No Country for Old Men is a 2007 crimethriller film adapted for the screen and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. Adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, No Country for Old Men tells the story of a botched drug deal and the ensuing cat-and-mouse drama, as three men crisscross each other’s paths in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. The film examines the themes of fate and circumstance the Coen brothers have previously explored in Blood Simple and Fargo.
No Country for Old Men has been highly praised by critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it “as good a film as the Coen brothers…have ever made.” Guardian journalist John Patterson said the film proved “that the Coens’ technical abilities, and their feel for a landscape-based Western classicism reminiscent of Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah, are matched by few living directors.” The film was honored with numerous awards, garnering three British Academy of Film awards, two Golden Globes, and four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).
Production
Producer Scott Rudin bought the book rights to McCarthy’s novel and suggested a film adaptation to the Coen Brothers, who at the time were attempting to adapt the novel To the White Sea by James Dickey. By August 2005, the Coen Brothers agreed to write and direct a film adaptation of No Country for Old Men, having identified with how the novel provided a sense of place and also how it played with genre conventions. Joel Coen said of the unconventional approach, “That was familiar, congenial to us; we’re naturally attracted to subverting genre. We liked the fact that the bad guys never really meet the good guys, that McCarthy did not follow through on formula expectations.” The Coens also identified the appeal of the novel to be its “pitiless quality”. Ethan Coen explained, “That’s a hallmark of the book, which has an unforgiving landscape and characters but is also about finding some kind of beauty without being sentimental.” The adaptation was to be the second of McCarthy’s work, following the 2000 film All the Pretty Horses.
Shooting
The project was a co-production between Miramax Films and Paramount’s classics-based division in a 50/50 partnership, and production was scheduled for May 2006 in New Mexico and Texas. With a total budget of $25 million, production was slated to take place in the cities of Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well as in the state of Texas. Filmmakers estimated spending between $12 and $17 million of the budget in New Mexico. A movie set of a border checkpoint was built at the intersection of Interstate 25 and New Mexico State Highway 65. The bulk of the film was shot in New Mexico, and primarily there in Las Vegas, which doubled as the border towns of Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas. The U.S.-Mexico border crossing bridge was actually a freeway overpass in Las Vegas. Other scenes were filmed around Marfa and Sanderson in West Texas, and the scene in the town square was filmed in Piedras Negras, Coahuila in Mexico.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins, collaborating with the Coen Brothers for the ninth time, spoke of his approach to the film’s look: “The big challenge on No Country for Old Men is making it very realistic, to match the story. It’s early days, but I’m imagining doing it very edgy and dark, and quite sparse. Not so stylized.”
Directing
One of the Coen brothers’ influences was the works of director Sam Peckinpah. In an interview for The Guardian, they said “Hard men in the south-west shooting each other – that’s definitely Sam Peckinpah’s thing. We were aware of those similarities, certainly.” In an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Coens discussed choreographing and directing the film’s violent scenes: ” ‘That stuff is such fun to do,’ the brothers chime in at the mention of their penchant for blood-letting. ‘Even Javier would come in by the end of the movie, rub his hands together and say, ‘OK, who am I killing today?’ adds Joel. ‘It’s fun to figure out,’ says Ethan. ‘It’s fun working out how to choreograph it, how to shoot it, how to engage audiences watching it.’”
Josh Brolin discussed the brothers’ directing style in interview, saying that the Coens “Only really say what needs to be said. They don’t sit there as directors and manipulate you and go into page after page to try to get you to a certain place. They may come in and say one word or two words, so that was nice to be around in order to feed the other thing. What should I do right now? I’ll just watch Ethan go humming to himself and pacing. Maybe that’s what I should do, too.’”
Cast and characters
- Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: A laconic, soon-to-retire small-town sheriff. In September 2008, Jones announced that he was going to sue Paramount Pictures for $10 million, which he claims he is owed for his work on the film. Jones claimed he was not paid the correct bonuses and had expenses wrongly deducted.
- Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss: A welder and Vietnam veteran who flees with two million dollars in drug money that he finds in an open field in Texas.
- Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh: A sociopathic assassin hired to recover the drug money. The character was a recurrence of the “Unstoppable Evil” archetype found in the Coen Brothers’ work, though the brothers wanted to avoid one-dimensionality, particularly a comparison to The Terminator. The Coen Brothers sought to cast someone “who could have come from Mars” to avoid a sense of identification. The brothers introduced the character in the beginning of the film in a manner similar to the opening of the 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth. Chigurh has been perceived as a “modern equivalent of Death from Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal“.[35] Chigurh’s distinctive look was derived from a 1979 photo from a book supplied by Jones which featured photos of brothel patrons on the Texas-Mexico border. Describing his “extraordinary moptop haircut,” Bardem said, “You don’t have to act the haircut. The haircut acts by itself.” He also reportedly said after seeing himself with the new hairdo for the first time, “Oh no, now I won’t get laid for two months.” Bardem signed on because he had been a Coens fan ever since he saw their debut, Blood Simple.
- Kelly Macdonald as Carla Jean Moss: Llewelyn Moss’ wife. Despite having severe misgivings about her husband’s plans to keep the money, she still supports him. Macdonald said that what attracted her to the character of Moss was that she “wasn’t obvious. She wasn’t your typical trailer trash kind of character. At first you think she’s one thing and by the end of the film, you realize that she’s not quite as naïve as she might come across”
- Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells: A cocky bounty hunter and retired colonel hired to intercept Chigurh and recover the drug money.
- Tess Harper as Loretta Bell: Bell’s wife, provides reassurance in his darker moods.
- Barry Corbin as Ellis: A retired sheriff shot in the line of duty and now wheelchair-bound. He acts as a straight-talking sounding board to his nephew, Bell.
- Beth Grant as Agnes: Carla Jean’s mother and the mother-in-law of Moss. She provides a little comic relief despite the fact that she is dying from “the cancer”.
- Stephen Root as Man who hires Wells: A mysterious figure who apparently was involved in the financing of the drug deal and the search for the money. He hired Wells, Chigurh and the Mexicans.
- Gene Jones as Thomas Thayer: Elderly rural gas station clerk with good fortune, as his call on Anton’s coin flip saves his life.
- Garret Dillahunt as Wendell: Bell’s inexperienced deputy sheriff, Wendell assists in the investigation and provides comic relief.
- Brandon Smith as INS official: Stern guard in sunglasses who lets Moss through the border once he learns he was in the Vietnam War.
