Comparing Cormac Mccarthy And The Coen Brothers No Country For Old Men

In Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, compare the moral implication that McCarthy gives versus the Coens’ implied moral judgment of Carson Wells played by Woody Harrelson. In the literary text McCarthy’s lack the use of standard literary punctuation in quoting which character is speaking almost as if he interjects cinematic fiction for the purpose disorienting the audience. McCarthy characterizes Wells, a hit man, as a philosophical, militant, and mercenary who never touches a weapon for self-defense or offense. The Coen brothers’ make due with such limitation when directing Harrelson to humanize Wells’ psychotic personality when face to face with Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem. The Coen brothers overly complicate

Wells’ psychological complacencies by combining multiple plots and omitting events in the film.

However, the Coen brothers do a wonderful job on twisting literary aspects of the novel in order to reduce film time. The exclusion of time and space; between the conversation with Wells/Moss and Wells/Chigurh, are some of the missing key paradigmatic concepts of intertextual monolog and dialogues.

McCarthy introduces Carson Wells, in chapter five; in a Houston, Texas office building to accept a business man’s proposed hit on Anton Chigurh. McCarthy describes Wells by saying, “Wells shut the door and stood with his hands crossed before him at the wrist. The way a funeral director might stand.” (McCarthy, 137). This allusion of funeral director instantly labels Wells as patient receiver of death, motionless like a corpse awaiting preparation. Coens’ use of time allows Harrelson to eliminate this masculine

transgression thereby tarnishing effects of literary technique and manipulating narrative point of view. The man behind the desk inquires information about “The invincible Mr. Chigurh”, and continues to ask, “Just how dangerous is he?” Wells questionable response, “Compared to what? The bubonic plague? He’s bad enough that you called me.” Clearly, at this point, Wells does not understand the nature of the situation, but is resilient when judging Chigurh by saying, “He’s a psychopathic killer but so what? There’s plenty of them around.” (McCarthy, 140-41). Here in the novel, McCarthy lacks the use of quotation and ruins Wells credibility in distinct moral justifications for judging Chigurh. Vincent Allan King classifies McCarthy’s novel as “genre fiction” of empty purpose that antagonizes characteristics of pervasive complacency by saying, “If stylistic complacency constitutes a refusal to create an idiosyncratic authorial voice, then psychological complacency constitutes a refusal to create original, idiosyncratic characters.” (King, 539). Here Kings helps prove that inconsistency in the aesthetics of literary text lacks originality and authority.

We can see this as well when Wells checks into the hotel after meeting Moss in the hospital, McCarthy shows Wells as a humorous southern cowboy when requesting the night clerk to, “Send me up a couple of whores with a fifth of whiskey with some ice,” (McCarthy, 144).

But this demeanor misrepresents humanistic humor all together in the Coen brothers’ film by omitting the scene. Wells (Harrelson) is seen walking up a flight of stairs and Chigurh (Bardem) approaches him before reaching the top. In the novel, Wells walks in the room and begins looking around as if being observant, yet in the film he lacks the militant behavior of knowing your enemy. From me being in the Marines, the defining purpose of military discipline or more overly, is characterized by confidence attitudes with the minimalist response; like a clean break between movement and thought. Vincent Allan King helps proves that combining cosmic morality and genre fiction complicate the moral comprehensive views of killing by saying, “The tendency to conflate certain genres with aesthetic and moral complacency is, ironically, a function of our own aesthetic and moral complacency.” (King, 540). Wells is classified as a hit man, but his micro existence in the novel and film seems pointless to the cause. In other words, Wells is a stranded tourist waiting for his one-way ticket to Armageddon. McCarthy incorporates a thematic mixture of militant notions that does not accurately characterize Anton Chigurh, Carson Wells,

Llewelyn Moss, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. McCarthy also uses the theme of Western Texas to plot the war on drugs affects Texas in the 1980’s. From personal knowledge and experience, a majority of the U.S. military come from Texas.

McCarthy and the Coen brothers wonderfully combine Texas patriotism and western dramatic desert street shoot-outs genre with characterizing Anton Chigurh as an agent of death, proving him to be more resourceful against Carson Wells moral rules. Yes, Wells accepts a rival contract hit against Chigurh, and once again accepts his oath on democratic principles to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” which he clearly fails to accomplish. In the novel, Wells meets Chigurh’s ice cold demeanor in his hotel room. Chigurh holds a shotgun in his lap pointed directly at Wells and says, “And do you know what’s gonna happen now Carson? You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it.” Allen Stone writes in his article “Badlands” about the McCarthy’s literary connection with the Coen brothers film as, “Their creative drive is powered by the post-modern aesthetic that sees humor in horror and savors both.” (Stone, 53). McCarthy lack of quotations is unclear of who is speaking, thereby, eases the strain for cinematic style of acting. This perversion between McCathy and Coen brothers’ humor can be possibly related to mental health issues, [Shell Shock or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)], and its effects on post-Vietnam era veterans. Wells intertextual conversation with Chigurh’s characters does not showcase an association of remorseful expressions in the novel, but transposes humor in Wells psychopathic response of acceptance by saying, “You go to hell.” Allen Stone criticizes how the Coen brothers utilize this aspect by saying, “But the film lacks what I take to be the Coen’s humanism: no matter how dark their vision becomes, they find the comic side. It is their humor that saves them and us from cynicism.” (Stone, 53). Stone also mentions Freud’s psychoanalysis of the Coen brothers use of weird humor grabs attention of younger audiences through wit and sadism’s horrific killings and sadistic super-ego as an escape by saying, “Freud would have said it was the Coen’s inventive wit that encouraged the audiences’ repressed sadism to slip past their super-egos and erupt into laughter. Thereby, synthesizing a distinct motive for entertainment. This statement does not express sympathetic or psychopathic perspectives but gives value to why McCarthy’s lack of humanism in Wells as a moral protagonist.