Nicholas Arrazola
November 28, 2012
Dr. Childs
English 1301
Determining the Good and the Bad
We live amongst a world where good and
evil lurks everywhere. We as humans acquire humane traits that help guide us to
make the best decisions for our life and everyone around us. We make decisions
based on wrong or right. Some people however, have a sense of unexplainable
evil that lingers inside them. The actions of evil would be considered cold
blooded and ruthless. The Character in the movie “No Country for Old Men”,
Anton Chigurh, plays a relentless villain who brutally kills anyone within his
sight with no feeling of remorse while he hunts down Llewelyn Moss. Anton
Chigurh never shows a single drop of emotion throughout the whole movie showing
him as an immoral, detached human. “No Country for Old Men” really touches
subjects with cruelty and bloodshed violence shown in society all around the
world. This movie not only provides a less romanticized ending but also sheds a
darker light for viewers.
The movie was based on Cormac’s
Mcccarthy’s Novel, “No Country for Old Men”. The movie setting is in West Texas
and starts with a man named Llewelyn Moss, who finds two million dollars in
drug money in between what we see as a Mexican drug battle. Moss takes it in
hopes of a better life for him and his wife. Moss eventually finds himself
running away from the ultimate hitman, Anton Chigurh. Throughout the movie, Anton
Chigurh comes off an unknown monster that everyone is dodging. Chigurh follows
Moss, tracking his every move as he moves from motel to motel. In the beginning
of the movie, you see the scene where Chigurh is being taken to the police
station. As the deputy talks on the phone, Chigurh comes up behind the deputy
and puts him in a chokehold with his handcuffs until the man is choked to
death. This man is very capable of murder and doesn’t take peoples lives
seriously. He seems to look at living as more of a chance kind of deal. Such as
the scene where Chigurh offers the working man in the gas station a choice of
heads or tails on a coin. If the coin did not favor the man’s choice, Chigurh
probably would of blown the man’s head off with the oxygen tank weapon he
notoriously carries around. Novelist Cormac Mccarthy tends to point out the
“widespread violence in the world”. The
movie portrays all sorts of evils in the world that happen. Everyday there are
homicides, rape, and murder all over the world. There could be thousands of
reasons for the persons wrong doing but what happens when someone commits a
crime just for the sake of it? That brings us up to a whole new level of
violence that no one can explain. Does Chigurh commit these actions for his own
wellbeing and satisfaction? Chigurh’s behavior doesn’t add up and he never
shows any emotions; not even rage.
Violence is created in the world for
many reasons. We as people have feelings like being happy, sad, and angry.
People often commit crimes out of some sort of anger and spite. In some cases,
people are also in some sort of trauma and have psychological problems. For
example, Colorado’s more recent tragedy with the Dark Knight Rises Premiere
shooting that wounded over thirty people and killed twelve. The alleged gunman,
James Holmes, was said to have mental issues and did have a rough time his
prior months in Aurora, Colorado. Many people claim to say he is mentally
insane and I feel like that’s what’s people really want to hear. When tragedy’s
like this happens, it scares society to see that people are plotting and
planning acts of destruction similar to this one. It is foreign for people to
see that there are humans in the world who would actually commit actions like
this. Everyone in the world has a sense of humanity but I think its safe to say
that for some people, its just not there.
Anton Chigurh Character does do a good
job of killing people so quick that it doesn’t look painful. He just points up
his oxygen gun and punctures a perfect circle through their brain and that’s
done. They’re dead. Throughout the movie, the director cuts off many scenes
that leave the audience assuming that the villain has killed a character. In
one scene, Chigurh car broke down in the middle of the dessert road. When a old
man stops to offer Chigurh a hand with his car, Chigurh looks at his truck and
suddenly ask the man if he could remove his chickens from his truck. The old
man looks at him puzzled and then the scene cuts to Chigurh at a car wash,
washing off the chicken feathers from the back of the truck. We assume that the
movie’s villain has attacked and stole the elderly man’s truck. Chigurh also
offers Llewelyn’s wife, Carla Jean, a chance for survival. He waits for her in
a house and gives Carla Jean a choice of heads or tails; similar to the earlier
scene at the gas station. Carla refuses to pick and goes on telling Chigurh
that it was not up to the coin for her fate of life of death but only his
choice. It was his choice to kill her and it has always been a choice he could
of made with all the other people he has murdered. Chigurh doesn’t seem to
grasp that as a good reason and is a firm believer that it wasn’t his choice.
The scene cuts and we see the hit man walking out of the house. We once again
assume he has killed Carla Jean because he stops outside the front porch and
looks under his shoe for blood. Many scenes in the movie show evidence that
Chigurh’s actions are brutal and he wont stop for anyone. He believes that he
was sent out to do these acts of immortality and it was just fate that he was
in right time and place.
Chigurh does not show any mercy for any
of his victims. He doesn’t show any sign of emotion. He gets wounded twice and
at both times; he handles it as if he could not feel the immensity of the pain.
In the ending scene of the movie, Chigurh gets into a collision with a car,
which wounds his arm. A kid goes up to Chigurh looking worried as he sees that
Chigurh has a bone sticking out of his arm. The wide-eyed kid looked frantic
and exclaims that the ambulance was coming. Instead of waiting for help,
Chigurh pays the kid a generous amount of money for the kid’s shirt and a
closed mouth. Through the movie, His character remains impersonal and frigid.
Chigurh chilling presence remains
consistent and that’s probably what made the movie such a thriller. In scenes where he would come close to
Llewelyn left people at the edge of their seats. He became the ultimate bad guy
that seemed invincible. His actions are never explained throughout the film and
Chigurh barely even talked. The beginning starts with Bell narrating about the
boy he sent to the electric chair. The boy murdered a girl and authorities
started to say it was a crime of passion. The boy tells the sheriff that it was
not a crime of passion but only the desire to kill someone. He had no purpose
to kill her besides the fact that he just wanted to do it and if he had another
chance; he’d do it again. This boy acknowledges that he is going to hell and
doesn’t care as he quotes he’d “be there in about fifteen minutes.” Chigurh and
this boy shared similar characteristics. They both show no mercy for victims
and no explanation of violence. His eerie character brings violence to reality.
In many ways Chigurh represents a grim reaper. He comes to get you when your
time is over. Our fate has brought us to our death and when our time is over,
we will be sent on our way.
The movie shows that his character was
a psychotic road killer on the loose. It doesn’t end with the villain dead or
caught by high authority. It ends with all the victims dead except the
perpetrator. Most movies nowadays do like to give viewers the satisfactory
ending. They show the typical hero and villain story where the hero gets away
and saves the day while the villain dies or gets put in the doghouse. Viewers
aren’t often shown the actuality of some cases. There are cases out there that
exist where the good guy doesn’t get away but instead the bad ones do. Not
everyone can have their cake and eat it too. Chigurh shows many of our evils in
the society. Society has grown used to being nice bloody battles that end up
having a hero ending. Today’s well-known superheroes such as Batman, Superman,
and Spiderman are well known for defeating their nemesis in heroic ways. That’s
why they are showcased all over the world because they represent the good in
the world. This movie definitely does not end the way you’d expect and more
than likely no kid would walk out a theatre saying Chigurh was their next
acclaimed favorite hero.
The movie was a representation of a
harsh battle between drug, money, and war. People constantly are being shown
what is good and ignoring the worst. Big Networks and money catching stories
pollute most of the news we see on TV today. We are constantly obsessing over
the next big thing and losing the raw news. “No Country for Old Men” made a
good representation and touched subjects with greater evils in life. Not
everyone gets outs and that’s just something many people take for granted. We
never know what is gonna happen when we wake up everyday. Like Bell says in the
movie, “Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This
country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming.”
Work Cited
Collado-RodrÃguez,
Francisco. "Trauma And Storytelling In Cormac Mccarthy's No Country For
Old Men And The Road." Papers On Language & Literature 48.(2012):
45-69. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.
Cooper, Lydia R.
"He's A Psychopathic Killer, But So What?": Folklore And Morality In
Cormac Mccarthy's "No Country For Old Men." Papers On Language &
Literature 45.1 (2009): 37-59. Academic Search Complete. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.
Nichols, Mary P.
"Revisiting Heroism And Community In Contemporary Westerns: No Country For
Old Men And 3:10 To Yuma." Perspectives On Political Science 37.4 (2008):
207-216. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Nov. 2012.
No Country for Old Men. Dir. Joel Coen. Prod.
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Perf. Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem. Miramax,
2007. DVD.
