I am the Oscar Pariah

No one’s going to agree with me.

No one did when I thought Crash, Departed and Mystic River were garbage either, so I’m used to it.

I haven’t read the book (guilty, guilty, I know), and my conversations with Drew have redeemed the movie a few degrees in my eyes—but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the value of a movie like No Country for Old Men. Some will disagree vehemently and use the contents of its source material to parry and riposte. Please ignore them. We’re talking about the movie here. And just the movie.

I was struck by the beauty of some of NC’s opening landscape shots. I was pondering the ironies of Moss’ always-hits-him-late conscience—and the dog pile of a shit mess it gets him into. But as the plot wound up, and the chase was on, I found myself no longer thinking. Just dreading. It’s an extremely tense movie that doesn’t bullshit you with screeching violins to get your blood moving. It throws no look-out-he’s-behind-the-door moments at you. It’s no nonsense, and I give it credit for that (except for when the truck driver takes one to the neck and then the head).

But no character is so maddeningly out of touch with humanity as Anton Chigurh. He very well may be the devil incarnate. I await to see what roles Bardem can land after his perfect performance in NC—keep in mind the man who played Scorpio in Dirty Harry never had a supporting actor role of the same caliber. People actually thought he was that insane. Talk about typecasting!

It is with the attention to his character that I take issue. What does the depiction of his violence tell me more about how much humanity sucks than some other work? What makes the visuals of missing arms, et al., ART and not just plain old gratuitous? As soon as I started to think about this, the movie really fell apart. What is the Coen brothers’ obsession with characters who entirely lack conscience? Think Fargo, where Grimsrud blows a cops brains out (and how the blood comes pouring) and later uses a wood chipper to destroy some other evidence. It’s enough to make me wonder…

Right now, Garrett is saying to himself, “But it’s awesome!” If not him, someone else. (I still love you Garrett).

This is my problem. Is this violence necessary to drive home some point or is it there to encourage the 15-28 year old crowd to hype up the movie? When the original Terminator came out, people were surprised that audiences were cheering for the Terminator. They were cheering for the bad guy robot who was going to bring about the destruction of their entire species. To be fair, he was killing biker gangs, while Chigurh kills honest cops, country bumpkins, friendly “folks,” and good Samaritans (not to mention his final victim, who shan’t be named). There’s still a point to be made here: Schwarzie is badass. Isn’t that what this movie depicts best with respect to Chigurh?

He uses a silenced shotgun. While in existence, they don’t look as cool as his silver, unperforated monster. He wields a cattle gun and sneaks up on people in an entirely unique and terrifying way. We see every kill (except one). He’s just as much evil as he is badass. But wasn’t Schwarzie too? Audiences, thankfully, were not cheering for Chigurh when I saw this movie.

Still, I’m unimpressed with the display of violence. Have I grown old? Will I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled? Have I lost touch with reality? Perhaps I’m rationalizing away the bad taste the movie leaves in a normal person’s mouth—the nihilistic, happy, but also sad ending—the oft-ignored fact that if the devil has you in his sights, you’re about to be Job’d.

At the very least, I can certainly agree No Country got me thinking. And I’ve never written a brief essay on a movie before. But there are cases of bad art doing that to people.

Final Note: I’m told McCarthy’s focus is on the sheriff in the book. This makes more sense to me, but also proves my point. The Coen bros. DID drop a chunk of the original story to focus on “the badass.” And that’s what scares me. Not that a sociopath like that exists, not that an author like Cormac could create what must be a very good novel with some terrible people within, but that there are people who film the bloodiest parts and get awards.

Gladiator, anyone?