No Country for Old Films
Page to Picture Part 2 – No Country for Old Men
J. K. Tang
WHY DO WE FORGET OLD FILMS? As I venture deep into the catacombs of cinema, I see films branding the names of famous novels and plays, each bearing their own intermedial expectations. It was the 2007 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture, Coen’s No Country For Old Men (2007), that brought its two hour runtime into my intermedial spotlight. Through Bardem’s soulless gaze, I saw the unsettling mystery materialise Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 postmodern novel onto our screen. In their depictions of traditionalist concerns of modernity, the sheriff, the outlaw, and Chigurh, each wear the three faces of time: Sheriff Ed Tom Bell as the past, Outlaw Moss as the present and Chigurh as the inevitable future. With McCarthy’s novel resting by my popcorn, I compel myself to journey between the border of page and picture.
The Sheriff
Under Tommy Lee Jones’ introspective performance, Sheriff Bell immerses us into the desert scape of the U.S-Mexico border in Texas in 1980. Flavouring the waking page of the novel, Coen’s script brings the notion of “old-time sheriffs never even w[earing] a gun”, suggesting the complacency of our pasts. This self-critical discourse provokes the quality of past films as one “can’t help but wonder how they would’ve [received] these times”.
Furthermore, Coen’s fade-in and fade-outs, from the desert-night to desert-dawn and onward to the desert-day, pull us towards the imminent threat of the postmodern evil, the future, Anton Chigurh.
The Outlaw
In Josh Brolin’s portrayal of Llewelyn Moss, we begin to see ourselves, the contemporary audience, to be opportunist desert-bugs gnawing at the spectacle of cinematic violence and profanity. As if we press ‘PAUSE’ amidst a drug-war, the blue-collar simpleton roams and surveys for the necessary satisfaction to individual desires, in his case, the desire for wealth.
Through a series of close-up and subjective shots, Moss’ on-screen surveyance of the scene mirrors McCarthy’s excessively elaborative voice, universalising our frantic need for perceptive reason in pursuit of satisfaction. In this, we are torn between our perception and actions, forcing us to choose for our futures… Coen and McCarthy tell us that we often choose money.
Ultimately, this static, lifeless frame emphasises our agency in the present, where we can pivot our pasts towards the desired future. Or can we? Is there something out there to pivot for us? Is there something out there to punish us for what we choose?
Chigurh
Psychopathy is a combination of cold-hearted violence.
To kill without remorse.
In Samuel Leistedt’s Psychopathy and the Cinema (2014), the Belgian psychiatry professor sought to find cinema’s most accurate depiction of psychopathy. Over the span of 400 movies, he crowned Bardem’s Anton Chigurh, in this film, as the most realistic psychopath. How and why is he a psychopath?
HOW:
As our ‘inevitable future’, each of his killings occurs under immense disregard and rejection of emotional normalcy.
Close-up shots hold him convicted of absolute apathy.
Medium shots capture the stillness and precision of his body language in his unstoppable feats of violence.
WHY:
No Country for Old Men is a cautionary tale on how the unforgiving force of modernity is the reaper of past films and novels. Chigurh is this psychopathic shell that forces the contemporary to take responsibility for their autonomous actions. Thus, enforcing creative integrity for writers past, present and future.
Choose wisely or face “a true and living prophet of destruction.”