No Country for Old Men

No Country For Old Men (2007)

Component 1 section B spectatorship and Ideology

Ideology - Values and Ideas

American dream?

Coen brothers

• Distinctive filmmakers within wider context of US contemporary production
• Auteurs
• This is based on a book of the same name by Cormac Macarthy released in 2005

Overview

• US values and ideologies
• (further down the like) - our spectatorship and spectatorship issues

Differences between Gen Z and Millennials 

• Values
• Speech
• Views on certain topics - political views
• Internet
• Technology

Opening scene for No Country for Old Men 

• Accent and language used seems very Country/Western
• Voiceover
• Talks about older generation? Younger generation?
• Willing to die for the job - says younger generation wouldn’t
• Cant compare yourself to the old timers
• Thinks older generation is somewhat better?
• More respectful to the older generation than the younger
• Younger generation doesn’t carry a gun
• Likes to hear the story for the old timers - respectful of them
• His grandfather and Father both had the same job so he followed in their footsteps - idolises older generations
• Proud of what they do - legacy
• All work in the same area - western area
• Older generation ‘seems’ safer
• Mise-en-scene - cop car wouldn’t be there for the older generation

Classic western movie tropes

• Costume - not accurate to the day - stereotypical - cowboy hat, Pistols, the cowboy boots (spurs), bandanna/tie
• Gun showdowns - stand off - shoot- outs 
• Desert setting - lots of open space - isolated
• Saloon
• Village kind of setting
• ‘Outsider’ shows up and everyone goes quiet
• Whistling/Western background music
• Horses/Carts
• Orange tone and colour filters
• Dusty areas - old setting - mise-en-scene
• Moustaches
• Crime - away from the law (due to sparse setting) - freedom?
• Sheriff
• American Dream - work hard and get the life you want - making your fortune

Discovery scene - No Country for Old Men (when he finds the bag of money)

1. What classic tropes from westerns can you see on display here?

• Big vast empty desert space
• Stereotypical cowboy clothing
• Lots of guns - themes of death
• Drug culture - cocaine deal gone wrong
• Power hungry - he wanted shoot the last person standing - took the money
• Panning shots of the surrounding landscape - shows how isolated and alone they are
• Strong Western/Country accent
• No yelling - always speaking in monotone voices - no emotion
• Death is almost normalised as he didn’t seem surprised after coming across the scene
• Dust in the air from he ground
• Immorality - leaves guy bleeding out in the car to find the last man standing

Homework

The Coens use the idea of old vs new to display the different values and levels of respect each of the generations have. In the opening monologue he talks about how his Grandfather and his Father were sheriffs before him. They do this by making him talk about the fact that he followed in their footsteps shows that he has a great amount of respect for these people older than him. He seems to be proud of this ‘legacy’ they’ve created. He doesn’t seem to have as much respect for the younger generation as he talks about them not wearing a gun. He talks about this ‘boy’ he arrested for murder. He belittles this person into a ‘kid’ by using the term ‘boy’, showing how he talks down about the younger generation.

No Country for Old Men review Key Points

- Adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen from Cormac McCarthy’s novel

- The editor, Roderick Jaynes

- The script follows Mr. McCarthy’s novel almost scene for scene

- Your attention is completely and ecstatically absorbed

- The Coens have always used familiar elements of American pop culture and features of particular American landscapes to create elaborate and hermetic worlds

- Mr. Jones plays Ed Tom Bell, a world weary third-generation sheriff whose stoicism can barely mask his dismay at the tide of evil seeping into the world

• If “No Country for Old Men” were a simple face-off between the sheriff’s goodness and Chigurh’s undiluted evil, it would be a far stiffer, less entertaining picture

Wider Contexts

• Our analysis of values and ideologies is framed within the production context AND the cultural, social and historical contexts - 2008s and 1980s
• The 1980s social, cultural and historical contexts formulate moments of comparison and reflection. For example the idea of the ‘old’ pioneer which dominated classical westerns, the archetypal characters - hero, anti-hero, villain, helper, victim
• American presidents: Reagan and Bush senior - Republicans
• Arms race still on - weapons deployed in Oxfordshire - British forces
• Hostilities: US and middle east ( Lebanese war in 1979)
• Iran hostages crisis end of the 1970s (Carter)
• Widening gap: socially and economically - depression in the US and no public services
• Socially and culturally - a conservative era (fear of nuclear war) peace movements, swing to religion (tele-evangelism) and New Age movements.

2007 - 1980s - 2007

• Possible to argue that situating the story in the 1980s, from the standpoint of 2007 reflects some apprehensions and anxieties of the new millennium
• Uncertainty and moral ambiguity underline the narrative the set and tone of unease from beginning to final frame
• Arguably, the brewing economic problems (2008 - Lehmann brothers) are projected back to the 1980s
• Although this decade is represented through the lease of moral chaos rather than economic crisis

US values and Ideologies

• The moral landscape of the film has echoes of a more stable and noble time, but as the narrator/sheriff notes, this time is past.
• The nostalgic tone summed up in the idea of ‘old’ timers suggests that the present world inhabited by the Sheriff is fraught with evil, violence and blood, which is signal moral chaos because they seem to be unbridled and random.
• The certainties of the old world included clear boundaries between right and wrong, the law and the outlaws and confidence in authority and order to restore the balance.
• To this extent, the film is an elegy reflecting the unruly moral terrain of present day American which is far cry from the past and traditional values it cherishes.
• This film is an exploration of how the American dream and the values and ideologies is encapsulates have gone awry.
• American built on innocent aspirations of the new settlers - new space/land with new values
• Opportunity, liberty and hard work were its values
• In the film, even the hard and fast mercantile values of say ‘Death of the Salesmen’ have disappeared, as the world of the film is entirely empty of guiding values and ideologies 
• There is no good vs evil, but just perpetual evil

In the old order, the lines between good and evil were clear and even when good was threatened of challenged, evil was chased away in one way or another - classic western.

Old vs new/Echoes of the western

• The narrative unfolds in an essentially urban landscape, with strong echoes of the wild west - in the vast space and the barren land, as well as the idea of the border found in classic westerns
• The ‘old timers’ had the noble task of defending the territory, enforcing the law, protecting US citizens and reinstating the order of justice and morality
• Visual codes - iconography: dress code, props, landscape and space - echo the rural space of the West, the pioneering tradition and the idea of the ‘frontier’
• There are frequent references to crossing spaces - the border of the US and Mexico which Moss later travels
• Old spaces and new spaces are invested with value systems - the old world was invests with dignity and patriotism - Moss is a Vietnam was veteran - the border guard respects him and allows him to cross for that reason

Ambiguous values and ideologies

The unstable sense of an underlying force for good is overthrown for three reasons

1. Llewelyn Moss is not entirely good or entirely bad - bad we align ourselves with him
2. Chigurh - a random force of evil
3. Ellis represents how unprepared his generation is for the challenges of contemporary crime and violence

Llewelyn Moss isn’t necessarily a bad character, but the fact that there’s a character even worse than him, puts him in a better light.

Old vs New

• The movement of the characters takes them across different spaces enforcing the idea of physical transitions
• The moral transitions remain unstable as the new world (inhabited by drug dealers and Chigurh) has not replaced the old values with a set of new values - chaos and uncertainty prevail
• What spaces do women inhabit in this old/ or ‘new; cultural and ideological landscape

Whilst in the film it seems the women (Moss’s wife and his mother in law) seem to just get in the was, and seem like an extra hassle for Moss, it's not like they even knew what was going on. The women of the film didn’t make him make the decision to take the money or even knew that he took the money so they can’t help being helpless in the situation.

‘Coin’ sequence - Texaco station

• Old man who serves Chigurh - inherited the job and house from his wife’s father
• The idea that he represents the morality of a more certain past with order and routine
• Chigurh wants him to ‘call it; - to determine an outcome on the random probability of a coin toss - this chaotic avenue is alien to the man and his generation
• Chigurh forces this uncertainty upon the old timer - its bewildering 
• Old man is not sure what he’s ‘calling’ the coin for
• The service counter in the shop serves as a division between the two worlds and what the characters represent
• The characters are also never in the same shot together with furthermore enhances the decision between the two characters and the different generations they live in

Coin toss with Jean 

• Context of scene - jean just came back from mother funeral
• Mise-en-scene - black attire means she blends into background as she sits down at the table - but light shines on her face
• Open window - evil/outsider force has come in - Chigurh
• When she opens the other door Chigurh is sitting down
• She expected he came for her and the money
• Noir elements - lighting, mood, aesthetic 
• Cut to balance shot - eye level with spectator;MCU of Jean seeing Chigurh
• Space, framing and composition - in the Texaco sequence, the counter formed the division between the old man and Chigurh
• Here Jean and Chigurh are separated by the bed - distance of values and physical space, good and evil
• There is light from outside the window shining on the space in between each character - symbolic
• She is calm “I ain't got the money”