no country for old men

pam came down yesterday afternoon and we started working on plans for the trip this summer. then we went out to eat at panera and headed to virginia center commons to go see THE BUCKET LIST. we got started late and got there to a mob, complete with tons of police all over the place. the line was so long that you didn't know where the end was, and everyone was pushing and shoving and talking and it was very overwhelming to me. my immediate reaction was to leave. we weren't going to make THE BUCKET LIST and i didn't want to see 27 DRESSES. i sort of wanted to see JUNO, but pam didn't seem to want to, so we ended up going to see NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

i had read the book a long time ago, it is by cormac mccarthy. but i didn't remember what it was about. there was a lot of gore, but it was a thinking type of film, much like most of the books mccarthy writes. pam wondered after it was over with what the significance was of the title, and i surmised that in this movie/book, the old lawmen more or less have to be resigned to a different kind of law keeper of the future. the crimes are worse, the lack of remorse almost standard, but more than that, the types of crimes were hard to wrap your head around. the old sheriff in the movie (tommy lee jones) is following a killer who has no feelings what so ever, but he isn't crazy behaving. he is a cold, calculated killer, and feels no pain it appears. he was sort of like the terminator character from the movies, only one who could be philosophical. when he talks, he has these philosophy discussions with people who have no clue, because they are simple. he is simple to the point of knowing that killing for him is not complicated. it is calculated, clean, cut to the chase, get it done. however, he does toy with some of his victims before he kills them, even giving 2 of them a chance to flip a coin to live or die. the last one refuses to flip the coin and giving him the psychological advantage that he seems to enjoy...and she dies.

the title i think can be interpreted a couple of ways. at the end of the movie/book the old sheriff retires and in the last scene he is discussing a dream he had with his wife in which his own father rides past him on a horse in the night with a bucket of fire. he says his father is going ahead to light a fire, and his father has a blanket pulled up over his head as he goes by. the son (the sheriff) isn't moving as fast, but knows what his father is doing and where he is headed. the screen goes black, movie over, and people puzzled, except for me. i see the symbolism of the fire (knowledge, a new beginning, the truth, birth, all of the classic light symbols). the father could be showing his son that he has to move on in the "night" (reality of the world) and his father is leading him there, to a place where there will be fire and he will see the world as it is, yet be comforted. it could also be the "knowledge" that the world has changed. in the dream both he and his father are on horses, and in the movie in the opening scene he and the deputy are going to the crime scene on horseback, and outmoded way of transportation, and very much a throwback to the days of when his father was a boy and horses were the way lawmen got to where they were going. the father is covered in a blanket, yet the son knows it is him. that could be interpreted as the son not knowing his father, not being able to see him, yet having faith in who he was and his guidance. nothing is sure...it is night, father with a blanket over him, a desolate landscape, but there is "light" in the wilderness.

the landscape of the picture is simple, desolate, hot, forbidden, and alluring. people die out there, yet somehow the landscape is comforting and inviting. an old man runs a general store/gas station in the middle of nowhere and the killer toys with him, asking him a lot of questions that the simple old man doesn't know how to answer. he was the one who did flip the coin, but he doesn't know why...he just does it. the implication is that when he wins, the killer is benevolent and lets him live. the old man never knows or understands this for his existence is so basic as to not be able to comprehend that level of sadistic behavior. another scene has the sheriff talking to an even older retired lawman and he tells the sheriff basically that the world changes, and you can't fight it. you have to accept what is and continue with what you think is right. but the sheriff retires anyway.

all through the book/film the old sheriff is pondering the way this criminal thinks and what he is doing. his character is compassionate and old school, concerned about the welfare of the llewellyn character who is on the run. the sheriff follows the criminal, but he might have gotten on to things sooner had he been able to adjust his thinking sooner to that of the killer. once he has done this, what he sees is shocking and demoralizing. this is why he quits. he knows that now the "country" that he lives in (society) is no place for old men like himself. they are lost in the old world and they can't adjust. they are dinosaurs, a dying breed.

the physical country also is demanding and stark, another reason why it is no place for old men. the landscape is changing and the demands of the world changing as well. old here could also mean older thinking, the type of thinking formed in a kinder, gentler society. the foundation of that society is much like the shifting west texas winds...ruthless, constant, reliable. yet old mesquite trees and scrub and thistle and brush hang on. little roots in the old world. they are just as easily crushed by 4 wheel drive trucks that venture to the desert with drug dealers driving them, killers who kill each other. the irony is that the "new" desert inhabitants don't survive, and their bodies are left to rot in the sun and become nothing. the significance of them as nothing is shown when a truck driver is stopped by the sheriff because his load is not tied down with a tarp properly. his load: the bloated bodies of the dead drug dealers who had died in the desert.

all sorts of symbolism in the opening scene: the desert setting, which is constant. it is invaded by the modern (drug dealers, 4 wheel drive trucks, dealers with vicious pit bull dogs) and discovered by the past (old time sheriff on horseback.) llewellyn is old school, shooting antelopes/deer in the desert and stumbles upon the death spot. he has been tracking a deer he shot but didn't kill (old school idea of making sure you put the animal out of its misery) when he tracks right into the murder scene. then he tracks down the missing drug money and takes it, starting the whole chain of events. he has old school hunting and survival skills which he uses (hiding the money in the heating vent), but he doesn't have the modern savvy that the killer does(the killer has a tracking device in the suitcase where the money is). llewellyn is a thinker and a planner just like the killer, but the killer has no remorse, no feelings, no emotions and doesn't think like a human. he is a killing machine.

all of the characters are simplistic in their own ways, even the killer. while he appears to be psychologically complicated, he isn't. the detective that is sent to find him knows how he thinks, but not enough to prevent the killer from finding and killing him. the only human quality the killer seems to have is the occasional need to play with his victims before he kills them, sort of like a cat with a mouse: it chews off it's ears and tail, slaps it around and plays with it and when it gets bored, it kills it quickly and leaves it for something else.

i didn't want to see the movie, but i am glad i did. it made me think, it made me write and that is all good...