MAJOR SPOILER ALERT FOR NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN!!!
Okay. This is going to be fun. Wild but fun.
Not everyone loved NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN even though it won Best Picture. Bob Gale, a screenwriter who I have enormous respect for (among his credits: BACK TO THE FUTURE) is one of those naysayers. He had a few teeny-weenie logic issues and one or two questions. Here's his assessment and I know the comments are going to start flying. I'm just the hockey referee. I drop the puck and you guys go for it.
The puck drops....NOW.
It made no sense at all!
Javier the bad guy wanders around Texas doing a bad impression of “The Terminator,” lugging a big compressed air tank and hose instead of just carrying a pistol with a silencer that he could put in his pocket. Right.
The Deputy arrests Javier, takes him to the station, then turns his back on him (perhaps not noticing he is twice his size) to call Tommy Lee instead of putting him in jail first. Right.
Tommy Lee doesn’t put out an APB for the entire state of Texas regarding the killer of his own deputy. A cop killer is on the loose but no one knows. Right. Of course, maybe he did, but since nobody in the whole movie listens to a radio or watches television because there’s just so much to do in west Texas, how would anyone know?
Then we meet Josh Brolin, hunting deer in the desert – there’s a natural habitat for you – but he doesn’t have a canteen with water. Right.
Then, after ripping off a bunch of dead drug dealers who have been massacred with machine gun fire, Josh decides in the middle of the night to go back to the desert to bring water to one of the dying drug dealers he just ripped off. Great idea. Does he wait until morning? No, he chooses to do this at night when you can’t see shit. And he doesn’t bring a flashlight. Double right.
It just so happens that the very next day when Josh and his wife clear out of their trailer, that’s the day when the phone bill comes so Javier can find it. Right.
Plus, knowing that drug dealers are going to be after him, he decides not to tell the lady who runs the Trailer Park a cover story that might get the bad guys off his trail. Oh, he’s brilliant.
Why does Javier kill the 2 guys who at the scene of the crime who have just hired him to find their money? Did it not occur to him that they would be working for other guys who might not like having their people killed? Does he think this will look good on his resume?
And these guys just happen to have the most powerful transponder and tracking device in Texas, which can pick up a signal from miles away. James Bond didn’t even have this. Right.
When Josh Brolin finds the transponder, he doesn’t throw it out the window to decoy the bad guy or conceive some clever plan to lure Javier into a trap. No, he just sits right next to it. Genius.
Josh Brolin fires a shotgun with double aught buck at Javier who is 6 feet away from him behind a door and he doesn’t kill him, nor blow up his compressed air tank. What planet are we on where the laws of physics work in such mysterious ways?
There’s a big burst of machine gun fire in two different motels, and then a whole bunch of shooting in the main street of a dead quiet small town and it doesn’t bring the police or any armed citizens. Oh, wait – I missed the part that explained we’re on a different planet. Or something.
Josh Brolin can just walk across the border into Mexico AT A BORDER CROSSING, dripping blood, without being stopped by the Mexican authorities. What is this, some special “Bleeding-fugitives-can-get-into-Mexico-free Day?” Where exactly was the sign that was advertising this promotion? At least they could have had Josh bribe the border cop.
Javier is looking all over Texas for Josh and can’t find him, but Woody Harrelson finds him immediately in a hospital in Mexico. I guess I also missed the scene where they explained that Woody had super-powers.
Woody can find the money, but Javier can’t. Wow, those super-powers of his are really amazing. And Josh decided to keep the money in its original suitcase because obviously he knew there would be no way the bad guys would be looking for THAT. Oh wait, I forgot, he’s a Vietnam Vet so the war must have messed up his ability to think.
Who killed who in the El Paso motel? How did the mother-in-law die? In the shootout? Then why didn’t Josh’s wife get killed? And what was the point of the woman at the pool who wants Josh to have a beer with her? What finally happened to the money? There’s a whole bunch of carnage at this motel, but Tommy Lee and the local Sheriff have time to have coffee so the Sheriff can complain about kids with green hair. Sure, why not.
Did Javier kill the wife or not? And how come Javier just happens to have an auto accident at the end? I guess it was because he was looking in his rear view mirror, worried that the 2 kids on bikes might have some serious armament and be coming after him because, goddammit, they look like dangerous bad kids in the employ of a rival drug dealer. The one kid gets money and the other doesn’t. Why doesn’t the other kid rat out Javier to the cops? Meanwhile, Javier is just walking down the street, dripping blood, with police sirens approaching and no one is going to notice? Oh yeah – I keep forgetting that it’s another planet. That would be Planet Deaf Dumb Blind and Stupid.
Meanwhile, Tommy Lee is pontificating about nothing with some crippled fucker in the middle of nowhere. And everybody talks….real….slow….because…it’s….real…important…philosophical….existential…claptrap…and…this….is…a ….real….important…motion…picture…
And then the movie ends with Tommy Lee telling his wife about some fucking dream he had? What the hell was that????? Oh wait – I get it – the whole fucking movie was his dream.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
NO COUNTRY FOR REAL LOGIC
129 comments:
Hey Ken-
This is my first time writing on the blog.
So, I'm trying to figure out how this got posted at 6:47pm, when you were at the restaurant until close to 7pm? Is there a ghost rwiter (named Annie?), or are you a speed writer awho used superhuman skills to do this in the car before you drove away?
... And 88 mph in a Delorean with a flux capacitor lets you travel through time?
I agree 100%. Gale picked up way more problems with logic than ever occurred to me but I guess he was making a point.
I enjoyed the movie, though, because I learned long ago that unless you want to hate every movie you see you have to suspend disbelief.
I can even watch submarine movies and I'm a submariner.
Try it, you'll like it.
Nikki,
That flux capacitor really DOES work.
Seconded. The script is/was available online and it's the duff ending that makes you question the story altogether. It's as though some of the pages got folded over in the photocopier. With a resonant, satisfying ending you wouldn't worry about the logic.
Great post, Ken. Agreed 100%. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Thanks for this.
Also, to the second poster - anonymous - you're an idiot. A story can have fictional elements in it as long as they're justified.
Are you telling me NCFOM takes place in a sci-fi world where everyone is basically senseless and idiotic, thus justifying the stupid behaviour of, for example, Tommy Lee?
I can't stand when people use that stupid argument to justify continuity, plot, and character errors in a movie that did not justify them.
Dinosaurs are in Jurrasic Park because, in it's universe, it made sense.
However, you can not be stupid enough to argue that dinosaurs in
"There Will Be Blood" is the same damned thing. However, that's what you just did, anonymous.
And flem, suspending disbelief only goes so far. I can only pretend a movie is 'good' for so long into the movie. When it proves to me, outright, that it isn't worth my appraisal, I give it my word that it won't recieve it.
I'm good like that.
Was Mr. Gale's post serious, as in we're supposed to take the criticisms seriously, or was it meant in jest?
I ask because a lot of the questions or alleged flaws in logic are either explained in the film or meant to convey certain themes to the audience in a non-literal manner.
While the film is not without its faults, Mr. Gale appears to not have been able to discern any of them.
There are too many questions for me to go through them point by point, so I'll just pick a few.
For example, Mr. Gale writes, "What finally happened to the money?"
This is a significant point in the film and if Mr. Gale is being serious, undermines his position as "critic." The film makes it very clear that Chigurh got the money. Moreover, that fact is significant in developing his character because he killed the wife even after he had the money simply to uphold his promise to Moss.
The reason it's quite obvious that Chigurh got the money, if one takes the time to pay attention, starts earlier in the film when Chigurh sees that Moss stashed the money in a vent.
Later, after Moss is killed, Bell goes to the hotel where Moss was. Chigurh is hiding, and Bell sees that the vent has been opened. Later, after his accident, Chigurh gives the teen a $100 like Moss had been giving our earlier. Clearly, that money was from the stash and Chigurh got it.
Mr. Gale asks, "Why doesn’t the other kid rat out Javier to the cops? Meanwhile, Javier is just walking down the street, dripping blood, with police sirens approaching and no one is going to notice?"
This isn't a logical flaw. This is an unanswered question. What does happen? As viewers, we don't know because the narrative for Chigurh ends. Moreover, it's irrelevant to the story.
At the end of Back to the Future, the audience is left hanging. "Wait??? The future has no roads??? Where are they going????" Not every film wraps up every question that the audience has. And I would offer that the unanswered questions in BTTF are far more important to the audience than whether the one kid squeals.
But, in the very least, this scene establishes that Chigurh is very much not a "Terminator." Despite his previous apparent "unstoppability", he's very much susceptible to mundane events of life like anyone else. This was a key scene because it established this aspect to the character (i.e., he may be a psychopath, but he's only human) and revealed that he had the money and decided to kill the wife anyway.
Mr. Gale is equally thoughtless throughout his post.
Indeed other criticisms are similar. For example, "The Deputy arrests Javier, takes him to the station, then turns his back on him ... to call Tommy Lee instead of putting him in jail first." This comment, combined with Mr. Gale's comment regarding Bell's description of the dream, further demonstrates that he simply didn't understand the film.
From a practical stand point, it's not uncommon for police officers to not immediately put prisoners in cells. And, in this instance, we don't know why Chigurh was arrested. It could have been for any number of non-violent reasons.
However, thematically, it ties into the entire story, which are given away by the title of the film and Bell's initial narration. Bell describes at the beginning, for lack of better words, "the gold old days." He talks about how "some of the old time sheriffs didn't even carry a gun." This statement and the rest of the narration immediately preceded the casual treatment of Chigurh. What we're seeing is this "old time style" (the film is set in 1980 or so) coming into conflict with a new type of criminal. We see that it is unprepared for it (and is part of the reason Bell retired).
Indeed, the entire film is about the transition from this somewhat casual attitude to the unknowable and unfathomable brutality of criminals like Chigurh. Bell's character, throughout the film, is the narrator of this transition. For example, his discussion of the newspaper article with the other deputy. (The title of the movie is another clue.)
Consequently, Mr. Gales criticism is not only inaccurate from a literal point of view, but he fails to comprehend how it is an essential element in the narrative.
Mr. Gale adds, "Tommy Lee is pontificating about nothing with some crippled fucker in the middle of nowhere." This is why I ask if the entire point of this post is for the sake of humor. While the final narrative is somewhat muddled and the end isn't entirely satisfying, "crippled fucker"? Really? That's neither funny nor insightful.
So, again, I ask, is this post supposed to be taken seriously, or is it simply meant as illogical ranting for the sake of humor?
This is a great read. I though I was the only one who thought the story wasn't, ehrm, great. It wouldn't have gotten any Oscar from me, this film.
From Merkin Guano:
Oh my god. Why is this even a problem when shit like National Treasure, The Game Plan, and their ilk are raping our feeble minds?
Seriously folks. Time to stop the hate, stop the jealously, and start going after the fucks that don't give a shit. Let's opine about the discrepancies, the ludicrousness of National Treasure 8: "Nic Coppola is a smug, Chihuahua stealing frog-fucker", before we start tearing the assholes of tried and true originals.
At least the Coens, the Andersons, even the Reitmans (Jr.) of this world give a shit about what goes into our brains and not necessarily what comes out of our pockets. That should count for something.
Shame on Mr. Gale. And shame on Mr. Levine for supporting him.
I truly belive that this post was meant as a jest. it's not the first quasy-serious post on this blog, from mr. levine's hands or otherwise.
oh, and the deputy killed in the beggining is from a different county, he's not Sherrif Bell's deputy. it's all in the details, folks. if Mr. Gale meant it as a serious critic of the movie's "logic flaws", i guess he really didn't pay any attention whatsoever.
BUT, if this post is made in point to make fun of people who make such empty and pointless critics, than job well done, sir!
"Fargo" could be taken apart like this too.
I think the author just doesn't get it. Sometimes you have to accept submarines with command rooms the size of a barn and enjoy Gene and Denzel Duke it out.
Deal with it.
I hated "Juno" because I am not 15 years old or in a midlife crisis. Doesn't make me question the plot.
I both read the book and saw the movie, and to me this was a classic case of a poor adaptation. The Coens didn't deserve any rewards for adapting this book (which was great, BTW) because they cut out the wrong things, and left in things that should have been cut to make a better movie.
For example, Tommy Lee Jones' character is the protagonist in the book. The book is about the way this case affects Jones' character, which works in a book because books can focus on internal things (i.e., thoughts and feelings). However, Jones' character is way too passive to work for a movie.
If the Coens brothers had really thought about it, they would have realized they needed to make Josh Brolin the protagonist and focus on that rather than trying to find a way to incorporate Jones. Then they could have focused on ensuring that the crime and all that happened afterwards made sense.
Did Javier kill the wife or not?
Yes. Remember when he leaves the motel, when he looks at his shoes? He's trying to see if he got any of the wife's blood on them. It's called subtlety.
"or blow up his compressed air tank"
He should watch Mythbusters.
This was either a very lazy attempt at criticism or a dumb joke. Ugh.
Umm, I read the book too, and I loved this movie. I thought it was very faithful to the spirit of the book. What really irks me is that people can't just accept it when they "don't get" a movie. Instead, they have to get really angry about it like Mr. Gale.
Josh Brolin fires a shotgun with double aught buck... and he doesn’t... blow up his compressed air tank. What planet are we on where the laws of physics work in such mysterious ways?
They did this on Mythbusters. Even high velocity rounds only dented a regular compressed air tank. Double-ought wouldn't blow it up.
Right on! About time to take this dreadful, boring, blood-drenched waste of time film apart. I saw it at the Academy, semi full of people, and the reaction at the end was...nothing. Very unusual. NCFOM not only didn't deserve the statue, it didn't even deserve the nom!
I read the post and comments and the most entertaining part is thinking that this might be the only place on Earth where people are making critical comparisons between No Country for Old Men and Back to the Future.
I hated "Juno" because I am not 15 years old or in a midlife crisis. Doesn't make me question the plot.
I'm 50 and not in a midlife crisis and I loved Juno. Sorry. You need other reasons to hate the movie. (j/k)
Teenagers and a guy in a midlife crisis were in the movie. I gave examples of people who could relate and therefor love the movie.
I didn't give any reasons why I hate it and that's what I tried to say: you can simply hate a movie no matter what.
This gives me a chance to add something: taking a movie apart because of it's faults is a good way to get rid of your anger. I think discussing it like this is ok and doesn't have to serve any other purpose than finding people out there who agree - which gives you a good warm fuzzy feeling inside and gets rid of all that anger because you wasted time and money on a movie you didn't like :-D
So I guess this was just a good way to blow off some steam :-)
And again, I hated Juno. I want my money back. Then again I am not that angry to point out its "flaws" :-)
ROFLMAO!!! Oh good. Now I don't have to watch the movie - especially with the dh because I know exactly what he'll say, the mumbled running commentary I'll hear underneath the film (or that I'd wind up making myself in spots if I wasn't too tied up in either the action or the emotions) to ignore the *logic*.
But then...there is that flux capacitor thing with the Delorean. There was never any logic in that either and I totally enjoyed BttF.
Ed Bell:
"...Anyway, first one I don't remember so well but it was about money and I think I lost it. "
Ken,I'd have to agree you're right. The movie is a dream.
Just a quick note to address the deer hunting, they're not in their natural habitat. It looked to this Texan like a hunting preserve and Brolin is poaching game.
Well…I…never…. Obviously it must be some time since Mr. Gale has been here on Planet TEXAS. (Incidentally, current hq of what is left of the De Lorean Motor Co.). The reason Brolin couldn’t shoot and blow up the compressed air tank from only 6 feet away is because this is Texas. He fired and accidentally shot a lawyer in the face. Do I have to explain everything people?
I’m pretty sure this is largely sarcasm. We can probably do without the “Shana you ignorant slut” Point Counterpoint punctuation, although I'll accept that sarcastic tonality doesn't always manifest itself in either direction in print. And yet I felt I learned both from the original post and the seriously thought out backlashes that KL predicted. Really. In fact, I’m so confused that, not having seen the picture, I can now, and still not have had any of these spoilers spoil anything for me.
I can’t imagine how any of Bob’s deconstruction could have approached the headache he must have gotten proofreading his own Back to the Future for logical flaws. (Btw Christopher Lloyd rocks!). Incidentally, it might be of interest to Bob, that around 1988, the 25th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination (just a few years after Back to the Future), a slew of scripts came into Dallas, all with the same general theme: scientist goes back in time and tries to prevent it.
I went with one of them to the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Suppository building, where there is now a really great museum/exhibit on the life and death of JFK, and then up to the 7th floor, which was used by Oliver Stone, because it pretty much looked the way the 6th floor originally looked before the Extreme Home Makeover guys got there. I remember one of the party asking something like, “Were there the same number of steps going up the stairwell to the actual 6th floor as we just took up to the 7th floor?" Then I remember turning to someone else and exclaiming sotto voice,” What the f difference does it make? You’re talking about a guy who goes BACK IN TIME fer Chrissake!”
People sure say some asinine shit when they don't leave their names.
Anyway, I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't get it. I wrote a post about how much the screenplay confused me and left me wondering what the hell was going on and everybody told me I've just got to accept that it's the way the Cohens write and it's genius whether I get it or not.
i can't argue either way. I fell asleep in it.
While I enjoyed the movie I though it had it's problems as well.
I still hold that Chigurh killed Tommy Lee in the motel and the rest of the movie is him finishing up his time on earth...
But I am wierd like that.
-Jim
I understood the theme, intent, and subtleties of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN perfectly well, thank you very much. My only question is: What exactly is in that mysterious, glowing briefcase that John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are sent to recover?
In theater there is an oft-used term, "Suspension of disbelief", which is the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible.
When I go to see a film I want to believe that it's real and possible. That's the attraction of the movies.
Unfortunately, NCFOM had far too many inconsistencies to ever have been believable.
When you're watching a film and have to keep turning to the person next to you to ask what just happened, the writer did not do their job properly.
Shame.
An even bigger shame is that this film was so highly lauded when there was Atonement...or There will be Blood.
Why on Earth would anyone compare a lighthearted sci-fi movie like "Back to the Future" to a movie like NCFOM?
For Jesus' sake, what's wrong with you. A sci-fi can have things that 'don't make sense', like a Time Machine. That doesn't mean you can have a superhero in a movie like "American Gangster".
Yeesh
Hi,
Let the ref just call a quick time out for a couple of comments.
First, be nice to each other. You're welcome to attack each other's position, not each other.
And secondly,it's okay to suspend belief as long as the movie establishes rules and sticks by them. If the rules aren't clear or the rules are established but broken then things fall apart. BACK TO THE FUTURE dealt with time travel and created a device to accomplish it. They then were true to that device. You can't question whether that device would really work. Of course it wouldn't. If it did Faye Dunaway would keep going back in time to 1967.
Okay, resume play.
The Coen brothers are just plain weird, okay. Either their movies resonate with you or they don't. For me, not so much, though I did enjoy Fargo -- but that had more to do with the performances of Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, and Steve Buscemi (sp?) than with the direction or the script.
It was my understanding that it was Marsellus' soul in the brief case corresponding with a band-aid at the base of his skull in one shot.
Like the movie or not I thought the acting was awesome. Javier Bardem had me on the edge of my seat everytime he was on the screen.
-Jim
since nobody in the whole movie listens to a radio or watches television because there’s just so much to do in west Texas, how would anyone know?
I just spent a week in far West Texas (Lajitas, Terlingua, Alpine). There are exactly 3 radio stations in the entire area, one of which is an NPR affiliate in Marfa which started about 2 years ago (the other two are an oldies station in Alpine and a priate station in Study Butte that only plays music, and was started in 1997). That's including AM stations; all that comes though on AM are Mexican stations and an ESPN affiliate out of San Antonio (about 6 hours drive away). As for television, the closest affiliates are in Odessa and El Paso, which are both 4-5 hours away, and can only be picked up via cable.
This is in 2008. The movie takes place in 1980. I'm just sayin'...
by the way, Back to the Future is fine. Used Cars, however, is genius.
So I'm not the only one who thought the movie was awfully stupid at its core. Beautifully made stupidity, but stupid.
The movie lost me the moment he used that pneumatic cattle killer. What an unwieldly, silly weapon. There was nothing it did that wouldn't be more easily accomplished with more conventional weapons.
People just stand there while he kills them with the cattle stunner? There was no way I could get past that.
And, yeah, Used Cars is one of the greats.
I think a helpful point of reference for the Anton Chigurh character would be Robert Mitchum's character, Harry Powell, in 'Night of the Hunter.'
Also, I hate to call Mr. Gale's own work into question, but as far as I know, there are no time machines. He probably should've researched that a little further.
I can't answer all of Gale's points based on one viewing of the film, but I'll tackle a few:
1. Javier uses the air tank primarily to blow out door locks. I think the only time we see him use it as a weapon is when he doesn't have a gun. Otherwise, he kills with a shotgun that has a silencer.
2. Don't know if this matters, but I think Brolin is hunting antelope, not deer.
3. I don't know that I buy Brolin's decision to bring water to the dying man, but it's set up as his conscience belatedly getting the best of him. And if he's gonna do it, of course he'd go under cover of night (the lack of a flashlight is a good point).
4. Phone bill -- who cares? It's plot expediency. I guess they could've shown Javier going through drawers and finding an old phone bill. Would that have been better?
5. The transponder is not shown to be particularly powerful. It only beeps when the money is in range, as when Javier drives past the motel.
6. Brolin fails to kill Javier through the door because, um, he misses? Is it so hard to believe Javier would anticipate the possibility of a shot through the door?
7. Just because Woody finds Brolin in the hospital first, doesn't mean Javier wouldn't find him soon as well.
8. If I remember correctly, we're to assume Woody finds the money because Brolin tells him where to look.
9. The mother-in-law dies of cancer. The wife survives the shootout because she wasn't there. She's clearly shown arriving at the motel in a taxi, post-shootout (can't recall if her mom is with her).
10. It's pretty clear that Javier kills the wife. He's not checking his boots for dog doo.
11. Tommy Lee's pontificating with the "crippled fucker" (jeez!) and the recounting of his dream go to the theme of the film. Obviously, the more commercial choice would be to end with a cathartic shootout and the capture or death of Javier. McCarthy had bigger fish to fry, and the Coens apparently followed his lead (I haven't read the book).
Gale clearly gave up on the film early on and had his claws out for it the rest of the way. If a film doesn't draw you in, for whatever reason, you naturally stay outside of it. This means you can miss things that are right in front of your face while you're busy crafting snarky criticisms in your head.
Without question, there are plot holes, inconsistencies and ambiguities in NCFOM. Much of the story is told visually and perhaps requires a more attentive viewing than the usual Hollywood product. I'm looking forward to another look on DVD to clarify and refine my own thoughts on it.
Maybe Tommy Lee should have stopped the movie in the middle, whipped out a blackboard, and explained the whole story with diagrams.
Or as Mr. Gale might have said, it's not built to exact scale - or painted.
They're pronghorn antelope, not deer, so they're not uncommon there. If you're driving along and you see potential game (likely as a poacher) you don't go looking for water first. Bringing water in the middle of the night, I guess that's when the conscience kicks in. No flashlight? I can see better without one in most cases, since the flashlight restricts the distance you can see and makes it impossible to see if you have to shut it off. That's probably a Vietman vet decision, actually.
When you're dumb enough to run off with the money, you're dumb enough to not think of everything to cover your tracks. The mother-in-law was sick, with cancer, if I recall that correctly. So gee, maybe the cancer killed her. And yeah, he promised he would kill the wife, so that's what he did. Not all of us need the salacious details with every death. As far as the car accident goes, I believe the other fellow ran a stop sign. This is irony, since Chagur ran his life by a combination of arbitrary rules and (wait for it) fate.
The crippled guy was a former cop (Tommy Lee's uncle? I'm getting old and can't remember) telling him that this sort of crap wasn't all that new.
But, Tommy Lee knows that isn't true, that this is a new and more vicious world, one that he can't handle. His dream is about his father, carrying fire in a cone, and TL loses sight of him. The cone can, I believe, be viewed as a symbol of civilization. Instead of a regular old torch, this was the sort of thing that earlier hunter-gatherers would likely have used to keep the fire going when they moved from one camp to another. The light and heat that keeps us alive. But with the changes coming because of the drug wars, TL's dad was the last able to do this. Civilization, someone who can carry the light as a symbol of hope, that's gone, and TL realizes it and gets out while he can.
Whew.
D
The big kicker about this movie is that the characters downright sucked. I understood the movie, but I just didn't care. It was mediocre at best, with some cool scenes that could've been in any action/thriller movie.
What frusterates me is how well recieved these kinds of movies are. We read all of these tips on how to write better as screenwriters, yet there are so many blatant problems and uninspired characters in movies today that makes me wonder - does anyone give a crap about a solid movie nowadays? How do movies like NCFOM, which has cool thrilling sequences at times and a cool villain, get a victory at the Oscars for BEST PICTURE?
NCFOM had amazing characters that you won't forget? Amazing and deep plot? A fantastic ending that made you applaud?
No, it had one thing that was done well, and that was it. However, that seems to be all it takes nowadays.
Oh fracking well. Losing hope in the film industry is not a new thing, and I am not intending to sound like the only person on EArth who feels this way. It's like beating a dead horse, but hollywood keeps giving me more reasons to continue doing so.
Stop, Hollywood. My arms are starting to get sore.
Bob Gale isn't very smart.
Despite the validity of many of Gale's comments, you can usually punch a hole in the logic of almost any story.
In WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? you could wonder why any young couple would stay so long in a house where their hosts are so crazy aggressive. RIght.
Gale's logic is so impeccable and iron-fisted, it might even be an argument against paying attention to any kind of story analysis.
Anyway, so glad Gale didn't write NO COUNTRY.
It wouldn't have been worth watching.
All the screenplays for the Best Picture noms were flawed in some way. No Country For Old Men was detailed in your post. Atonement pretty much lacked a third act. There Will Be Blood featured a main character that no one seemed to realize was beyond contempt, and kept trusting him. Juno decides to give her kid up to a single mom who seemed to be more concerned with appearance than substance. Michael Clayton's big climax is him recording the antagonist confessing, which was also the climax for the movie Fracture, and about 2 dozen other movies last year.
Still, all the films were, I thought, at least good. If a film is good enough that you look past it's flaws, then everyone's done what they need to do.
What I'd love to see, is for writers, especially, to be a little less critical of their own. It's hard enough in the business than to have your own colleagues trying to chop you down at the knees. There are enough people trying to do that.
I'd disagree. I think we need to be critical of 'our own' because it's a part of the job. We learn from bad movies, and we learn from good movies.
If I shoot for writing a movie like NCFOM, then I won't be shooting very far. I cannot settle and just say every movie is good just because I want to be nice. I'm a nice guy, but if a movie is bad, it deserves to be told so, at least for the reasons I believe it's bad.
When I say a movie or show is good, it actually means something.
I think you're misinterpreting how I critique movies. I have no problem with movies that don't take themselves too seriously, like Transformers. Yeah, it was a dumbed down pocorn flick, but it was darn good at what it aimed to do. However, NCFOM won an award for being 'close' to being a good movie of it's kind. It was not deep, dramatic, or worthy of post-discussion of the characters or plot, other than discussing how they were lackluster.
NCFOM was not entertaining. It aimed to be a movie that entertained through interesting characters and what they do in the presented situation, but it failed. Horribly. What it suceeded in doing was giving us a villain, while lackluster in his depth, who did some things that made us think 'cool'.
However, there's no substance. It did, however, have enough drab atmosphere to it to make the lack of depth, substance, and personality in the characters to seem like an 'artistic' film.
As I said somewhere else, it had the illusion of being a 'smart' film, because, apparently, boring and lacking characters and plot requires 'smarts' to decipher. Bullshit. I know intelligent entertainment. What NCFOM did was rely on it's lack of depth to SEEM like an abundance of gritty true-to-life artistic greatness. For example, monologues by Tommy Lee that had nothing I repeat - nothing) to do with the story.
But whatever. It won an Oscar, further reducing the meaning of awards in the film industry. Anyt movie can get one now for Pete's sake.
Wow, talk about typos! Sorry for anyone who had to read my previous post. Haha
I didn't mean that writers should critique other scripts. I think that is important. Hey, if I don't like a script, I feel just as much a right as anyone to say so. What I don't do, however, is harp on the screenwriter. An example is the level of hate that seems to be out there for someone like Diablo Cody. Sure, she takes advantage of publicity that comes her way and does her best to self-promote, but a lot of people actually seem to be offended by her success, as if it's somehow taken away from their own. I just think it's a little sad. And unnecessary.
I see this all a different way. First and foremost, the film is a work of fiction produced the entertainment industry, not a documentary produced by ken burns. (notice how I draw the distinction between burns and entertainment..or maybe that should be burns and non-sanctimony). So most good film storytelling relies on different degreess of disbelief suspension. Like, there are no such things as hobbits, but they sure cleaned up at the box office and oscars. Even in the realist genre there are certain sacrifices of logic that have to be made to make the story more compelling. And the coen brothers have never shied away from tinkering with the universes in which their films are set.
Take the visual art world too. We don't decry the logical abiguity of Dali's melting clocks or Picasso's cubist nude bathers, the latter of which definitely satisfies my fetish for placing my beer on perfectly square boobies. Yet both are classics.
The other thing specific to Javier's personal millieu is that the film takes great pains to describe this creepy, solitary killer as a complete nutjob, which should logically explain why he can kill or not kill arbitrarily and why he uses a pretty original way to take people down, incidentally without leaving traceable bullets at his various crime scenes. He's a mad genius driven by a strict moral code that happens runs against the grain of our own "moral" society.
So overall I don't think that NCFOM should be taken as anything more than an impressionistic, moving painting, and the lapses in logic don't detract from the beautiful imagery and rich moral play the coens constructed.
Just another 2 cents.
Chigurh kills people with a cattle-killer airtank because that's how he sees the rest of humanity - as cattle to be slaughtered.
it's an expression of his arrogance and contempt.
Adam
Ken,
Clearly you have never been to west Texas... it IS another planet where people just talk real slow. To be fair... you have to admit, the marketing was fantastic!
Carlos: I'm not sure why you think NCFOM was trying to fool us all into thinking it was "artistic." Except for Tommy Lee's ruminations, the film is mostly a brilliantly crafted cat-and-mouse story. Even many of the nay-sayers seem to appreciate that aspect of it.
I get the impression that many complaints about the body of the film would evaporate if McCarthy and the Coens had provided a conventionally satisfying ending. But they didn't and, yes, that colors everything that comes before. But if you really think Tommy Lee's monologues had "nothing - I repeat - nothing" to do with the story, then I respectfully suggest that your disdain for the film is preventing you from looking beyond your initial reaction. Of course you might hate it even if you did see a connection between the monologues and the story. But as someone who found the film both highly entertaining and thought-provoking, I can't go along with the suggestion that I and the others who like it have bought into some kind of illusion.
nk and adam: As I mentioned in my first long post above, most of Chiguhr's murders are actually committed with a shotgun fitted with a silencer. But the air tank is so visually compelling, most everyone seems to mis-remember it as his weapon of choice.
When this hits DVD in a couple of weeks, I expect a lot of critics, fans and bloggers will going through it frame-by-frame to clear up all the bones of contention.
I agree 100% with Carlo Conda's critique of the movie and with Tim W's point about critiquing the work, not the screenwriter. People are being extremely harsh to Diablo Cody.
Personally, I didn't feel engaged or invested in this movie at all. I wrote a whole long post about it but I don't know where it is and my wrists hurt too much to replicate it. I'm old! Thank God there's no such thing as No Blog for Old Women.
"I get the impression that many complaints about the body of the film would evaporate if McCarthy and the Coens had provided a conventionally satisfying ending."
I disagree with this observation. I don't think this is what the naysayers here are talking about. The ending didn't bother me. It was the lack of depth in the characters and in their stories. They not engage me; I didn't care about them one way or the other. This is not the same thing as LIKING a character, btw. But I have to be wrapped up in his story, even if I want to kick him in the teeth.
Contrast this with Fargo--which deals with similar themes much more successfully. There's a movie in which I'm engaged with each and every one who shows up on screen (even the repulsive people) and when it's over, I get a deep emotional sense of whatever the filmmakers were exploring.
The sign of good script and good film making is that while you are engaged in the theatre with the story you don't have time to think about how much easier it would be for the bad guy to have a pistol and not a kick-ass cattle stun gun becasue you are so wrapped up in the story.
Bob Gale's most known work is Back to Future and let's just say that the logic of that movie even in it's own internal sci-fi universe is pretty weak at times, but you know what when watching the movie you don't care becasue it is so good.
A lot of people don't like the ending, but it's faithful to Cormac McCarthy's novel and it creates something to think about leaving the theatre. Gale proably hates RTosebud too cause ot was frick' sled.
You think we’re overreacting? An FDA inspector just got a look at the scenes with that West Texas Chigger – or whatever the hell his name was -- dispatching folks with the pneumatic cattle stunner, and they recalled 21 million pounds of featured extras from the federal school lunch program. “Don’t tase me, Ant!”
And I didn’t find that nearly as unsettling as the dream about carrying fire in a Coen.
But Brad, Alpine I’ll give ya, even Marfa, where the two movies in question were shot. Something special ‘bout those place. Lajitas, Terlingua? Well maybe not so much. Congrats though on finding the one corner of our Lone Star state where you can get completely away from stations playing both kinds of music country and western.
My only question is what’s a “priate” station? Did you mean “pirate?” Or does it have something to do with priapism, as in, “If you experience listening to this station for more than 4 hours, see your doctor?” And speaking of that, and whipping things out, it sounds like Tommy Lee was a hell of a lot better in this picture than i that one with Pamela Anderson. Although that's a judgment call. Oh, nevermind.......
There's nothing wrong with disliking a movie like NCFOM (I hated There Will Be Blood, which many loved). But disliking it for the reasons Gale outlined is asinine.
Some of his arguments simply prove that he didn't care to follow the movie closely enough (other posters are right; issues like "what happened to the money" are clearly addressed, albeit subtly).
Others quibble with "yeah, right!" moments you could find in literally any film. For example, his "oh, the phone bill happened to come that very day." This is not a documentary. Would you have been THAT much happier they showed Bardem rummaging through a drawer labelled "Old Phone Bills?"
If you don't like a movie, that's fine. Everyone has opinions. Just don't couch it in language that implies the movie is objectively bad and flawed, especially if you're not going to take the time to look a little closer to answer your own questions.
Jbryant, you do realize that Tommy Lee's last monologue, in the book, was an insight into Cormac McCarthy's next book and had nothing to do with the story, right?
I thought the movie was going to be pretty good when I watched it. I don't carry biases into films and look for reasons to say they're bad. Don't think I'm silly enough to do so and type paragraphs on such a naive point of view.
I'm fairly cirtiquing the movie, and I don't let my personal opinions get in the way of my jurisdiction, if that's what you want to call it.
I'm able to say a movie is 'good' even if I didn't enjoy it very much.
Further regarding the monologues, they suck in most movies I've seen and, in a book adaptation, you need to remove monologues and narrative texts and replace them with visuals and action. The Cohens didn't do that, which is another one of the things I disliked about the movie.
Talking heads hardly even make for compelling storytelling. The only way it can 'seem' as if someone yabbering on about the movie's theme is 'good storytelling' at all is if you're fooled into thinking so. The fact that Tommy Lee wasn't just yabbering, but yabbering about folk tales, gives us the impression that NCFOM is a 'smart' movie.
Folk Tales? People don't hear folk tales regularly, sp to see the Cohens use the scenes straight from the book, and use the folk tales in contrast to the movie's story, makes this movie seem really smart.
It's like how you can fool someone into thinking you're intelligent by yabbering about Shakespeare all day. It's a trick in storytelling, just like slow long shots and silent dramatic scenes are. However, talking heads always will be a cheap and uncinematic way to expose a movie's story.
Remember Heroes' season 1 finale, when the dead man literally tell us everything about Peter's character in a 3 minute talking-head scene? As if we didn't know anything about Peter?
It's garbage writing for movies and shows.
And it's not about the ending that made the movie bad, it was the first two acts that lacked character progression and depth. The first and second act were fine because there was potential that I felt was going to be unleashed in the final act, but that wasn't the case. This leaves NCFOM a fragmented story and, while it has a nice second act cat-and-mouse shmeel, it doesn't save this movie. This movie may have had a good theme, some cool sequences, and an intriguing villain. However, a good movie is supposed to be more than a theme, cool scenes, and a cool villain.
Therefore, I cannot call NCFOM a good movie.
Heck, two-dimensional characters are enough to render a movie unrewatchable in my books.
Yeah, I talk too much. Haha
I'm not sure I get the "lack of depth" argument. The story follows three characters who have almost no onscreen interaction (even the exception -- the street shootout between Moss and Chiguhr -- isn't face to face). A conventional story would add depth through interaction and dialogue, and we do get that here in a few places (such as the brief narration at the beginning, Chiguhr's coin toss confrontations and the late scenes with the sheriff). But much of this story is told visually, especially the thriller portions. What do we not know about these guys that we need to know? Should the Coens have included more dialogue in which the characters "explain" themselves?
That said, I do think you can argue that the film contains deliberate ambiguities that make us dig to find a theme that isn't especially profound. You may do a lot of deep cogitatin' only to conclude that the film's title says it all. :)
And there was just enough plutonium to reach 1.21 gigawatts in the flux capacitor? Get a life you two.
Jbryant: "A conventional story would add depth through interaction and dialogue"
Uh, no. Sorry, but a "conventional story" has a lot of ways to reveal character. Having a character not interact with eachother is no excuse the leave them as two-dimensional walking goal-getters.
I also don't know why you'd think I want the Cohens to include more dialogue so the character can "explain themselves". Are you kidding? Did I NOT just discuss how you cannot reveal story via dialogue alone? Geezaloo.
Stories are complicated things, and good character development happens in many different ways. To think all it takes is a conversation to make you understand a character is silly.
Also, NCFOM isn't unconventional. A behind-the-curtain ending doesn't make the movie unconventional.
Bad character depth and plot depth isn't 'unconventional', it's garbage.
A lot of movies have weird plot structures and beginnings/endings, but they have good characters and so forth to make us give a crap. Memento didn't suck because it was 'unconventional'. It still had what makes stories good.
I'll kind of agree that NCFOM didn't have many continuity, plot, or logic 'errors', because the movie made sense to me. Heck, I'm a fan of Lost who understands the show inside and out, so I doubt something like NCFOM is going to leave me scratching my head. Haha
NCFOM was very easy to watch, but it wasn't compelling.
"And there was just enough plutonium to reach 1.21 gigawatts in the flux capacitor? Get a life you two."
Hello person who is relating a popcorn sci-fi movie to NCFOM. I reccomend learning how stories are created rather than thinking sci-fi family films are the same thing as gritty realistic films.
Interesting to see how everyone else would've made this movie.
Clearly, they would not have made a very good movie.
Clearly.
"Should the Coens have included more dialogue in which the characters "explain" themselves? "
No, this would've been dreadful screenwriting. Let's see if I can give you an example of what I mean, by talking about one scene that accomplished what the rest of the movie lacked: the one in which Chigurh interacts with that clueless old man at the store. I FELT that old man's confusion, his mounting fear. At the same time, I FELT Chigurh's sense of power, his seriousness, his ability to toy with people. Now, I didn't know anything more about that old man than what is shown in that scene but I know everything I need to know him as a human being and that scene lasts, what? Five minutes, tops. Yet so much is conveyed that I was wracked with anxiety for the duration. And that was the only scene in the movie that elicited any reaction in me. In that scene I felt how deeply important the stupid coin-toss was whereas I wasn't all that sure why the Josh Brolin character is so willing to risk everything for the money. Oh, you can say, Well, it's money, duh! But, come on. I have to feel why it's important to this particular character since not everyone places the same value on money. And it's not just enough to say: Oh, Llewellyn had debts. Contrast this with the scenes in which you sweat for that William H. Macy character's absolute desperation for money. He's not just greedy; you feel his discomfort, you feel his pain. You might hate the amoral stupid sucker but there is no doubt in your mind what that money means to him and why he's willing to go as far as he does.
Personally, you put a scary mofo like Chigurh in front of me and not only would I HAND him the money, I would even spit shine each and every coin. All the more reason why I need to know more about the Brolin character and this is not best accomplished by dialogue or by outright explanation but by SCENES. Hell, the best screenwriters do it with visuals alone and I'm not talking about lame flashback sequences.
But, really, are we all going to get upset bc we don't like the same movies? This is the sort of adolescent fascism that makes high school intolerable.
The bottomline: Many people thought it was a great movie. Others thought it was overrated. Some people were touched by it--others couldn't have cared less.
The wonderful thing about disagreement is that it leads to a conversation. After all, if we all agreed, we probably wouldn't discuss this at length, nor would we have cared to think deeply about these things.
Why the scorn someone who has different tastes about movies or art or music? Passion I can understand. But condescension and scorn and insults don't add to any conversation. Worse, insulting people makes others less likely to express any opinion that doesn't conform to the status quo. I doubt any reader here wants us all to be conformists.
Anyway, it's been a kick-ass conversation. Thank you, Ken for giving us the fodder. And thanks to the rest of you for making me think this deeply about it. (Although my wrists ain't happy with all this typing.)
carlos said: "Jbryant, you do realize that Tommy Lee's last monologue, in the book, was an insight into Cormac McCarthy's next book and had nothing to do with the story, right?"
No, I didn't realize that. And I must not be alone, because this is the first I've heard of it. Besides, isn't it possible that the monologue could be an insight into the next book while still being pertinent to the book in which it's actually included?
carlos said: "I don't carry biases into films and look for reasons to say they're bad. Don't think I'm silly enough to do so and type paragraphs on such a naive point of view."
I believe you. In fact, I never said anything about you carrying a bias into the film. But I think most of us have a tendency to avoid putting a lot of thought into something we don't like. So I wondered if your assertion that the ending had nothing to do with the story was a considered point or just a kneejerk reaction.
carlos said: "Talking heads hardly even make for compelling storytelling."
I wholeheartedly agree with this. That's why I'm so impressed that the film avoids dialogue for long stretches. Ending such a visual film with a monologue is a bold choice and I'm giving the Coens the benefit of the doubt that they intend for us to ponder its implications. As I said in another post, I'm not convinced it works, but that's why I'll be taking another look.
Awesome.
By the way, the name's Carlo.
Sorry about getting your name wrong.
carlo said: "I also don't know why you'd think I want the Cohens to include more dialogue so the character can "explain themselves". Are you kidding? Did I NOT just discuss how you cannot reveal story via dialogue alone? Geezaloo."
I didn't mean to imply you WANTED more dialogue. I was rhetorically asking if that might be an acceptable solution.
But hey, we can definitely agree on Lost. That's a kickass show. :)
eme kah said: "Why the scorn someone who has different tastes about movies or art or music? Passion I can understand. But condescension and scorn and insults don't add to any conversation. Worse, insulting people makes others less likely to express any opinion that doesn't conform to the status quo."
I'm pretty sure this doesn't refer to me, even though you quote me at the top of your post. I don't see any condescension or scorn in my posts, unless rhetorical questions are condescending. :) But if you did infer those things from anything I wrote, rest assured they weren't intended.
I agree with you about the scene at the store; superb scene. As for Moss, I think we can tell a lot about him from his actions, but I wouldn't mind more scenes that clarify his motivations.
I haven't seen that movie yet but now I've real all this, I don't think I want to see it. I hate movies where at the end someone was dreaming everything. It's like songs that end by fading out.
carmenzta: I think I can safely say that the "it was all a dream ending" is a minority opinion.
More than minority. I'm not sure how anyone could say it was a dream. TL talks about a dream, but it's in relation to what has happened in his life.
D
And what was the point of the woman at the pool who wants Josh to have a beer with her?,
When he smiles at the woman with the beer, it shows he finally lets his guard down. Anything that happens after that, he's a goner. In fact I think that's his last scene in the movie, dead body on the floor withstanding.
I posted the 2nd comment about the "88mph in a Delorean" last night, tongue firmly in cheek. Halfway through reading Mr. Gale's argument, I got the impression he was just having fun busting on NCFOM. Rare is a movie that can stand the harsh reality of the West Texas sun, Chigurh's bullets and Bob Gale's killer logic. Methinks he has issues with people who bust on his own chalkboard timelines in BTTF.
When I walked out of the theater after seeing NCFOM, Miramax had people distributing cards to gauge reactions. (with the little golf pencils.) This wasn't a test group, this was opening weekend. The big question was, "are you confused by the ending" and I honestly was at the time. It's a movie that I've grown to like. When I think back on it I don't nitpick in the logic, but think about the themes and the story they chose to tell.
For the record, I think all Coen Bros. movies exist in their own worlds, not mine.
In general, I think it's a poor strategy to expect logical plotting from ANY Coen Bros. venture. From the dumb-ass couple in "Blood Simple" to the shaggy-dog, Chandler-after-a-bong-hit charm of "The Big Lebowski" to a bellowing Jim Goodman racing down a hall on fire in "Barton Fink," the chracters and situations in the Coens' films flagrantly defy cause and effect. They're simply not much interested. Ambiguity, coincidence and self-defeating protagonists are their stock in trade.
Based on this continuing dialogue, I think that Chigger guy just killed 3 more people carpal tunnelly.
@ a buck short
Hehe, Chiggur. Tigger's arch nemesis.
this coming from the guy who wrote back to the future? and I'm not talking about the flux capacitor thing, I can perfectly ac