No Country For Old Men

[tealin]

Just saw it.

That theyer ... that's a lawta shootin'.

No Country For Plot Structure Old Men:

Okay, I'm sure I'm going to offend nearly everyone of a literary persuasion, but what annoyed me about this movie is what annoys me about most modern capital-L Literature:¹ there's no shape to the plot. I can understand plotlessness (even if I don't like it) if it's all about the characters, but for that you need character development, and this didn't even seem to have that. I'm pretty sure the actors knew who they were, but they didn't get much of a chance to let me know. There were one or two characters who I felt I knew well enough, but most of them were just there to get shot, and one of them was just there to do the shooting. The one who narrates the beginning and gives you some of his backstory you only see for about 20 minutes and is only tangentially connected to the story; the one you know the most about is eliminated from the plot about 2/3 through, and is a frustrating mix of cunning and stupid that made me just want to smack him upside the head. Has anyone heard of a climax around here? Or a protagonist? Or even an anti-hero? Can you think of no way to pull me into the story? I'm sure there is plenty of merit to books like these and I'm being bourgeois and small-minded for not liking them, but I can't help feeling there's a little bit of emperor's new clothes happening here, much as with modern art.

My principal appraisal of this film is as follows: It is as if a pair of very talented filmmakers were doing a doctorate in film, for whatever reason, and for their thesis they were given a work of Literature to adapt. And they did so admirably, for all I know, having never read the book myself. There were many things about this film that I liked, they just happened to be exclusively filmmaking things which I wonder if any 'civilian' picked up on (though of course good filmmaking can be sensed by all, regardless). I liked how every time there was a shot down the hood of a car past the ornament, you knew it was the villain driving, even though it was always a different car. I liked how there was always background wind noise, even if there wasn't any evidence for it,² though I don't know what sort of point it was supposed to make. (The emptiness of existence? The windblown nature of the characters?) I liked how the following-the-blood-trail motif is established when Llewellyn hunts the antelope and is recalled when Segur(sp?) is hunting him. I liked the deep, sweeping vistas of the parched southern prairie. I didn't like the CG of the crow flying off the bridge but that might just be me. I did like how they didn't have to show the guy killing anyone after a while, you knew he'd done it and they didn't even have to bang you on the head with the telegraphing.

Those nice touches just didn't make the movie for me, though. It didn't go anywhere. 'Cinderella goes to the ball, marries the prince, and lives happily ever after' is not a story. Well, 'Psychopath kills a lot of people all around Texas' is not a story either. It could have been about Llewellyn but he doesn't have any sort of arc, and the story meanders for quite a while after he drops out of it so he doesn't even really feel that central. There's a cat-and-mouse thing that goes on for a while but it's really not that interesting because one party is one-dimensionally insane and the other is only in it for the money. I thought this sort of game was played out much better in Road to Perdition, which had quite a decent plot structure and character development.³ At least everyone in that movie had something to do with the central characters at some point. I don't even know the name of Tommy Lee Jones' character and he seems to have been one of the important ones, though I can't recall why. I hate being the person who calls characters by their actors' names but I'm forced to resort to that here. Is this some sort of statement on the anonymity of death? Good grief, I could BS an entire paper at this rate but that's only because I'm trying desperately to find what should have been apparent in the first place, so I have to make it up.

I suppose, if nothing else, No Country For Old Men at least provoked a reaction. Man, I hate it when things are knowingly provocative with no other hook... I wouldn't mind if the Coens won Best Director for this, because there is no doubt it's very well-directed, but I'd put both Juno and Atonement above it in my vote for Best Picture. Haven't seen Michael Clayton but I'll be seeing There Will Be Blood next week. Gotta love working for a major studio with a built-in cinema. :)

¹The kind with the title of the book printed in widely spaced all-caps on a fairly neutral low-contrast photo, usually with the author's name in smaller, humbly dignified text, with no plot synopsis anywhere on the jacket, just a few quotes from fellow authors of Literature offering their quiet but magnificent praise.
²Watch for this: in the scene where Segur(sp?) asks for Llewellyn at the trailer park office (I think that's the one), you can hear the wind, but the windmill out the window is completely still. I might rack this up as a continuity error but I know the Coens like doing stuff like this so it must be significant somehow.
³... and wicked awesome cars, sets, costumes, and score, and cinematography to die for.

Comments

[noodledaddy.livejournal.com]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: You can be a good writer even if you don't write stories. George Will is a good writer. Rene Girard is a good writer. Thomas Sowell is a good writer. You are a good writer. Your writing is well structured, you don't write down to your audience, your writing is entertaining to read. It's a burden you'll have to bear.