Though I haven’t been to see many films lately, the best thing I’ve seen this fall — hands down — is No Country For Old Men. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Kelly Macdonald, and Woody Harrelson, it’s a rich, engrossing, and for me, deeply satisfying picture.
Before I saw the film, several friends who had seen it told me that they had loved the first two-thirds but “hated the ending”. I went into the theater with their warning in mind, but found to my relief and surprise that the ending was one of the best things about the movie. Plot spoilers below the fold, folks, so click at your own risk.
No Country for Old Men, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel and filmed by the Coen brothers (of Fargo fame) is gripping. Violence happens frequently and gruesomely, much of it inflicted by a lethal psychopath named Anton Chigurh, played magnificently by Javier Bardem. Despite our conventional expectations, Chigurh survives the film, limping but alive. The essentially sympathetic characters played by Brolin and Macdonald don’t die onscreen, but we are left with the assumption that Chigurh has succeeded in tracking them down and killing them. The usual satisfaction of seeing it “all turn out right in the end” is deliberately and expertly denied the audience.
Tommy Lee Jones plays an ageing West Texas sheriff; decent, deeply Western and wise enough to doubt his own ability to prevent evil, his character is at the moral heart of the film. The movie’s final scene comes after we’ve seen Chigurh eliminate virtually all the other characters in the picture. Jones’ sheriff, now retired, is sitting at his breakfast table, drinking coffee with his wife. He’s a troubled man; he’s been unable to protect the people he tried so hard to protect, unable to catch the man he wanted to catch, unable to solve the crime he was called upon to solve. And he’s been dreaming about his own long-dead father, also a sheriff. The film’s final lines (from a first draft screenplay, the only one I can find online) have Jones recounting his dream about seeing his father as a young man, riding through the mountains on a chilly night:
It was cold and snowin, hard
ridin. Hard country. He rode past me
and kept on goin. Never said nothin
goin by. He just rode on past and he
had his blanket wrapped around him and
his head down..
…and when he rode past I seen he
was carryin fire in a horn the way
people used to do and I could see the
horn from the light inside of it.
About the color of the moon. And in
the dream I knew that he was goin on
ahead and that he was fixin to make a
fire somewhere out there in all that
dark and all that cold, and I knew
that whenever I got there he would be
there. Out there up ahead.
The screen goes black and the credits roll.
I could hear the frustration and the discontent in the theater. But I sat through the credits with tears welling up in my eyes — tears of deep aesthetic satisfaction at having just sat through a nearly perfect film, and tears because of those final, magnificent lines and what they meant.
I haven’t read the McCarthy book (I’ve read others of his, but not this one. I will get through it over Christmas.) And I know that the book and the film have been much analyzed, and I’ve only read a tiny fraction of that analysis. But here’s what I took from it:
We live in a world where evil is real, intelligent, and everywhere. The Chigurh character is terrifying, not only for his brutality but also because he has a strange set of moral principles. He invites two of his potential victims to flip a coin for their lives, as if eager to make the ancient pagan point that fate is both inevitable and random. And though most of us won’t be confronted with Anton Chigurh sitting in our bedroom calmly waiting to murder us, many of us live today (as humans have always lived) with an acute sense that we live in a world where death can come at any moment — unpredictable and seemingly undeserved. In most movies, evil is defeated — if only temporarily — and at least one good guy is left standing victorious. But in the real world, death wins a lot. Cruelty wins a lot. Good people die, and morally compromised ordinary people die, and the best of us begin to wonder, as Jones’ character wonders, if there’s any damn point.
But there is a point made in this film, at least as far as I could tell, and it comes in those final lines. This world is cold and dark and brutal. Death is nearly certain. But like the sheriff on his horse in Jones’ dream, we are called to ride into the center of the black:
I knew that he was goin on
ahead and that he was fixin to make a
fire somewhere out there in all that
dark and all that cold, and I knew
that whenever I got there he would be
there. Out there up ahead.
At the end of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis kills off the Pevensey family in a seemingly random railway accident. On the other side of this life, they are met by Aslan, the lion/Christ figure of the books, who greets them joyfully and leads them into his undiscovered country, crying “further up, further in.” And of course, the reader of the Narnia books takes “further up, further in” not only as a description of the entrance to heaven after death, but as a way to lead this life — always going further, deeper, higher.
The Coen brothers are hardly Christian film-makers, and No Country For Old Men is not an ostensibly Christian film. But the movie’s final lines, coming in all of their bleakness, were to me profoundly moving. In the presence of evil on this earth, evil that we can never seem to overcome, to live a life of faith is to ride out into the black, out into the bitter wind, carrying light in a horn, fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and cold.
I can’t speak for my fellow believers. But I can say this: for all the certainty that I convey in my writing on this blog, I am a man who has lived with a great deal of doubt. Like Jones’ sheriff, I often can’t protect the people I want to protect, I don’t reach the people I want to reach. I do struggle with existential despair, particularly in a world where cruelty, apathy, and evil are real and seemingly omnipresent. But when I walked out of the theater, the images and lines from this film seared into my brain, tears on my cheek, I walked inspired. In the face of evil and randomness, I am not called to save the world. I am called to make that fire in the darkness and the cold, no matter how feeble the light and how desperate the chill.
And when I get there, He will be there.
This was a beautiful, deeply affecting film; I will see it a second time as soon as I can carve out the hours for it. I recommend it with enthusiasm, and whatever others say, regard the ending as perfect.
Chigurh.
“And then I woke up.”
Thanks for the spelling change.
We do wake up, indeed, because we can’t follow the dead just yet, not literally. But the point is still clear for me — we go forward.
I can’t convey how deeply optimistic I felt the film was, though I doubt many others shared that view.
shaiza. have you any idea how hard it is NOT to read your whole post? first time for everything. ;) thanks for the spoiler warning.
Thanks for the review Hugo. It’s a film I won’t see now, despite the fact that I love the Coen brothers work and this sounds like an excellent film, as I find on-screen violence deeply upsetting. So I guess thanks for the warning.
The ending reminds me more of the end of ‘Candle in the Wind’ - the fourth book of the classic ‘Once and Future King’ cycle by T.H. White, than the Narnia books. There the old, and probably dying, King Arthur, is about to be defeated in war. He calls a 13 year old page to him and tells him to leave the field of battle at once. He says “my idea of those knights was a sort of candle, like these ones here. I have carried it for many years with a hand to shield it from the wind. It has flickered often. I am giving it to you now - you won’t let it go out?”.
The same idea. It is cold, and dark, and you may not personally win. But carrying the flame forward can be enough.
Interesting! I took it much more pessimistically, that the sheriff “woke up” from the fantasy that the fire lit by his father would be waiting for him somewhere out in the darkness. As everyone has been telling him throughout the film, the events of the movie are not mystical, caused by a ghost, or the result of some spiritual decline in the world: they are mundane and timeless, merely the most recent in an eternal sequence of evil. You carry fire into the cold and dark as you are driven to, but it is, and has always been, ultimately futile.
But that’s just it, tps12; carrying fire into the cold and dark is by definition not futile. Good does happen and joy does happen even in the presence of evil. It’s a Christian version of Sisyphus, almost — you go out into the darkness to make a fire that may only burn a little while, but the flame, as feeble as it is, is hope that cannot and will not be extinguished.
“And then I woke up”: my father is gone. I carry the fire in the horn now.
Spoilers to follow: WARNING
Brolin’s character likely wasn’t done in by Chigurh at all, but the Mexicans. Remember, the lady at the pool? Moss says ‘I’m looking for what’s coming’ and she says ‘We usually don’t see it coming.’ Moss was looking out for Chigurh, but was ambushed by the Mexicans. They were given an extra receiver by character who hired Woody Harrelson’s character to get the money back. That’s why Chigurh killed them.
Anyway, I agree that there’s a lot of meaning in this movie, even if it appears to be quite simple on the surface. One of the most important points of the movie was how people end up facing the consequences of their actions. When Moss took the money, he sealed his fate and likely his wife’s, too. For example, imagine that he didn’t go back with the water. Imagine he just slept through the night. Well, the transponder in the money bag would have brought either Chighurh or the Mexicans to his trailer eventually. In the end, the result was the same. He brought someone into his life that wasn’t going to walk back out of it before killing him. Everything Moss did to try to escape death was futile. He survived for awhile using his own survival sense and also buy sheer luck. But, there was a hell hound on his trail and running only prolonged the inevitable. I’m just thankful that the Coen Brothers let us tag along with him for awhile before his unavoidable demise.
As for the meaning in the Sheriff’s final speech. I don’t think it was more than just the simple realization that we can make a place for ourselves in this cold dark world for a little while, but sooner or later our flames will be extinguished. It can take 2 weeks or 80 years, but nobody can escape what’s coming. For us, it is the end of all things in this world. We are only left to wonder if someone like Chigurh will bring us to our ends sooner than mother nature can.
Couldn’t have said this better myself. Hugo, I think you’ve changed my mind about the film. I knew that I greatly appreciated it, but not that I loved it. I can’t stop thinking about it, that’s for sure.
Great thoughts, thanks!
You are right on the money with this. I’ve been following the Coen brothers and have always been impressed with their will toward affection in the face of capriciousness. Either by the hand of man or nature.
Good stuff and eloquently put. Thank you sir.
I’d really urge you to read the book if you loved the movie. As a die-hard McCarthy fan, I’d read it a couple of times before I saw the movie. As you’ve probably heard, the adaptation was very faithful, although both Ed Tom and Chigurh were much more fleshed out in the novel. Obviously, as with all great literature, there’s a lot of room for multiple interpretations, but I think you may have a more pessimistic view of the movie after reading its source material. When you add up everything Ed Tom has to say, what you end up with isn’t pretty. It’s this unflinching quality of McCarthy’s writing that attracts me. The end of The Road has a similar feeling ***(THE ROAD SPOILERS TO FOLLOW)***
The boy survives and there’s some hope in that, but those brook trout in the streams that aren’t there anymore? They represent something that can’t be put back or made right. Ever. I take “Then I woke up” to be sounding a similar note. It’s bleak, but gosh it’s beautiful.
Hugo, thanks for the reviecw. I saw this movie, then Atonement, then Sweeny Todd and then Juno all in that order over the holidays. I don’t see movies like I used too and have become quite selective. Most to me are only dollar worthy and I much prefer reading as I think Hollywood tends to botch good literature. I appreciate the Coen brothers work and also McCarthy’s novels. I think the carnage of the movie was so unsettling to me that I felt emotionally drained and numb, so when it came to the subtle ending I wasn’t listening as well and missed the point of the end as you write above. I thought it well done, but violence, even when there is a point to it, is just so hard to watch. Atonement on the other hand packed a whopper of an emotional punch at the end. The story lead up to the ending. Unfortunately, it’s marketed as a love story (chick flick), which I think is quiet misleading as the love story is not the cenral point of the movie at all. I never pay much attention to trailers anymore as they are too misleading and I am selective about reviews for the same reason. I did appreciate your review above…Well done.
I’ve seen No Country four times and have been posting on the imdb message boards that it is one of the deepest movies ever made. Some people agree and others think I’m an idiot. I’ve also read the book but this is one of those very rare instances where, as happened with Fight Club, I liked the film adaptation better than the source material. Its also particularly demonstrative of the Coen brothers’ talent because I’ve read every McCarthy novel and he is my favorite living author. All that being said, I absolutely agree that the ultimate message behind this very dark movie is one of light and hope. Someone stated in an earlier response that the light in the horn is the light of our lives burning and that it will eventually go out. That is an erroneous interpretation as the darkness in the dream is the darkness of death as Bell’s dead father is there. The light in Bell’s father’s horn is a light in the afterlife. It isn’t a light in this world. It is also important to note that the first dream in Bell’s closing monologue was about Bell being a little boy and he and his father go into town. His father gives him some money but he says to his wife that he can’t remember what he did with the money his father gave him. “Maybe I lost it,” is exactly what he says. That ties into the fact that the entire movie and all of the deaths are fallout from the chase for a missing satchel with 2 million dollars in it. Yet Bell never gets caught up in the chase for this money. He is only trying to save Moss from getting killed. “Money is the root of all evil” is how the axiom goes and Bell isn’t sucked into that evil. Therefor, he has a light waiting for him in his afterlife. It’s important to consider that the movie is bookended by monologues from Bell. The opening monologue has him talking about how the world has become so violent and that to engage the world as it has become “you almost have to put your soul at risk, say ‘O.K., I’ll be part of this world.” He only half becomes part of this world as he does try to help Moss stay alive but he also keeps his distance from the carnage that is taking place. The only reason the last line of the movie is Bell saying “And then I woke up” is because he wakes up from that night’s sleep and from his dreams. It also fits into the overall brilliant direction of the Coens as the screen immediately cuts to black and the viewer can then wake up from the hypnotic experience of this masterpiece.
Of course, that’s all my own humble opinion. It is good to read that someone else was also left dumbfounded by their experience. I’m rooting for more movies of this caliber, that don’t insult the viewer’s intelligence, to be made. Therefor, every fan helps! Peace.
Thanks for the review. I just saw the film, and as a person into dreams, I came home and wanted to see if I could find the dream sequence on the web. I think this is a brilliant ending for the movie, and I agree with much of the praise expressed here. However, I think some big points have been missed.
I think that the movie ends with a dream shows that our actions and motives are largely unconscious, both the “good” guys and the “bad”. The first dream has his father giving him money, but he loses it. In other words, he fails to respect the value of money. Money is not intrinsically evil, lack of respect for money, carelessness, makes money evil. Then, we become delusional and seek evil ways to obtain it if we fail to appreciate it is our responsibility, much as it is our responsibility, in the second dream, to make sure we bring a fire in a horn if we are going to sleep in the cold of night.
As shown in the second dream, the money game is cold. We take the lead from our fathers, if we are lucky, we have a father that lights a hopeful, warm, emotional path, and we are able to learn responsibility in a respectful environment. if we are not lucky, we have an cold father or no father at all, and the money game is played without human emotion, care, respect, responsibility, or justice. In this later case, we are prone to see ourselves as machines, with our fates made by blind fate, a flip of the coin, rather than created by our selves through the priority of the warm light of feeling and emotion and passing and receiving the torch from father to son. Thus, we are prone to place no value above brute survival and greed.
“No Country for Old Men” seems to imply that old age forces a confrontation with our delusional perceptions about how much we have controlled our life, how much control we have had, and why we have chosen what we have chosen. We live in a delusion that it is “our country” as long as we are young and have not come to terms with life’s unfairness and cruelty. As the movie suggests, what control and freedom we have had has been a gift more than our choice. The unconscious rules, but we do not begin to realize this without experience. We are lucky if we have lived on the side of light, it is a gift. It is a gift worth preserving, and that is our job as fathers of future generations to provide some light for young men. Ultimately, how much light we get, when death will come, that it is chosen as much by animalistic energy as by reason and fairness is a great mystery. As the horse ride implies, this growing awareness is a journey. The value of the Terminator is that the deadly painful fear and horror that he creates leads us to realize just how good we have in our own life. In a real sense, we couldn’t truly live without his morose message. Evil shapes the form of the light we get.
On the negative side, I found the film riddled with logical inconsistencies. For example, before I even knew there was a homing device in the sachel, I thought, why is Moss keeping the money in the same carrying case he found it in? If someone is looking for it, that is a dead give away. Further, if Anton has a homing device why would even wait to go to the trailer and why would he go in, since the money was already gone. Why didn’t he use the detector then? Big problems!! Lastly, Moss was awfully slow to realize there was a homing device, wouldn’t that be the first question you would ask once he found you and blew away the three Mexicans in the hotel??? Wouldn’t you immediately get rid of that sachel?
Thank you for giving us such an inspiring piece…….I will certainly go see it.
spot-on! i have been having a hard time trying to convey what the the recounting of
the dream meant to not only friends, but myself as well.
hugo, to give you an idea of how dear i hold NCFOM: i have this huge urge to go through my entire movies-i-have-seen-and-rated list on my netflix account and demote nearly all the five-star-rated-movies to four stars, and subsequently do the same, and so fourth, with each of the star rating tier.
yeah, that good.
Thank you. Really. That was the best review I have ever read for this brilliant, beautiful, fabulously done film. I was so happy for the Coen Brothers when they received the Oscar recognition they so deeply deserved.
Thanks for the thoughtful review. I have to admit I’m one who was annoyed at the ending, feeling deceived that a different film had been ‘tacked’ onto the first, and the seeming pointlessness of the Woody character.
Yet I can greatly appreciate the sentiment of the last 20 minutes when viewed in isolation, and now that I’ve re-read the dream text.
I still wonder however, whether the two parts couldn’t have been more seamlessly joined. I just don’t think I was mentally prepared by the movie plot, for the ending.
Wasn’t Moss killed by the Mexicans?