Carter Burwell‘s “score” and Skip Lievsay‘s sound effects in No Country for Old Men are comprised of “the occasional barely audible hum and whine of undefinable instruments at moments of tension,” writes Slate‘s Jan Swafford. “As in many film scores there’s a recurring motif: the keening and howling desert wind.
“Its meaning is revealed at the end, when Sheriff Moss delivers a mournful soliloquy accompanied by the wind. The last thing we hear before the credits is the wind and the ticking of a clock. It’s not just about death. It’s the desert that is eternal and doesn’t care about all the human messes played out on its surface, and the wind that will outlast us all.
“You could say the rest of the sound in No Country rises from that wind: the flat tones of the voices, the hum of engines and the whoosh of the road, the barely audible drones of instruments that fade in and out of other sounds, or are terminated by gunshots. As the demon killer throttles his first victim, the sound of a locomotive appears out of nowhere; it tells us this guy is a rampaging machine that cannot be diverted from its track by mere human flesh.
“Sometimes the Coens wield a terrifying silence that does the job of, say, Max Steiner‘s old, stabbing threat-and-suspense chords, and does it better. How all this works can be heard in a scene near the end. Sheriff Bell stands before the door of a motel room, knowing the demon may be on the other side. What we hear is the distant wail of wind, a distant train barely audible, a falling hum of motor somewhere, a low drone of music fading to silence.”
All together, there’s only about 16 minutes worth of “music” in No Country.

I’ve been trying to whip together a New York Post article about the parallels between Oscar contenders of 2007 vs. 1967. Norman Jewison, director of In The Heat of the Night (which won the Best Picture Oscar), was kind enough to promptly call back today and offer some thoughts. At the end of our chat we digressed a bit and got into Best Picture Oscar talk.
I asked Jewison if he’s heard any talk about Juno as Best Picture. “That escapes me,” he said. “It’s a very smart script… what I call smart-ass dialogue. I think it has a brilliant performance. But I don’t like what it says. Yeah, have a baby and then you give it away. It’s pro-life, at least. Go have a baby, give it to that crazy [character played by Jennifer Garner]? I didn’t like what the film said. That aside, it’s smartly directed and well acted and very well written piece.”
What about No Country for Old Men? “Nobody I’ve talked to, including some very smart [professionals], hasn’t been a little disturbed by the ending of that film,” he said. “They say it this way. They say we don’t mind you killing off the hero…we don’t mind that at all…but not to show it is wrong. There is a little bit of…there are people who find that unsatisfying. I myself think it’s the best picture of the year. I really like the Coen Brothers. I adored Fargo.”
What about There Will Be Blood? “A very strong and intense performance [by Daniel Day Lewis], maybe even stronger than the film. But those first 20 minutes with no dialogue are brilliant. The realism of films today is a signature thing. When I was coming up it was the neo-realism of Italian cinema of the late 40s and early 50s. That was the influence, the thing that everyone was looking at. But today violence…it’s become an element [unto itself]. Beating some guy to death with a bowling pin?”
Michael Clayton “is talking about morality, it’s got something to say, it’s brilliantly executed, the performances are strong, the direction was tight and the editing was tight. So you’ve got a good strong film, and if you don’t like violence, if that turns you off then maybe Michael Clayton is [the ticket].”

A director friend, currently prepping a film in London, wrote me a four-word e-mail last night: “I’m hearing Juno everywhere.” Meaning that British-based Academy members are telling each other over lunches and at parties that they like Juno as a Best Picture nominee more than No Country or There Will Be Blood or Michael Clayton, even. Everywhere I turn, everyone I talk to, the talk is rife that a left-field Best Picture upset may be in the offing.
I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. How could No Country win all those guild awards and not be the clear front-runner?
One thing I’m fairly convinced of is that Michael Clayton stands a much better chance of stealing the Best Picture Oscar than Juno. I would be flabbergasted if either of these films takes it (as well as shattered, floored, dumbfounded, stunned, appalled) but if No Country or There Will Be Blood has to lose to a dark horse, I would prefer that it be Clayton. I would very, very upset if Juno wins. Who would be delighted about that besides the filmmakers and Fox Searchlight?
I wrote my director friend right back last night and asked “What do you mean ‘everywhere’? Who are you talking to? Directors? Art directors? Below the line? Actors?” He wrote right back: “Producers.”

Extremely well placed sources have told CHUD’s Devin Faraci that Spike Jonze‘s Where The Wild Things Are is the subject of a “behind-the-scenes debate” at Warner Bros and Legendary as the suits are very unhappy with the film and with the lead child actor (i.e., Max Records) and want to reshoot essentially the whole picture.
I’m not trying to be a smart-ass, but George Prager‘s impression of the trailer was that it looked like plushie porn. He was being perverse, of course, but if Jonze’s original Wild Things (actors in animal costumes that are obviously “costumes”) is tossed, I can imagine an underground market developing among plushie porn enthusiasts, in the same way that a way-before-Stonewall, Eisenhower-era gay following coalesced around Billy Wilder‘s Some Like It Hot.

Cinematical is running its usual spate of oddball Oscar predictions, talking to wackjob savants like Jose the Cabbie and Filipino bartenders on a cruise ship. James Rocchi has posted the Ernest Borgnine Oscar predictor (up now at 8:10 pm Pacific). Cinematical has also posted some “serious” predictions.

One look at this N.Y. Times story, which I just noticed on the newspaper stand at a Starbucks just south of Beverly Blvd. on La Cienega, and I immediately thought of M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Happening (20th Century Fox, 6.13.08), a spooker about a rash of inexplicable suicides caused by a natural disaster. Is Hillary losing in Wisconsin? Please, God…don’t. Update: Whew….no, it’s fine.

First Feinberg, now Edelstein! Another flying- fuck-at-a-rolling-donut scenario, I mean, in which the likable-but-equally- dreaded Juno may win the Best Picture Oscar.
“This is a year in which so much has gone to shit,” Edelstein writes in New York magazine. “There is a sense among the enlightened that our way of life is about to change radically, that our economic system will collapse, our suburbs will fall, our environment will exact its revenge. With all the downbeat Iraq movies DOA at the box office (what a lesson was there!), No Country for Old Men might be the best way for Academy voters to signal that it’s not show business as usual.
“Unless…unless…No Country and There Will Be Blood split the nihilist-horror vote and little old edgy feel-good smash hit Juno sneaks in. As one of the few critics to dislike Juno, I would be devastated — but weirder things have happened in these silly awards. Or is the Juno backlash too strong? Or is there, as my New York colleagues have suggested, a backlash against the backlash?”

Never much for European tradition (let alone San Francisco’s), Los Angeles is known for its commercial establishments disappearing or at least getting radically face-lifted every 15 or 20 years. Except for the old-codger music joints like the Roxy, the Troubadour and the Whisky a Go-Go. They alone seem to be the great buckers of the tide.

Snapped with an iPhone, sitting on the bike and waiting for a green light — Tuesday, 2.19.08, 12:35 pm.

Imagine the steady pressure over the years to drop the “a Go-Go” part of the name. They could’ve just called it “the Whisky” and nobody would’ve noticed, but some old-school stalwart said no — we have to cling to the spirit of Shindig, the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Hullabaloo, Frank Zappa and the Sunset Strip riots of ’66. Very odd for a town that has almost made a religion out of burying the past.

The most concisely phrased and on-target words Alec Baldwin has ever written for the Huffington Post appeared a little more than three hours ago: “What Mrs. Clinton has that Mr. Obama does not have, Mr. Obama can get. What Mr. Obama has that Mrs. Clinton does not have, she can never get.”

A Survey USA poll of Ohio voters (conducted 2.17 and 2.18) is reporting that Barack Obama has nearly cut Hillary Clinton‘s lead by 50% over the past seven days. Clinton led by 17 a week ago; today, she leads by 9 points (52-43). Obama led by 1 point among men 7 days ago; today, he leads by 16.”
And we already know about the dead heat in Texas and the majority of Wisconsin polls saying that Obama has a slight or better-than-slight edge. I just wish there was more reason to trust pollsters. However rigorous or exacting their methodologies may be, they’ve come to be known as the slobbering alcoholics of the political area.

And The Winner Is prognosticator Scott Feinberg is predicting a Juno win for Best Picture. Nobody likes or gets the No Country ending, he says, so they’ve lunged over to Juno because it’s accessible. If this happens, it will certainly be as big of an upset as Shakespeare in Love edging out Saving Private Ryan or Crash stealing the Best Picture Oscar from Brokeback Mountain. It’s a dream, of course. A Feinberg dream emanating from the forests of Connecticut…a doodle. But I like the headline: “A Pregnant Teen Can Stop What’s Coming…Friendo!”