‘No Country’ Conquers the World – With a Cattle Gun
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
You probably thought I was done talking about No Country for Old Men, didn’t you? Think again. I might just change the name of this blog to There Will Be No Bloody Country for Old Men. How do you like me now?
Having sacked it’s home country to the tune of nearly $50 million (and counting), Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest now sets its sights on the overseas market. It’s a homecoming of sorts for the arthouse film in crime-thriller’s clothing which originally premiered to rave reviews at The Cannes Film Festival in May.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw is first in line to welcome the best film of 2007 to British shores with a 5-star review, calling it a “dark, violent and deeply disquieting drama, leavened with brilliant noirish wisecracks, and boasting three leading male performances with all the spectacular virility of Texan steers.”
Also in The Guardian, David Thomson takes a look at the recent creative upswing in the career of Country’s Tommy Lee Jones, “The best actor of his age.”
In The Independent, reviewer Anthony Quinn is less accommodating. He gives the film 3 stars out of 5 and complains about a thriller where “one detects very little urgency in its rhythm.” He also didn’t care for the much discussed ending, suggesting it was contemptful of the audience.
In The Telegraph, Sukhdev Sandhu irritably fixates on why Javier Bardem has “a haircut of the kind worn by sexually ambiguous prison wardens on Australian soaps or lower-division goalkeepers of the early 1970s” and the review goes downhill from there. Ultimately he concludes that No Country is “the same soulless shaggy-dog caper decked out with pseudo profundities in which [The Coens] have always specialised.”
Sink me.
Filed under: News
Who is this Sukhdev Sandhu? Does this individual not realize they are ridiculing Anton Chigurh?
Do you think Anton makes trips across the pond every so often to silence such idiots?
That Mike Zoss Pharmacy bit is so funny on many levels. That’s that old Coen Brother “we’re just foolin’ around with you folks” vibe I love.
I suppose the message should be clear to the Coens: if you really wanted to hit the big bucks (and big awards) you had to go as bleak as you possibly could. Go figure.
There Will Be No Bloody Country for Old Men sounds like a great name for a blog, at least until February 25th.
$50 million plus…ah doesn’t it re expand this weekend ?????
and nope craig/i wasn’t surprised at all to see another no country based entry. hell, we’ll probably get another next week(when the noms gets noticed)
http://cgi.ebay.com/CORMAC-McCARTHY-No-Country-for-Old-Men-SIGNED-LIMITED_W0QQitemZ370014637309QQihZ024QQcategoryZ29223QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
someone, buy this for craig. ;)
craig… i’d buy it for you but/i’m saving up for a real doll…..
I love the Mike Zoss pharmacy. It reminds me of some small towns in rural Western Washington when I was a kid. Timeless.
$1350 for a book??? Sheez.
I really liked this section of Peter Bradshaw’s review:
“The Coens’ adaptation in fact omits the details of Ed Tom’s experiences in second world war and with it some of the Sheriff’s internal life and his need for redemption, but this omission has the effect of intensifying the motiveless, ahistorical quality of the action, the sense that the contest between the good guys and the bad guys under the Texan sun has become even more eternally brutal. The Coens are true to the pessimistic severity of the book’s ending – darker, arguably, than the ending of McCarthy’s great novel The Road, to whose horror this story can, in retrospect, be seen to be heading.”
My difficulty fully embracing the film (it’s still my number 3 of the year by the way) related to 2 aspects. First, the absence of a more focused explanation for Chirgurh’s existential philosophy. Which I do think could have been presented with the addition of only a few more lines of dialogue from the novel. Second, and the quote above reminded me of it, was how completely I bought the importance in the novel of Ed Tom’s back story and how it made sense of everything leading up to and about the unexpected ending. His personal need for redemption was critical to how the novel worked for me. It didn’t seem so much about an eternally brutal contest that good since the ’80s was increasingly losing against evil. It seemed about one man and how his past caused his existential crisis in the face of the story’s events and his choices within it. And that need for redemption was nested in this man’s tendency to weight himself against an idolized father, and inevitably coming up short.
But of course, the film deserved to be accepted on its own terms. I look forward to No Country growing ever better for me as time passes and I let go of the stubborn desire for it to be what I wanted it to be rather than what it is.
Yeah, sartre, although I’m tempted I now have a rule of avoiding any novel which is being adapted by someone I admire. The chance of having the novel overwhelm my appreciation of the adaption is just too big…
This goes well with my practice of not reading.
The book reads great after the movie, as I’ve said before like 34 times.
Since the redemption angle Sartre mentions wasn’t even in my head watching the film, I naturally didn’t miss it.
Remind me Sartre how Atonement compared to the book (I haven’t had time to dig into it yet)
You need to ask someone like Ryan about that, Craig. There are still about 3 books in my bedside queue ahead of Atonement. I know he was amazed at how well the filmmakers presented its literary ideas, and he wasn’t bothered by reading the book first. He also loved the Coens adaptation of No Country after first reading the novel. So reading the source material first doesn’t always get in the way for everyone. And normally it doesn’t for me.
For some reason I assumed you’d read Atonement.
I’ve read most of McEwan’s other books.
It typically gets in the way for me, sartre, so I might be just speaking for myself there. I find myself mentally comparing the book and the movie as I’m watching them, which takes me right out of the movie. Luckily, a lot of my favorite directors either do their own material, film primarily original scripts, or adapt really obscure material.
Works out well for me. That, and the not reading books thing.
I kid, but the last year or so I’ve been drawn to mostly non-fiction.
I can do the book first movie second route, but when you’re talking about my handful of favorite directors, I’d rather not take the chance.
I agree that it is the safer route Joel. Particularly if you’ve only recently read the book beforehand as was the case for me.
Interestingly, I actually prefer the Coens’ take on the novel. By stripping all of the characters down to such bare essentials, they are able to allow the audience to choose between just following the action and being sucker-punched by the supposedly bizarre ending after having enjoyed so much of the film on a basic, thriller level or to see the powerful subtleties of the film’s three main characters (and probably most important Ed Tom Bell). Admittedly, the first time I saw it I allowed myself to be lured in through option (a) like most everyone, I figure (though the ending, while still “surprising,” didn’t outright shock me because I had heard it was “weird” and divisive long before seeing it–thanks, Jeffrey Well–it still caught me by surprise in its own quiet way of, um, ending). The second, third and fourth times I saw it, I *felt* more. I wonder if next time I’ll be weeping by the time Carla Jean walks in and sees Chigurh sitting there waiting. Damn you, Llewellyn.
In this way–among others–I think No Country for Old Men is the ultimate Coen Brothers film because (at least for me) the characters become more and more stripped-down, as though they are all drawn by a sad clown, letting you perhaps laugh at them the first go around only to be caught by the poignancy behind them later on. (This is a little less true of their “comedies,” of course, though then again maybe not–at least with their better “comedies.”)
joel…you’re in line with america then.it seems non fiction is prefered over fiction.
and more ebay fun. :)
http://cgi.ebay.com/Writers-Guild-Strike-Temporary-Or-Permanent-Replacement_W0QQitemZ290199195419QQihZ019QQcategoryZ1469QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
sartre, I can appreciate your problems with the film adaptation of NCfOM as expressed above. Not having read the book, all I can say is that Bardem’s acting expertise seemed to fill in some blanks pretty well for me, if not specifically so regarding Chirgurh’s existential philosophy.