No Country for Old Men

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Scott Warner

Tommy Lee's character is basically saying things ain't like they used to be, and the way things are now shocks him so much he doesn't want to carry on doing what he was doing. Think about the speech at the beginning and what he says at the end.

which is interesting considering the conversation he had with the wheelchair bound fellow, who illustrated that things are exactly the way they used to be. the details may be different, but going back to his ancestors there had always been violence and inexplicable pain and cruelty. and i think the point illustrated in the sherriff's dream that he recounts at the end, is that time keeps moving on and there's always light waiting for you, no matter how long the path is. just like chigurh's fascination with the paths coins take, life takes a similar path, just goes where it goes and ends up where it ends up and everything along the way is just details. at least that's what i got from it, and i appreciated the way the message was woven thoughout.

i realize you weren't commenting directly on this. your comment just brought this to mind.

Originally Posted by GreenPea

I found myself rooting for Chigurgh the whole movie, basically idealism gone wrong. The only man in the movie that doesn't act like an animal trying to survive or get rich but following his rigid set of principles and the rest of the world be damned. And I guess that makes him stronger that the rest of the characters as he is someone that cannot be bought or controlled.

i think it's odd that you "rooted" for chigurh. i don't know that any of the characters were presented in such a protagonist-like role. i think the point with chigurh is that he was inexplicable, unfathomable, and set on his path with an inevitability that even he didn't seem capable of explaining. if i felt anything for chigurh, i felt pity. it was as if his obsession with coins illustrated that he could comprehend nothing but the inevitability of the way coins travel. and even that comprehension was tenuous as illustrated by his confrontation with carson wells, who questioned whether chigurh understood how truly crazy he was.

[Scott Warner]

which is interesting considering the conversation he had with the wheelchair bound fellow, who illustrated that things are exactly the way they used to be.

Yes, I forgot about this exchange but you're right. So then the question at the end is - is Lee's final conclusion determined by the path traveled or by this realization?

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Scott Warner

Yes, I forgot about this exchange but you're right. So then the question at the end is - is Lee's final conclusion determined by the path traveled or by this realization?

the realization. i think part of what llewellyn's wife was saying to chigurh was that the path isn't real. there are still choices to be made, and one chooses whether his fate is determined by a "path" or not.

sarah connor was right, "there's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

[GreenPea]

Originally Posted by cacophony

which is interesting considering the conversation he had with the wheelchair bound fellow, who illustrated that things are exactly the way they used to be. the details may be different, but going back to his ancestors there had always been violence and inexplicable pain and cruelty. and i think the point illustrated in the sherriff's dream that he recounts at the end, is that time keeps moving on and there's always light waiting for you, no matter how long the path is. just like chigurh's fascination with the paths coins take, life takes a similar path, just goes where it goes and ends up where it ends up and everything along the way is just details. at least that's what i got from it, and i appreciated the way the message was woven thoughout.

This is pretty much how I actually see things, I had the impression that the conversation with the guy in the wheelchair was making this point, but I wasn't sure until now as well, I had a hard time understanding the dialogue.

[GreenPea]

Originally Posted by cacophony

i think it's odd that you "rooted" for chigurh. i don't know that any of the characters were presented in such a protagonist-like role. i think the point with chigurh is that he was inexplicable, unfathomable, and set on his path with an inevitability that even he didn't seem capable of explaining. if i felt anything for chigurh, i felt pity. it was as if his obsession with coins illustrated that he could comprehend nothing but the inevitability of the way coins travel. and even that comprehension was tenuous as illustrated by his confrontation with carson wells, who questioned whether chigurh understood how truly crazy he was.

I don't know if "rooting" is the right word, I think Chigurgh was not human (not literally, but what he represents) but he was basically death itself, something you can't escape from. Chigurgh did not have it's own intent, he didn't kill for personal reasons, dying by his hands was as inpersonal as dying on an earthquake or a car accident or most forms of death really, he was basically a tool of randomness itself? I didn't feel pity as I basically saw him as more non-human than human and liking him for that reason. I was rooting for him in the sense of I wanted him to be unstopable, this idealized tool of destruction and not just another human character that can fail.

I am still unsure what his character means in the overall message of the film though, or the car accident at the end? Basically I feel there is some message about inevitability and random pain/death/suffering but I also feel there is something more I am missing.

[Scott Warner]

Basically I feel there is some message about inevitability and random pain/death/suffering but I also feel there is something more I am missing.

It's interesting coz this is basically part of my worldview but I feel its a fairly liberating thing because it means there's nothing you can do about it, so there's no point in actually worrying about it.

And with that I am jinxed to randomly slip into a coma tomorrow. Goodbye.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by GreenPea

Ihe was basically a tool of randomness itself

i like that.

as random as a coin flip?