A contemporary noir Western, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) was my choice for this Western Night. Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, it won four Academy Awards including best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay for Joel and Ethan Coen.
Set in 1980 along the parched West Texas-Mexico border, the film opens on Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), an out of work welder and Vietnam veteran, coming across the bloody aftermath of a drug deal gone bad. Finding a satchel filled with money, he knows he’s struck it rich. Soon, Moss is chased by a psychopathic hitman hired to retrieve the cash named Anton Chigurh, (Javier Bardem, best supporting actor Oscar winner for his performance), who uses a bolt gun to dispatch his victims. Between Moss and Chigurh is Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a man haunted by a world where killing and death are treated with staggering nonchalance.
Arguably the best film from the Coen Brothers, it is their darkest and most twisted (they also made FARGO). Here, evil is personified in Chigurh, a man pitiless in his pursuit, yet he sometimes allows the flip of a coin to decide who will die. “He has his principles,” muses a brash bounty hunter. Daunted and overmatched, Sheriff Bell knows he’s facing something he doesn’t understand. He’s warned, “You can’t stop what’s coming.”
There are scenes that make you laugh, make you cringe, and sometimes make you forget to breathe. With almost no musical score, sounds like wind, gunshots, the ringing of a distant telephone, as well as long stretches of unnerving silence heighten the sense of disquiet.
Shot on locations in Texas and New Mexico, the gorgeous yet stark cinematography by Roger Deakins presents a world where endless blue-sky days are just as sinister as silky black nights.
With a running time of 2 hours and 2 minutes, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is available on Amazon Prime, Blu-ray and DVD.
Our group includes Johnny D. Boggs, record ten-time Spur Award-winning author and Owen Wister Award winner whose work includes his latest, BLOODY NEWTON, Kirk Ellis, Emmy winning screenwriter and producer, as well as author of the upcoming book THEY KILL PEOPLE about the making of BONNIE AND CLYDE due out in February, Kirk’s wife, Sheila, David Morrell, award-winning author and New York Times best-selling author of FIRST BLOOD, the novel that introduced the character Rambo, and Robert Nott, award-winning journalist and author of several books on Western films, including his most recent RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY that examines the production, themes and legacy of the film that launched Sam Peckinpah’s career.
