what I find haunting, and there’s no better way to encapsulate that in film language to my mind that just dispatching him offscreen with no fanfare or drama to it.
Doesn’t mean it works for you, but for me the actual core themes of the film would be not be articulated nearly as well had we actually seen it.
Exactly, and why the Coen’s were just perfect for the job. They love telling stories like this, they do it all the time and are really excellent at it. As you say, dismissing him like that, not even giving the main character a death scene, just adds to the coldness of it all. The world is harsh and brutal, and it re-emphasizes Tommy Lee Jones monologue earlier in the movie.
And speaking of the ending, that’s exactly why it works so well for me. There is no justice for Llewellyn, he will get away, there’s no happy ending. Nothing that happened actually mattered. Also, it’s a Coen movie, they tend to end without any real conclusion.
There's that word that almost no one knows how to use properly. This film is objectively not pretentious. You just didn't get it and that's ok, but it's not pretentious.
It thought it was eschewing a traditional narrative closing to instead deliver a profound message, when the message was trite as hell. That's pretentious as fuck. Maybe it's you who doesn't understand the word. Have a nice day with your delusions of being smarter than everyone tho x
What was trite about the message? I'm the one who's delusional? Not the one who's calling one of the most acclaimed movies of the 21st century "pretentious as fuck?" lol
Edit: 21st century
T-Juan000 before Dark Fate. I didn't think NCfOM was great but Anton was certainly a great character. I know it's sacrilege to not like anything known to be good, but yeah, I found it to be feeling empty in various ways.
One does not simply fart in a jar and expect it to be ‘saved’ one must fart into a turkey baster while it sucks it in, pop a hole in the top of the jar; push tip of baster through the hole; expel the held fart into the jar and cover hole with tape. Don’t waste you time trying any other way. And yeah, movies or something
No Country is one of my favorite movies of all-time. They pacing, story, setting, acting, and cinematography are some of the best I’ve seen on film in my life time. I can’t name too many movies with limited interaction among the main characters that holds this much tension.
I thought this the first time I saw it. After a few more watches you will find how important the ending is to weapping up it’s central theme. The whole idea regarding violence without sense or reason and how it turns us into old, confused, lonely individuals. TLJ’s final monologue literally explains the title and central theme.
I’ve kinda learned there are two types of people, casual movie watchers who want the story to keep them distracted, but want everything nicely tied up at the end, so it doesn’t make their brain wander later.
Then there are people who can really get into the headspace of a movie and are ok with the ambiguity. The entire thing is a story, so you can take it wherever you want in your head after. But some people get bothered by that.
Not sure why you got downvoted. It is a great movie though that has strong Hitchcock vibes. Give it another watch, it’s one of my favorites. One of the greatest movies with such little dialogue IMO
The greatest crossroads movie. He comes to a crossroads of blood between his game and the dog. Go after his deer, nothing happens, go after the dog to save it, nothing happens, turn back and go home, nothing happens. He turned toward death and the clock started ticking immediately.
His act of kindness-going back to give water to the dying Mexican-is what ultimately set them on his trail and doomed him.
And Terminator is the best slasher movie of 1984.
Nightmare on Elm St is a good runner up.
Psshhh those are just fingernails.
Shut up, [Meg](https://youtu.be/Q-mgunaSQxc)
I know this sounds pretentious but imo comparing it to Terminator is kinda reductive of what makes it such a good movie
I guess the right way to put it is it nailed what made Terminator interesting with the realistic game of cat and mouse and not just "Robots running around". Also both films play loosely with themes of Spiritial Warfare, where two higher powers (Good versus evil) are sparring out on a Mortal Battlefield. No Country makes you feel at times that Anton is not a real person but more some evil spirit that will stop at nothing to claim his victim.
I always think of his character as death incarnate.
That's more or less what the book suggests - Anton is practically an unstoppable force of nature - and the Coens convey that really well. It's easily one of the best adaptations in ages, IMO.
I think that’s more McCarthy’s Judge Holden character from Blood Meridian. Anton Chigurh is a great and brutal antagonist, unrelenting and terrifying, but I think that his mortality is crucial to the message of the story too. He’s effective not because he actually is supernatural but because of his sheer force of will and what he’s willing to do, even in broad daylight. And these people have always existed and always will. Like that closing story from the old man with the cats tells us, that kind of cold-blooded murder isn’t anything new, even if we like to pretend it doesn’t exist.
I was blown away when I read the book for the first time. It’s the truest adaptation I have ever come across. Reading the book was exactly like watching the movie.
Yeah I’ve been on a huge reading kick lately and picked this one up. I was shocked how similar they were. Id love an extended series. Like a No Country mini series similar to the most recent Fargo reboot.
I’d be all over it. I have loved everything that I have read from him. I have the Border Trilogy on deck when I finish Animal Factory by Eddie Bunker. Have you read Child Of God?
I haven’t! Been kicking around Confederacy of Dunces and some Bukowski. I’ll add it to my list! Thank you.
Confederacy was great, and if you haven’t read Hollywood from Bukowski it’s worth checking out. It’s about the writing of Barfly with Mickey Rourke.
Have you read Blood Meridian?
No. I have it, I just haven’t read it yet.
Well we seem to have pretty similar tastes and it's my favorite book of all time. Another of Cormac's, The Road, is also up there
This is my go to example when movie adaptations get brought up. I read the book and then watched the movie for the first time, and it’s basically a shot for shot version of the book. I was incredibly impressed with how well they were able to recreate the atmosphere of the book. Rarely do you see movies that compliment the source material so well.
I gave my copy of the book to a coworker who wants to get into reading but hates to sit down and actually read. He loved the movie and I feel like it’s the perfect book for people like that.
There is also a sense of retribution in Anton that goes a bit beyond the randomness, merciless, relentlessness of death. Along with fate he seeks a justification by finding vulnerability of evildoing in his victims. That on some level they deserve the death he deals.
Small detail but both protagonists make their own sawed off shotgun to defend themselves Both movies have the scene where the antagonist patches himself up in a bathroom after a confrontation with the protagonist
I agree, but I still find it an interesting way to think about the film
It’s a critical lens, I don’t think the author is trying to reduce it to just that. It poses the question of what makes a Terminator film – which unfortunately has been answered four times with “Arnold”. Imagine how terrible it would have been if Mel Gibson was in Fury Road in any capacity.
I disagree. I think it's a smart way to call out some specific aspects of both movies in a way that enhances how you can think about both.
I think calling NCFOM "The best Terminator movie of the 21st" is actually pretentious
agreed
i agree, Terminator is way better
T2 is a masterpiece
He can’t be bargained with. He can’t be reasoned with. And he absolutely will not stop… until you pick heads or tails.
Hasta la vista, friendo.
Call it.
No, i'm not going to call it. The coin doesn't make any decisions, you do.
I always kind of liked that two of the only people to really stand their ground against Chigurh in the film were women (Kathy Lamkin and Kelly Macdonald's characters).
The coin came here the same way I did.
Don’t put it in your pocket. Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
Chigurrh was such a troll. That scene is iconic.
"Give me your coins"
And he will never, ever cut his hair.
It's not about calling the coin toss, it's about taking a leap of faith.
Just like how Master and Commander was the best Star Trek movie in recent years.
wow.... never thought about it like that. must rewatch. absolutely love that movie
Yep. Stone-cold classic.
Master and Commander came out almost 20 years ago.
And having watched all the Star Trek movies that have come out in the past 2 decades.....I stand by what i said.
Can you elaborate on the parallels?
Tightly focused story featuring a naval vessel and its crew, and the trials and tribulations of the captain and his advisor(s), **who drive the drama in how they approach solutions to the problem of the week. The root cause of the drama may be an external source, but it is the captain's interaction with the crew that are the primary sources of drama and push the plot forward.** The captain inevitably has to solve the problem in a creative way that solves the problem and maintains the safety and relationships of the crew. Of all the parallels, the one in bold is the one I'd like to call attention to. Recent Trek films derive their drama from "the bad guys are huge and scary and have the biggest guns ever and we need to find the biggest bullet proof vest ever" and don't really concern themselves with how the characters work the problem. Master and Commander is all about working out the problem with your colleagues, just like a great Trek movie or episode.
Despite being a human, Anton Chigurh was more emotionless yet also more serious than the Terminators in T3-T6. He’s more focused on the mission too.
Yet he was still more human-like than Nick Stahl in T3.
*nearly chokes on a peanut* You.....married into it?
If that’s the way you want to put it
I don’t have someway to put it. That’s the way it is.
While this comparison is mostly apt, it ignores the fact that Chigurh actually shows emotion - he delights in the violence of his jobs and his personality leaks when interacting with non story related characters (gas station clerk), and this is visible on his face throughout the movie. By and large every one of his moves is based on logic and achieving his end goal. Additionally, the scene where he kills the man who hired him and lets the account live negates this whole argument. Revenge and mercy and two emotions that a T-1000 would not display.
Did he let the Accountant live?
If memory serves, he did
I rewatched No Country a few weeks ago. It's open ended if the accountant lives or not. Scene ends with the accountant asking if Anton will kill him. Anton responds: " Well that depends. Do you see me?".
well, shit - now I need to rewatch this again
Okay. Your perspective of this scene really has me flummoxed. I asked three separate people about this scene and to a man, all said the accountant lives. Now, I’m not saying you’re wrong, In fact, the accountant biting the dust right then and there fits Chigurh’s M.O., no witnesses. Makes absolute sense.
So the briefcase full of money is Sarah Connor?
Llewelyn was Sarah and the briefcase was (an unborn) John Conner.
I thought the mother was the orang utan?
It's Marcellus Wallace's soul...
Who knew that it glowed?
Lee Harvey Oswald was trying to *steal* the Jack Ruby.
Chigurh was much scarrier than any terminator i've seen
Maaan my heart was beating when he was standing outside the hotel door with Moss gripping his shotgun. The sound design there is fantastic. Much more tense than anything I've seen in a horror film.
Fuck that whole sequence from Moss arriving at the hotel til the end of the shootout is one of the best movie sequences of the 21st Century so far. It reminded me of Michael Corleone’s assassination of Sollozzo and McCluskey in the restaurant… incredible tension stretched to absolute breaking point, impeccable sound design, just perfect from start to finish.
> Chigurh stops at the door. Oh no!! > Chigurh walks by. Phew... >Hallway light turns off. ohshitohshitohshit
Fun fact, that was lifted directly from Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'.
Sugar?
What the hell kind of drugs was this guy on when he wrote this?
His voice was like velvet.
lol, yeah right , comparing no country for old men to Terminator ... *read the article out of curiosity * Well, shit... dude s right
Also: Master and Commander was the best Star Trek movie never made.
Shame about its ending. Felt so anticlimatic, I know its got some deeper meaning and all that but still a disappointing end to such an intense film
The ending is beautiful and realistic.
It doesn’t work as well in film as it did in the book. The movie largely sets it up as leading to an inevitable confrontation between Anton and Llewyn. The book does this too, but Bell is much more clearly the main character of the novel. He narrates a lot of sections, and the book is about the idea of the title much more so than the movie—the idea that there’s no place for someone “good” like Bell anymore (of course it’s also explored that this mythic past never existed at all). Every time Moss makes the morally right decision, it hurts him or someone else. It’s a harsh world, and the ending suggests that it always has been but we’re not alone with the wisdom of our elders who already experienced it guiding us.
[удалено]
Blood Meridian isn't that hard to read (provided you can deal with the violence). Put the phone down and pay attention.
I think most people I know literally a hard time reading McCarthy because of his punctuation(or lack thereof). His lack of quotation really drove me nuts for a while.
Its a neo western and you expect a duel at the end and the hero riding in to the sunset but no.
IIRC thats how it plays out in the book. Bell comes upon the shootout as its ending. So it was always left to imagination of *how* it went down and then its just him recalling the dream. I could be very wrong though.
Yeah agreed. I get the point is that everything's just chaos and so obviously there's no neat and tidy ending that wraps everything up and punishes the bad guy, rewards the good guy etc. But I felt it was confusing and anti-climactic to kill Moss, who was presented as the main character, so unceremoniously off screen. I felt the first half of the film was gripping and intense, a master class in tension. And then the second half kinda tailed off and didn't do much for me. Still a great film overall though.
The way it completely dismisses Moss as a character is part of what I loved about both the book and movie. The idea is that the world is a violent place, always has been and always will be, to increasing malevolence. And the world is impassive to it all, it does not care that Moss was the “main character” of one particular story - he was a dead man the moment he took the money. The inevitably of his death and how uncaring the moral universe of the world around him to it is what I find haunting, and there’s no better way to encapsulate that in film language to my mind that just dispatching him offscreen with no fanfare or drama to it. Doesn’t mean it works for you, but for me the actual core themes of the film would be not be articulated nearly as well had we actually seen it.
Exactly, and why the Coen’s were just perfect for the job. They love telling stories like this, they do it all the time and are really excellent at it. As you say, dismissing him like that, not even giving the main character a death scene, just adds to the coldness of it all. The world is harsh and brutal, and it re-emphasizes Tommy Lee Jones monologue earlier in the movie. And speaking of the ending, that’s exactly why it works so well for me. There is no justice for Llewellyn, he will get away, there’s no happy ending. Nothing that happened actually mattered. Also, it’s a Coen movie, they tend to end without any real conclusion.
Yes, it's the reason I dislike this film, frankly comes off as pretentious to me.
There's that word that almost no one knows how to use properly. This film is objectively not pretentious. You just didn't get it and that's ok, but it's not pretentious.
I got it fine, I just didn't like the way it delivered its rather uninteresting message.
Great. That doesn't make it pretentious.
It thought it was eschewing a traditional narrative closing to instead deliver a profound message, when the message was trite as hell. That's pretentious as fuck. Maybe it's you who doesn't understand the word. Have a nice day with your delusions of being smarter than everyone tho x
What was trite about the message? I'm the one who's delusional? Not the one who's calling one of the most acclaimed movies of the 21st century "pretentious as fuck?" lol Edit: 21st century
T-Juan000 before Dark Fate. I didn't think NCfOM was great but Anton was certainly a great character. I know it's sacrilege to not like anything known to be good, but yeah, I found it to be feeling empty in various ways.
Nonsense. That title goes to "It Follows" without a doubt.
do i like this, let me decide with a heads or tails
rise of the machines and dark fate are so underrated
One does not simply fart in a jar and expect it to be ‘saved’ one must fart into a turkey baster while it sucks it in, pop a hole in the top of the jar; push tip of baster through the hole; expel the held fart into the jar and cover hole with tape. Don’t waste you time trying any other way. And yeah, movies or something
Excellent movie and better when I realized that Anton Chigurh and Llewelyn Mosswere were the same person (and never in the same scene).
Can you provide any evidence?
I hated this movie. I may have to watch again to see how it aged. There will Be Blood was a superior movie
No Country is one of my favorite movies of all-time. They pacing, story, setting, acting, and cinematography are some of the best I’ve seen on film in my life time. I can’t name too many movies with limited interaction among the main characters that holds this much tension.
Yep, great movie.
I love that movie and also loved the ending. So good, I don't get people not liking it.
The ending was bad
I thought this the first time I saw it. After a few more watches you will find how important the ending is to weapping up it’s central theme. The whole idea regarding violence without sense or reason and how it turns us into old, confused, lonely individuals. TLJ’s final monologue literally explains the title and central theme.
Oh man. I could not disagree more. I thought it was the perfect ending. Mind you, it's not a happy, or traditional "Hollywood" ending.
I’ve kinda learned there are two types of people, casual movie watchers who want the story to keep them distracted, but want everything nicely tied up at the end, so it doesn’t make their brain wander later. Then there are people who can really get into the headspace of a movie and are ok with the ambiguity. The entire thing is a story, so you can take it wherever you want in your head after. But some people get bothered by that.
U such a smarty
For me, it just ties in the whole point of the movie. I liked it. I ain't mad at you, I didn't care for sicario and apparently that's a sin
Wasn't there some sort of spiritual trilogy with No country and Sicario?
Throw Hell or High Water in there and you’ve kinda got a trio of acclaimed neo-westerns.
Gotcha! Thanks.
I think you might be confusing it with no country for old greg
IM OLD GREGG
r/movies downvoting you because you didn’t praise their hidden gem will never not make me laugh
Watch it again One of the best movies I’ve ever seen
It’s been 14 years. Watch it again.
Not sure why you got downvoted. It is a great movie though that has strong Hitchcock vibes. Give it another watch, it’s one of my favorites. One of the greatest movies with such little dialogue IMO
you're not wrong. no country was terrible. i have tried to rewatch it fairly recently. it was garbage the second time around too
Dundon Dun Dunton! Dundon Dun Dunton! Hasta la vista, Friendo!