"No Country for Old Men": a dark existential story filled with the smell of death, what do you think?

At the 80th Academy Awards, "No Country for Old Men" directed by the Coen brothers became the biggest winner, winning four awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor.

The award for "No Country for Old Men" marks the further recognition of independent filmmakers by the mainstream American film industry. By praising the Coens, traditional and conservative universities affirmed the growing influence of an unconventional independent spirit.

Different from the use of violent elements in popular commercial films, the violence in the Coen brothers' films is often sudden and inexplicable, without following any procedures, and sometimes makes people laugh or cry.

There is no trace of glorification in the display of violence, it is direct and raw. There is something bitterly ironic about both the perpetrators and the victims of violence. Hidden behind the black humor is the creator's deep concern for the living conditions of modern people.

The English name of "No Country for Old Men" is "No Country for Old Men", which comes from Yeats's poem "Sailing to Byzantium", which reads as follows:

"This is by no means a book for the elderly. Places. Young people embrace, birds in the woods - those dying generations - sing, waterfalls where salmon swim back, sea rivers where mackerel gather, aquatic animals, animals and birds celebrate budding, birth and Death."

The original poem is full of energy and passion, borrowing from the original novel to tell a dark story full of death, vividly interpreted in the image of the Coen brothers. The story environment, character relationships, plot points and even lines are all cast with a certain existential tone.

Story scene: wasteland

At the beginning of "No Country for Old Men", the first thing that bursts into view is the desolate wasteland. In nearly two minutes, the director directly switched to 11 static shots, showing the wilderness scene from dawn to day. The old sheriff's voice mingled with the howling wind, looking back on his career.

In these shots, the wilderness is silent, as if it has never changed. The traces of human civilization - crooked telephone poles, broken windmills, low iron fences - look stiff and ridiculous compared with the vastness of nature.

Finally, the camera moved, shaking the wasteland and iron fence, and a police car came into view. The police escort the killer Chigurh (one of the main characters of the film) to a police car.

The appearance of people in the wilderness and in the iron fence is undoubtedly metaphorical. People are thrown into the wilderness-like world, in the circle of human nature.

The emergence of another protagonist deepens this metaphorical color. Hunter Moss aimed at the deer in the wilderness. When the gun was fired, the deer scattered in all directions.

Hunter and prey are one of the most primitive relationships in nature, and the game of chase and escape will always be played.

From left to right, Qingsi enters the endless Yuanye, seemingly very small. The fleeing deer predicted his fate, but he was unaware of it.

The sky was covered with dark clouds, and the deer were instantly enveloped, giving the audience an ominous premonition. Indeed, he accidentally discovered the drug dealer's stolen money during this hunt, which led to his death due to greed.

“I am abandoned in the world, not in the passive sense of being abandoned, like a plank floating on water in a hostile universe. Rather, it is to say that I find myself alone, without help, And involves a world for which I am entirely responsible.”

In Sartre’s existential philosophy, the question of existence aims to reveal the plight of man’s existence. People are left in a comfortable existence, that is, in the material world, and have no right to ask "Why do I exist?" Because "I" already exists, just choose and bear the consequences.

The Coen brothers use images to interpret this human condition. The desolate desert is a microcosm of the world. People are abandoned here by the owner of the Garden of Eden, trudging along the journey of destiny like ants.

This is not the first time that the image of wilderness has appeared in a Coen Brothers film. In the vast wilderness in "Blood Simple" and the vast snowfield in "Ice and Blood", vehicles carrying desires are speeding along the endless stretch of highway.

Occasionally, a house - a motel, or the buildings, streets and alleys of a rare town - is the temporary refuge that people find for themselves. The cramped indoor environment exposed their cramped situation, and these shelters often became their tombs.

Relationship: Hunting

The main characters in No Country for Old Men, the Sheriff, the hitman, and the greedy hunter, are all in wrestling situations. Each of them represents a basic state of existence, while the others are their variant faces, which together constitute the food chain in the wilderness ecology.

The relationship between people is burdened with the curse of "others are hell", even if only the false emotional veil is torn off, leaving only the bloody relationship between the hunter and the prey.

In the wilderness, existence is the reason for killing, and killing is the form of existence.

Existentialism believes that there are contradictions and conflicts between the consciousness of others and self-awareness, and self-awareness is the original and basic form of interpersonal relationships.

The relationship between the main characters in the film is extremely distant. Everyone is fighting alone. Once they meet, it's a life and death battle.

1. Chief Bill

Bill, the so-called symbol of justice, has been nostalgic from the beginning of the film, nostalgic for the time when police patrols did not need to carry guns. Although he admitted that he could not understand the increasingly serious and unreasonable violence, he still held a traditional sense of responsibility and maintained an "intervention" attitude in reality. "I'm not afraid, I know you have to give up this job.".

Bill is not stupid. He knows this world/wasteland very well. Although he holds the actual judicial power and moral spiritual support, he clearly knows that he is powerless.

He sees through people's situations. "He had to say, well, I'm part of the world." He acknowledged the cruelty and pessimism of the world.

As Sartre said: "A history of life, no matter what it is, is a history of failure. The hostility coefficient of things is so large that it takes many years to wait patiently to get a negligible The result."

At times, Bill even appeared as a wise man or prophet. In convincing Moss's wife to tell him Moss's whereabouts, he tells the story of a butcher who slaughters an animal but accidentally injures himself, illustrating that nothing is absolutely certain in the relationship between hunter and prey.

In fact, people's egocentrism in treating the environment (including other people) is a kind of inhumanity. Bill had seen through the naked hunting relationship between Siegel and Moss. To one, the other is no different than an animal. Whether hunter or prey, bloody results are inevitable.

On the way to chase Zig and find Moss, Bill followed closely, but fell behind step by step. His presence has become the most worthless embellishment in the film.

But he is indispensable, and the character's "tasteless" situation provides a mouthpiece for the film to convey the theme.

Finally, he decided to retire reluctantly. Finally, when he suddenly woke up, he told his wife about his dream, about his father, and about the light that illuminated the darkness and brought warmth.

In Bill's words, the film points out traditional values, expressions of human dignity, honor, etc. It has become a distant dream, and all ideal dreams will inevitably wake up under the impact of reality.

In order to reflect the title of "No Country for Old Men", the Sheriff, who symbolizes traditional values ??and morality, was designed as an old man who has experienced many vicissitudes of life. The clerk at the police station is an old lady wearing glasses. When investigating the case, the expressions and speed of the two people made people feel that the police station had become a nursing home, which was full of irony, not to mention that the sheriff of the neighboring county was an old man.

Sigel and Moss encountered the old man from time to time during the chase and escape.

Segal killed the old man with an oxygen bottle on the highway, and later eliminated the chicken driver, the grocery store owner who forced the coin guessing to be the old man, and the motel hostess and the person in charge. Residential management aunts, hitchhiking black drivers, and even Moss’s mother-in-law, who died of cancer.

These old people move slowly, are long-winded, lazy, and do not know that danger is coming. The film attempts to use their images as metaphors. In this cruel and cold world like the wasteland, traditional concepts have long been abandoned by those who are greedy for profit, and the elderly and their thoughts have become abandoned waste.

Bill tried to stick to his principles, but he couldn't. Compared to Chigurh and Moss's chase down the road, his riding through the fields looking for clues is laughable and pathetic.

2. Hunter Moss

Hunter Moss is a mortal between good and evil. He has the burden of mortals—desires.

His greed for wealth allowed him to profit from fishermen at the scene of drug dealer fights, winning $2.4 million in vain;

However, he is not entirely without conscience. He tossed and turned, feeling uneasy because he did not give the dying man a glass of water, so he returned to the scene with the water, causing his own death.

Moss came out as a hunter, his hobby was deer hunting, and his experience was as a Vietnam War veteran. He is familiar with the laws of chase and escape. Otherwise, he would not be able to sustain several rounds of battles with the cold-blooded killer, and he would be just a little short of turning defeat into victory.

Moss’s wife described him this way: “Moss never asked for help. He never thought he needed help.” Moss was a model of confident individualism who unknowingly became prey to others. .

Moss's bad luck stemmed from his greed. Compared to Sieg's principle of "no desire, no need", Moss's greed for money is his weakness, and hiding in Tibet will inevitably lead to failure.

This is the fate of mortals. Mafia figure Carlson, drug lord, etc. It's worse than that. On the one hand, they do bad things and do illegal things out of greed. On the other hand, they are not completely free from the logic of social norms, and they are a little more "human" than the completely cold-blooded Sieg. Because of this weakness, they are targeted and shot in the head without warning, like deer in the wilderness.

The film shows that people are immersed in their own desires and forget the more essential needs in life-peace, safety, comfort, etc. After Moss accidentally picked up the stolen money, he did not get easy enjoyment, nor did he get a fancy car, delicious food, or fancy clothes, but only restless sleep and endless escape. Even so, he still held on to the money box until he died, never knowing that he would regret it at the last moment of his life.

3. Blackie Chigurh

The most impressive character in the film is probably the killer Chigurh. Spanish actor Javier Bardem gave a very natural and chilling interpretation of the killer's cruelty and calmness, and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Segal is a mysterious figure, his status as a calm fanatic, and his actions drag the audience into a state of confusion wrapped in fear. It seemed that he was not human, but a natural part of the wasteland.

He is a full-time hunter, not even for worldly gains such as money, but out of some kind of killing and bloodthirsty instinct.

"There is no reason, no justification, no necessity; the definition of existence provides us with its original contingency."

The director does not need to explain his existence, and the audience does not know it His previous history, when he turned into a murderous maniac who regarded life as dirt, where he grew up, and whether he had ever met his parents.

Don’t change your face when killing people, don’t give any reasons, just be happy. They also believe that they adhere to "principles", control everything in an exclusive way, and make fun of those lives that can be crushed at any time no matter how much a coin is placed under their feet.

Unlike the mortals represented by Moss, Siegel is given a more transcendent color of death. His behavior completely ignored the rules of interpersonal communication in society. He has his own set of rules and is very disciplined.

In front of Siegel, the phrase "you don't have to do this" seemed like a joke. For the devil, whether it is necessary or not depends entirely on mortal logic.

Zig is the representative of absolute evil and is eternal. Violence is an animal inheritance hidden under the cloak of human nature, and it always breaks out from some people. In the wilderness, such people never die out of extreme adaptation.

Similar characters have appeared in movies by the Coen brothers. When participating in a kidnapping case, the silent killer in "Ice and Blood" killed hostages, family members who sent money, police and even their accomplices just because they were "in the way", which can be said to be similar to Sieg.

What’s interesting is that Rigg’s killing tool is oxygen. Because of the huge pressure of the oxygen cylinder valve, it can make people’s heads explode without bullets.

Oxygen is indispensable for human beings to maintain life. It becomes the death-killer and irony of the film.

Drawing point: choice

Several important plot points in the film are related to choice. The protagonist’s choice directly affects his fate and the direction of the plot. The director constantly emphasizes through the characters’ lines The importance of choice.

With violence in his hands, Sieg always requires his prey to make a choice. A coin can determine life or death. In his opinion, giving you the opportunity to choose is a great favor.

Moss's wife said: "Coins never speak, but you do."

Ziger's response: "I got here the same way the coins did."

Why did Sieg appear in front of his prey by chance? inevitable? Or a combination of both.

In any case, Reg forms part of the victim's situation and exerts influence over them, so the victim must make a choice. Even as Moss's wife, "refusing the choice" is a choice.

Choice means taking responsibility, that is, the consequences of the choice.

However, at the moment of choice, the being does not know the consequences, just like Zig told the grocery store owner to guess the coin: "You have been betting your whole life, but you just don't know."

< p>The audience can see how the choices of the characters promote the development of the plot:

Moss can choose to turn around and leave the scene of the crossfire between drug dealers, or he can choose to escape with the money, which attracts Zig and the Mexicans to His pursuit; he could ask the police for help, but he chose to take the money privately and fight Zig alone;

He could choose to give money to Zig in exchange for his wife's safety, but he refused, Because of "human nature" (Ziger only promised not to kill his wife, but Moss himself was not spared), his wife ran away...

As a hunter, Ziger seems to be superior. He puts the dilemma of choice on others, and he is detached as if he can control everything. "I know where the money is going, come to me." "I'm absolutely sure you have to admit your situation."

But the film director didn't want to absolutely deify him, so there was an inexplicable car accident that happened to coincide with Moss's condition after the injury is consistent. They all met some teenagers, asked them for clothes and paid them.

Although the film does not show Chigurh's situation and choices, the car crash near the end seems to show that there is no essential difference between the seemingly detached Chigurh and Moss and others. They are all in the wilderness world. Small creatures, carrying everything the wilderness brings to them.

The appearance of the boy is also a metaphor. Relative to the old man/traditional exit, they belong to the future and are gradually evolving to become more suitable for the wilderness.

Several teenagers Moss met asked him if he had been involved in a car accident. Moss offered to exchange a hundred-dollar bill for a coat. This one immediately offered to "get the money," and the other asked Moss to offer him half a bottle of beer.

The young man Zig met was relatively simple and expressed his willingness to help many times. Zig took his shirt and paid him to remain silent. The subsequent conversation between the boy and his partner shows that this encounter has affected their original simple moral values.

For young people, the wilderness world is not yet fully open to them and they are preparing to participate in hunting games.

From this point of view, the film expresses a sad apocalyptic atmosphere, which is different from some previous works of the Coen brothers, such as the ending of "Blood Simple", which ended with the death of an absolute villain ; Or like "Ice and Blood", the representative of traditional values-the policewoman wins.

The ultimate winner of "No Country for Old Men" is the wilderness of free existence, where people are just "useless passions."