In the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen assert that society has lost the moral on which it was built. The Coen brothers develop this claim by manipulating the traditional characteristics of a Western film in order to create an anti-Western through which they depict the hopelessness of humanity within the current state of society. Through their use of mechanics such as innovative camera angles, sound manipulation and editing the film adaptation successfully portrays the immorality of society as an abyss of depraved humanity.
Classic Westerns revolve around the archetypal conflict of good versus evil ( Filmsite) however, in No Country For Old Men the primary struggle is between Sheriff Bell and Anton Chigurh. During the film, Bell is typically seen in the light
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and well lit environments. This usage of lighting portrays Bell as the good guy. Another characteristic of a stereotypical Western hero would be his position in law enforcement, while Bell is a Sheriff, the representation of law in No Country For Old Men contradicts the traditional way through which they are generally viewed. Instead of a protagonist that is a self sufficient and courageous man who is guided by integrity and a strong set of principles which he employs in his fight to restore order. Instead of always being two steps ahead, Bell is constantly left playing catch up. He struggles, even with help of other law enforcement officers to even get close to Chigurh. In Westerns, the Sheriff is supposed to be capable of handling any mischief that comes to town and Bell’s inability to do so support the anti-Western theme which is prevalent throughout the film. The Coen brothers depict Bell and Chigurh as enlarged personifications of right and wrong. Bell is so morally righteous that the immorality of the world around him becomes too much . On the other hand there is Chigurh, who is constantly placed in dark clothing and environment.Chigurh expands on the traditional Western villain. Despite their evil deeds, the traditional villain is driven by some form of motivation , however through the film Bell struggles to come to terms with the seemingly motiveless actions of Chigurh. Instead of being a surmountable bad guy, Chigurh is portrayed as a manifestation of evil and death and a “prophet of destruction” ( No Country For Old Men). An important scene in the film is the one where Bell returns to hotel at which Moss was killed. In this scene, we see Bell exhibit both fear and hesitancy,both uncharacteristic of a Western Hero. The medium length shots which switch between the locked door and window and the faces of both Bell and Chigurh and the lack of any sound builds suspense as the viewer anticipates the long awaited confrontation between Bell and Chigurh. Chigurh’s face is completely engulfed in darkness while Bell has half his face lit up. In Westerns, the law never shows fear but, the light illuminates the fear on Bell’s face. The shadow on Bell’s face can be seen as the destruction and hopelessness that Chigurh has brought into the life of Bell and the small part of his face which can be seen clearly, expresses fear. His inability to hide his fear pushes him further from the strong image typically associated with law enforcement and gives the impression that the seed of darkness that Chigurh has planted will continue to blossom. The showdown is a pivotal point in any Western, the scene where the hero and villain battle each other face to face. Instead of a fight between Bell and Chigurh, there is a confrontation between Moss and Chigurh.. The entire scene is shot at night, creating a somber and unhopeful tone as the audience watches Moss narrowly escape with his life.Traditionally, the showdown happens at high noon, but in the case of the anti-Western it occurs at night. The lack of light during the battle can be seen as a lack of hope. While a classic protagonist would have the upper hand, it is Chigurh who has the advantage and that is conveyed through the the lighting. By shooting the place while it is dark out the Coen brothers convey that Chigurh is the front runner. After consistently showing Chigurh in the dark, the viewer comes to associate the dark with Chigurh and the trail of death that follows him, leaving the audience with a pessimistic view on how this will end for Moss. Chigurh violates the space belonging to his victims, before committing the worse violation there is, violating their flesh and their ability to live. In one scene, Chigurh visits a convenience store, during his visit the use of lighting and shadow changes. To begin with, the owner of the store is in the light but, the longer he interacts with Chigurh, the more shadow can be seen on his face. The ease with which Chigurh is able to accomplish this physical and mental violations suggest a lack of remorse and a sick perversity and the purposefully placing of Chigurh within the film and individual scenes helps build onto the feeling of despair, they can not stop him from invading their space anymore then they can stop him from taking their lives.. In another scene, Chigurh goes through the the trailer where Carla Jean and her mother were staying. The Coen brothers show everything from him rifling through their mail to him drinking their milk. They are helpless to stop this evil from entering their live. This scene adds to the feeling that Chigurh is unstoppable, which contradicts the traditional Western viewpoint of good always triumphing over evil. While the Coen brothers show details of Chigurh’s cold nature, they are also very particular in their use of timing. At the start of the film, the audience is shown the entirety of Chigurh’s killings, however, by the end of the film no time is wasted on showing the actual acts of killing. We see Chigurh waiting for Wells in his hotel room and in the next scene we see blood belonging to Wells. By using the camera to only show viewers what they need to see, the Coen brothers keep the viewers on pace with story as opposed to being distracted by the blood and gore. The film also displays Wells in a white hat, making him one of the good guys. While being one of the good guys might be a benefit in a classic Western tale, it only ensures misfortune in the anti-western. The Coen brothers also take a minimalist approach towards the musical soundtrack.The manipulation of sound in the film is subtle but effective. By sparingly using music, they are allowing the viewers to become fully engaged with the visual elements of the film. This approach also enhances simple sounds such as the unraveling of a wrapper or footsteps in an empty hallway. In the convenience store scene,the crinkling of the wrapper adds to the tension. It creates a dark tonal shift for the scene without detracting from its intensity. When Moss finds what remains of a drug deal gone bad, the only sound is that of flies. The buzzing draws attention to the morbidity surrounding him, making it impossible for viewers to focus on anything else. This stylistic choice also pushes the viewers to stop relying on a film's music score to guide their emotions. In a Western, the Sheriff is willing to lay his life on the line for justice but in the end, crippled by his lack of understanding, Bell chooses to retreat as opposed to actually facing Chigurh, which adds to the theme of the anti-western.Bell never uses his gun or has a big showdown with bad guy .The heroes in the Western genre were often law-men dedicated to courageously righting any wrongs before riding off into the sunset. However, instead of Bell riding off into the sunset, it is Chigurh and that leaves having happily accomplished that which he set out to do. The tone of the film, much like that of the novel, is solemn and dismal. It gestures towards a dark society completely devoid of morals and ethical integrity. By leaving out the details of Bell’s time spent serving during World War Two the Coen brothers enhance the apparent lack of motive in a crime-ridden society that is bleak, scary, and relentlessly violent.nAs implicated in the title, No Country For Old Men, the beliefs held in the Old a West have no place in modern society and just as these values have no place in the wild today, neither does Bell, who eventually gives up in his struggles to find his place in a world which no longer values his just morals. The visual interpretation of the Coen brothers also plays a large part in the development of the film as an anti-Western. The use of framing is also a major part of the film for example, instead of using a multitude of short shots to create the sense of the killer suddenly jumping out, the Coen brothers choose to do the opposite. In the beginning of the film, Chigurh is clearly visible in the background before killing the deputy sitting at the desk. This creates an intense feeling of anticipation and distress as the audience watches him approach. Helplessly watching the deputy being choked to death with handcuffs beings the cultivation of hopelessness that is being conveyed by the anti-western. Seeing a law enforcement officer being killed with something meant to offer protection foreshadows the inability of the law to stop this evil. The Coen Brothers also utilizes editing to create intense scenes, without bloodshed. Tension, in the scene in which Anton Chigurh arrives at the motel where Llewelyn is hiding, is built successfully though the editing of the scene. The entire time, the viewers anticipate that Chigurh will find Moss because the scene cuts between Anton bursting into the other room and Llewelyn trying to remove the money through the other end. And the long and dragged on footages of Llewelyn just sitting and waiting for Anton to arrive creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, almost as if as if Chigurh could shot him any given moment. The choice of lighting within each scene has been carefully thought out..Many scenes in No Country For Old Men Take place in dark places and the Coen Brothers used a lot of silhouettes in them.
This type of shot composition gives viewers an idea of what is going but does not allow them to see what is happening on screen clearly. The Use of lighting by the Coen Brothers not only enhances the mood, but it also show the personalities of the characters. During the film, Moss is often only half lit, to show that he is a conflicted and morally complex character.
In No Country For Old Man, the Coen Brothers chose to open the movie up with shots of the "Midwest" with a voice over narration by Bell.The use of long establishing shots in the first scene starts creating connotations of a Western without the actual appearance of any characters. The use of dialogue and narration are carefully constructed in order to successfully keep the feel of a traditional western while overlapping it with a hopelessness not typically seen in Westerns. This monotones voiceover creates tension and creates an ominous atmosphere and foreshadows the ominous and dismal outlook that Bell
has. Opposite of expectations from a traditional Western, all of the innocents die in the film. The conclusion of the film holds a multitude of death, the victory of the villain, and the resignation of the sheriff. The separation of the Coen brother from the material which they are presenting an “ethical statement" and makes No Country For Old Men “its own distinct piece, free from its environment and era” ( Purdue Owl).
From the start of the film it is apparent what time frame it is taking place in and the differences in the social stratification through the lack of colors. One of the most obvious portrayals of the bleakness and desperation of the era is the overall faded and washed-out look of the whole film, due to manipulation of the film saturation; the heaviness of it almost cries out to the audience. Though the film was shot during the summer, cinematographer Roger Deakins and Cinesite colorist Julias Friede were able to use digital technology to change the appearance of the colors. “Together, they worked on manipulating the [digital] saturation of the images, and in particular selecting the greens of the trees and grass and turning them into dry browns and yellows” (Escaping, 2). These dry brown and yellows enhance the audience’s impression of the desperation of the characters and the time period.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
My analysis begins, as it will end, where most cowboy movies begin and end, with the landscape.Western heroes are essentially synedoches for that landscape, and are identifiable by three primary traits: first, they represent one side of an opposition between the supposed purity of the frontier and the degeneracy of the city, and so are separated even alienated from civilization; second, they insist on conducting themselves according to a personal code, to which they stubbornly cling despite all opposition or hardship to themselves or others; and third, they seek to shape their psyches and even their bodies in imitation of the leanness, sparseness, hardness, infinite calm and merciless majesty of the western landscape in which their narratives unfold.All of these three traits are present in the figures of Rob Roy and William Wallace--especially their insistence on conducting themselves according to a purely personal definition of honor--which would seem to suggest that the films built around them and their exploits could be read as transplanted westerns.However, the transplantation is the problem for, while the protagonists of these films want to be figures from a classic western, the landscape with which they are surrounded is so demonstrably not western that it forces their narratives into shapes which in fact resist and finally contradict key heroic tropes of the classic western.
The image created for the outlaw hero is the “natural man.” They are adventurous but also wanderers, and loners. Outlaw heroes are more likely to commit a crime, use weapons and carry guns. The outlaw hero represents self-determination and freedom from conflicts. On the other hand, the official hero is portrayed to be “the civilized” man. He often follows the norms of society, and has typical roles such as a lawyer, teacher, and family man.
The entire movie is littered with anxiety. The movie makes you anxious as to what may happen next. This primary example is the scene where Skeeter ask Aibileen to tell her personal stories for the book Skeeter is writing. This rose a very serious anxiety in both women. Skeeter also found other maids to also share their personal stories. This scenario caused extreme anxiety because in that day and time if you were to publish or talk about what the maids have to endure, you could be prosecuted or maybe even killed.
The film West Side takes place in New York City where a Polish- American gang, referred to as the Jets, competes against a Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, to own the neighborhood streets. The central theme of this film is passionate love that defies friendships, family and other factors. To add to that, the dominating genre of the film is a musical involving drama and romance.
“There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!” (Sunset Boulevard). The film Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder focuses on a struggling screen writer who is hired to rewrite a silent film star’s script leading to a dysfunctional and fatal relationship. Sunset Boulevard is heavily influenced by the history of cinema starting from the 1930s to 1950 when the film was released.
In most of Ford’s western films, they are about principles, patriotism, and the interrelationships his characters have as they have to deal with while living in the outskirts of civilization during the great American Frontier movement of the 1800s. Ford was able to transport his filmgoing audiences into another realm and time period by picturesque images, staging actors in static poses, noble tough characters with morals, and designing worlds dominated by the western lifestyle. Truly a great film and by a director who knew how to translate a time in American history like no
Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.
[1] The silent film, With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness, was produced in 1926: a time of prosperity, an era without the skepticism of the modern American mind. People were not yet questioning the stories and histories they had been taught as children. The entertaining story told in this Robert North Bradbury film is loosely based on the life of an American hero. However, the presence of several insidiously inaccurate historical representations demonstrates how an entertaining film might not be as innocent as it initially seems. This film fails to question certain key issues concerning the Daniel Boone legend. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The creators of this film wholeheartedly bought into the many warped myths and distorted “facts” surrounding the story of Daniel Boone. Amazingly, the ethnocentric (read racist and colonial) ideals found in 19th century whites apparently still existed in 1926, and, to a certain extent, still do today. This essay will explore the factors that contributed to the twisted representations found in With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness. Hopefully, the work of this essay and many others like it will help the next generation of Americans (and filmmakers) to avoid the same injustices and societal pitfalls that have plagued mankind for ages.
Silas Lynch, who is presented as the antithesis of Ben Cameron and the main villain of the film, represents the dangers of letting a black person have freedom and power. Lynch, who has been told by Austin Stoneman that he can be the equal of any white man, uses his new political influence to terrorize the white population of Piedmont, and to supplant his black biased agenda over the traditions of the south. In one of the more outrageous scenes of the film, Lynch’s black supporters actually block white voters from reaching the ballot box during an election, effectively denying the historical struggle of African American voters to gain proper suffrage rights by reversing the roles in the film. This scene is also used to make the viewer feel sympathetic toward the Ku Klux Klan when they deny African Americans the ability to vote at the end of the film. At the beginning of the reconstruction period, Ben Cameron feels powerless and frustrated.
Sex, love, depression, guilt, trust, all are topics presented in this remarkably well written and performed drama. The Flick, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Annie Baker, serves to provide a social commentary which will leave the audience deep in thought well after the curtain closes. Emporia State Universities Production of this masterpiece was a masterpiece in itself, from the stunningly genuine portrayal of the characters of Avery and Rose, to the realism found within the set, every aspect of the production was superb.
Jeff, Simon. “No Country for Old Men: The west is dry, dusty and darn mean: its dry dusty and darn mean in? No Country.” Buffalo news, The (NY) 16 Nov. 2007: Newspaper source. EBSCO. Web. 17 Nov. 2009.
Men in Black (1997) is the first installment of a what is currently three total films, with a possible fourth in the making. Since it is a part of a franchise there is a lot of groundwork laid in this first film. We’re introduced to the main Leif Motive, or theme, for the Men in Black agency. What’s interesting is how we are kind of thrown into this film, with minimal background to what is going on. Overall this film has a unique style, a good integration of the soundtrack elements, and places the viewer in this different world where aliens exist.
Few Hollywood film makers have captured America’s Wild West history as depicted in the movies, Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Most Western movies had fairly simple but very similar plots, including personal conflicts, land rights, crimes and of course, failed romances that typically led to drinking more alcoholic beverages than could respectfully be consumed by any one person, as they attempted to drown their sorrows away. The 1958 Rio Bravo and 1967 El Dorado Western movies directed by Howard Hawks, and starring John Wayne have a similar theme and plot. They tell the story of a sheriff and three of his deputies, as they stand alone against adversity in the name of the law. Western movies like these two have forever left a memorable and lasting impressions in the memory of every viewer, with its gunfighters, action filled saloons and sardonic showdowns all in the name of masculinity, revenge and unlawful aggressive behavior. Featuring some of the most famous backdrops in the world ranging from the rustic Red Rock Mountains of Monument Valley in Utah, to the jagged snow capped Mountain tops of the Teton Range in Wyoming, gun-slinging cowboys out in search of mischief and most often at their own misfortune traveled far and wide, seeking one dangerous encounter after another, and unfortunately, ending in their own demise.