Day 15: No Country For Old Men

Joel and Ethan Coen, 2006

Armature: The world has a harshness that can't be stopped. Or, there will never stop being savagery in the world.

7 Steps:
1. Once upon a time Sheriff Bell wanted to hold off the evils of the world, so he became a Sheriff at the young age of 25.
2. And every day, he dealt with terrible crimes that seemed to have no point.
3. Until one day, the man Llewelyn Moss stumbles across an abandoned murder site and steals a case full of $2 million.
4. Because of this, Anton Chigurh hunts him down and finds him. Sheriff Bell, meanwhile, investigates it all.
5. Because of this Moss tries to run, but is inevitably killed.
6. Until finally, Chigurh kills Moss' wife because he once said he would.
7. And ever since that day, Sheriff Bell has retired.

This is quite the pessimistic screenplay. It moves me because it's terrible. It's rock-hard and serious and terrible, and makes me fear mankind a little. But I will say some things about it, because the fact that it makes me feel that way means it has done its job.

The Coen brothers really know how to tell a story visually. Most of this movie is not dialogue. The Coens have incredible control over what shots they want, and they describe almost every shot in the screenplay. They only include shots that are absolutely necessary. They recognize that the audience is smart, and can put 2 and 2 together. A lot of writers/directors do not have that much trust in the audience's abilities. The plot is also really quite straightforward, so there is nothing complex that needs to be explained through dialogue.

The Coen brothers understand that a complex story is not what makes a story powerful. The plot of this film is pretty simple and straightforward, but the audience is on edge the entire time. Nothing is skipped over, and nobody is giving long exposition speeches. Everything that must be shown is shown, and that is plenty.

This is how you make something simple into something powerful.

I also love just the format of this film in general. The main character is not Llewelyn Moss, it is Sheriff Bell. We hear a voice-over from Bell at the beginning to establish the beginning of his tale. The chase between Moss and Chigurh is the meat of the plot, but it is only significant because it is means something to Bell. When Moss dies, it's okay. We are affected by it, and maybe even surprised, but we aren't sad about it. Because Moss isn't the main character, and neither is his wife.

Perhaps a better way to phrase it: Moss is not the character of change. We don't even get resolution with what happens to Chigurh, because the justice of what happens to him isn't the story's point. Chirgurh is more of a tool to demonstrate Bell's fears about the cruelty of the world that he cannot hold at bay.

I wonder why the Coens chose to write a story about this.