comment #1

Rich S. says ...

For me, Jones' role in the film (assuming it's the same as the book) is completely summed up in the title.

comment #2

drbob says ...

I'm confused by your first paragraph. What did the four or five X-factor types think? I am assuming that they liked the film, and were also cool with the ending. (The other interpretation would be that the four or five X-factor types did not like the film at all).

comment #3

BNick says ...

What Rich S. said.

Anyone who has read the book understands what Sheriff Bell's purpose is. It's to act as a sort of running commentator on what's going on in the plot. To make an extreme but fun comparison, think of him as a less flamboyant version of Derek Jacobi from Henry V (always loved that performance).

[I'm a little less squeamish about spoilers in NCFOM since the book has been out for years, but for those of you who still want to go in cold, avoid reading my next point...]

It's been a while since I've read the book but if I remember correctly, the story is interspersed with italicized text, which essentially gives us the seemingly random reminiscings of an old man about how bad things have gotten. Again, if I'm not mistaken that man is Sheriff Bell some years after the story takes place.

comment #4

Devin Faraci says ...

The ending of this film is the stark divider between the smart and the stupid.

comment #5

Walter Sobchak says ...

Tommy Lee Jones is awesome! I love watching movies, too! Is Tommy still dating that girl? I found great dates and so can you at startdatingstrangers.com.

comment #6

Noel Murray says ...

Boy, I have to disagree. I think this story is *entirely* about the sheriff, and what he chooses to do and not do. That's what makes the ending so powerful to me. He makes a choice about how to deal with a problem, and the repurcussions of that choice are chilling.

That said, I'm eager to see the movie again. It's been a few months, and I could be off-base.

comment #7

BNick says ...

Vague SPOILER Warning Again....

I can see what you're saying, Noel. Certain characters/plotlines end up different than they could/should have if the Sheriff had acted differently.

I think the film is about decent folk not being able to keep up with or even understand the growing evil and depravity in society. Bell is certainly "decent folk", Chigurh is obviously on the other end of the spectrum. Moss is naive at the outset but he comes to understand throughout the film what he's up against. Bell never fully does, I think.

comment #8

John Y says ...

I think what people will be disappointed about is not Tommy Lee Jones' passivity, but the fact that a pivotal scene occurs off-screen. It's the scene the whole movie has been building up to, and then we don't get to see it.

I, for one, don't have a problem with this, but I know many moviegoers will.

comment #9

Sean says ...

Both times I saw it, the problem was not the 'pivotal scene' John refers to, but the actual ending scene. The final scene of the movie is so purely thematic that people don't know what to make of it, and don't even realize that it's the final scene until the credits start. Then they're thinking, "Why didn't the movie end ten minutes before that?" and the movie doesn't overtly give an answer to this question.

That said, I thought the ending was amazing. But most of the audience I was with didn't seem to get it.

I don't care, though. Most of the people I talk to don't get 'The Man Who Wasn't There' at all.

comment #10

Wrecktum says ...

I think it's clear that Jones' character is the protaganist of the piece, not some sort of Greek chorus. Jones is the only character with an emotional arc; both Brolin and Bardem are static characters. The fact that the 'pivotal scene' occurs offscreen is by design; Brolin's story is not the primary focus of the film, so the circumstances of his fate is not as important as that of Jones.

comment #11

swordandpen says ...

It's a movie where the ending seems odd on the first viewing, but eventually begins to seep into your thoughts afterwards. To me, that's the best kind of ending, but it comes harder to do these days when movie viewers become catharsis junkies.

comment #12

Brian O says ...

"That said, I thought the ending was amazing. But most of the audience I was with didn't seem to get it."

Well, let's hear it then. What was the ending supposed to mean? What didn't us simple folk "get?"

comment #13

K. Bowen says ...

I like the ending, but I more respect than admire the film as a whole.

comment #14

Zimmergirl says ...

John Y nails it. It isn't "the ending" that troubles people; it's that they don't get the expected pay-off. If audiences knew that going in, ie, someone got it "out there" that this happens, they will enjoy the movie more.

I personally don't give a fuck if people feel that way or not; it wouldn't be the first movie the Coens did that was controversial or divisive. In fact, rarely do their films please everyone. It stands out so brightly from all the rest you'd have to be a FOOL not to be dazzled by it.

After digesting the meaning of the ending and going back and reading the screenplay (which is online) I've come to discover that the film is, as has been mentioned, entirely about the sheriff. When he calls Shuguhr "a ghost" he was chasing - it all makes sense. That is the breathtaking thing about the film -- the ending flips you back through the story to discover why it ended that way. It isn't linear but it's fucking ballsy. It is the best film of the year.

comment #15

Craig Kennedy says ...

Screw the unwashed masses. Joel and Ethan Coen made this movie for me personally. They might not know it, but they did and anyone who doesn't like it I'd be happy to fax you an rendering of my scrotum for you to kiss each night before you go to sleep.

I'm sure the ending is awesome because it was made just for me. If it's not awesome, then I will just have that electroshock therapy I've been thinking about and I'll keep having it until the ending really is awesome.

comment #16

Joe Leydon says ...

I can easily understand why some people were taken aback by the ending, since it seems almost everything that precedes it is setting us up for something else. In that sense, it reminded me of The Mosquito Coast -- both the book and the movie -- which (to me, at least) seemed for about the first 95 percent to be building toward a rather more Oedipal conclusion than the one we got.

Of course, I should also add that I was expecting a different, slightly more conventional twist, one that involved a revelation that something we assumed had happened actually hadn't. (I can't be more specific without dropping a colossal spoiler.) That made the ending all the more disorienting for me, I suppose. Not awful, mind you. But disorienting. (I, too, was mildly shocked when the credits started rolling.)

BTW: I think it's a nicely nasty element that the entire plot is triggered by... Well, as Oscar Wilde might say, no good deed goes unpunished.

comment #17

jeffmcm says ...

Can someone explain to me what an 'x-factor type' is? I assume it's some jargon Wells made up.

comment #18

Zimmergirl says ...

CJ, you nutcase. :-)

Joe, I see what you're saying. I was disoriented too not unlike watching the ending of The Sopranos. but in both cases I gave the artists or writers the benefit of the doubt by thinking hard about what they were trying to do, what story they were trying to tell. I have read the McCarthy book (I'm gonna) but the screenplay for No Country is exactly what's on the screen. Somehow it plays differently on film than on the page and the reason for this, I think, is Josh Brolin. I think we identify with him more than we should, or certainly more than you do when you're reading it. That there is the magic of a talented actor - or the magnetism or something. I think Leo DiCaprio had a similar sort of thing going on in the Departed.

Anyway, I thought it was gutsy as hell to end it that way. I think people will be drawn to see it because of the Bardem character but they will be confused by that one scene and then maybe angry at the whole movie because of it.

comment #19

christian says ...

CJKennedy is awesome! I love watching movies, too! Is CJ still dating that girl? I found great dates and so can you at kissmyscrotum.com.

As I've said beore, the script's ending veers directly into the literary zone of Mcarthy's novel and it's probably playing out that exact way onscreen for some of the hoi polloi.

comment #20

p.Vice says ...

Now I can't wait to see it!

comment #21

mutinyco says ...

It's about the inevitability of death and how we face our own mortality...

comment #22

Craig Kennedy says ...

You guys crack me up. I shit you not. And it's all free.

comment #23

Zimmergirl says ...

"You can't stop what's coming."

comment #24

EOTW says ...

I think the reason why the off screen pivotal sene is going to feel like a letdown to folks is because the marketing of the film makes it look like a thriller (it surely is. I have NOT seen the pic yt, but rea the book months ago) and they will expect one going in. The fact that that thing happens offscreen, as it does in the book is jarring to say the least. Like I said in a post months ago, I actually went back through the page to see if I had missed it. So, knowing that going in, it will be interesting to see how the cornfed masses take it.

comment #25

Luke Y. Thompson says ...

Anybody read Massawyrm's review at AICN? He basically was furious at the whole movie because of not getting to see that pivotal scene. I usually like his posts better than most of the other regulars, but he totally missed the mark this time.

I'm glad I knew going in that something like that would happen, though. Maybe that's why I really liked the ending when I finally saw it. Considering that it speaks directly to why the movies is titled the way it is, it feels appropriate.

comment #26

Sam Adams says ...

Far as leaving out the "pivotal scene," the Coens are just being faithful to the source. McCarthy is even more indirect. He jumps from its precursor to a vague description of its aftermath, and only replays what happens several pages later.

Ed Tom is, and has to be, more than just a "Greek chorus," and not just because he's the old man this is now no country for. He's the emblem of plainspoken decency in a world in which doing the right thing stands a chance of getting you killed. The movie is, much as anything, about choices and how they define us -- one of the key images is the Y-shaped road sign as Chigurh turns off for Del Rio -- and Ed Tom's final choice is a critical action, not just a commentary on it.

I saw the movie a second time just to make better sense of the ending (it didn't help that it was coming up on 1 in the morning the first time I saw it) and I still find it slightly unsatisfying, if only because it doesn't seem tonally apiece with the rest of the movie. Some of the most engaging sequences are those where we watch men perform complicated actions with no dialogue at all (shades of To the White Sea), so to end with a big honkin' monologue still feels off to me. I "get it," but I don't love it.

comment #27

frankbooth says ...

Inconclusive, confounding, vague and downbeat endings are in, baby.

comment #28

Zimmergirl says ...

Sam Adams, great post. The last scene made me want to see the movie again and to listen more carefully next time. I went back and read it on the script and the feeling I got was that he was always going to be looking over his shoulder waiting for the end. I suspect this ending will be discussed for many years to come.

McCarthy's The Road also has a kind of ambiguous ending that could be interpreted a variety of ways. Now that it's going to be made into a movie I wonder how they'll deal with it. I for one am amazed that Coens were true to source, even if the movie was thrown off a bit by Brolin (imo).

comment #29

Armin Tamzarian says ...

zimmergirl, please post link to the screenplay on the parvantage site. Saw this last night and it's easily the best film I've seen this year. Thanks.

comment #30

Zimmergirl says ...

http://www.youknow-forkids.com/nocountryforoldmen.txt

comment #31

Sean says ...

What I think is audacious is that last scene in the Desert Sands, the "after hours" one. That's the scene that threw me for a loop.

When he calls Shuguhr "a ghost" he was chasing - it all makes sense. That is the breathtaking thing about the film -- the ending flips you back through the story to discover why it ended that way.

Zimmergirl, care to expand on this idea?

comment #32

filmfan says ...

**Spolier** Yes! The Desert Sands "after hours" scene is the main flaw in the film. Jones' character has never seen Chigurh so there's no way he could imagine 'what's behind the door' with an actual image of him in his head. Makes no sense. Totally ruins the film for me.