tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13726943.post361699230734210142..comments2024-01-19T21:33:09.716+00:00Comments on E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK: Review: No Country For Old MenEYEWEARhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01900801847916951522noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13726943.post-63475642751637218562008-01-22T19:19:00.000+00:002008-01-22T19:19:00.000+00:00Although considering the book and the next prize w...Although considering the book and the next prize winning "The Road" I enjoyed more the Trilogy, the wolf story in "The Crossing" is absolutely breathtaking.<BR/>DavideTommaso Gervasuttihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17137499390434949734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13726943.post-56662696662764038252008-01-22T14:44:00.000+00:002008-01-22T14:44:00.000+00:00For sure, a provocative response to No Country. Ho...For sure, a provocative response to No Country. However, despite your most persuasive review, I find myself very much at odds some of its main points.<BR/><BR/>The biggest problem with your review is that your presciptivist (using Richard Schusterman's nomenclature) interpretation of No Country as a Western neglects the fact that there is no God in this new sphere that the Coens stoop out to conquer. Not only is there no God on this stoop, however, there is no pastiche/parody. Fredric Jameson left the building a long, long time ago. <BR/><BR/>Sure, you state, "God may be mainly absent, but there will be fire, there will be fathers", but there is not even a "mainly" here. God has left this planet, and only the survivors of the planet-to-be will understand what life means. <BR/><BR/>You see, the quest in this movie is not Anton Chigurh's search...or if it is, then it is of an autistc's or a savant's search for why evil is. So it is. No really, roll the dice, and so it is. And then so it isn't. A rather potent depiction of these times, with the badly-motivated invasions of far-off countries, and so forth. Anyhow, the quest is, as I said, the search for the meaning of why and how evil comes to be. This opens us up to chance.<BR/><BR/>I am not even being a Richard Dawkin-ish hawk here. Quite the contrary. I resist the cult atheisticosity (sorry - terrible word - but it can't be helped) just as much as I resist the cult of religiosity. And so do the Coen bros., I suspect. They can never take themselves seriously enough to truly contemplate the idea of no God. At the same time, their narrative so frequently leave themselves open to, nay require, some sort of Deus ex Machina (Barton Fink being a classic example). I am not contradicting myself, since this is a purely agnostic vision, and the Coens' most serious existential quest yet.<BR/><BR/>No, this is not a Western, anymore than Oliver Stone's World Trade Center is. In fact, No Country cannot even come near to a pastiche of a Western. There are shards, broken fragments, dust, and detritus. It is a murder mystery of the collective self. Why and how did whoever kill us? Or No Country is a romantic comedy, laying ground for what is, ultimately, our romance with morality, be it with the good, the bad, or the a- kind. Looked at equally as a romantic comedy, murder mystery, and experimental film (think of van Sant's Gerry), No Country works. It works and haunts.<BR/><BR/>As for the referential aspects, let me revise, and turn over some of your claims: the Psycho reference is too old and obvious and doesn't necessarily apply here. There are a number of examples of movies with motel-scenes that have more affinity. For example, the recent Vacancy, or Red Rock West (if I remember correctly, or U-Turn, or Paris, Texas (actually the last comparison would be the most intriguing and apt). The characters here in No Country (even Bardem's) are not even unsympathetic. We watch them, Brolin, Jones, Bardem, and McDonald with a great amount of fascination. We, the spectators, in this case, are temporarily God. What would God do? Well, just what He has handed us the task of doing: watching things like this (and by extention, in much messier contexts, and less organized like the evening news). We see that trying to understand is not an easy task. Impossible, even. Impossible for God? Quite possibly.<BR/><BR/>Oh yes, and you mention the vehicles (like the picture of the Ford pick-up you post at the start of your review) as "key image-systems)...well about that. Here's my own response. Which Ford are we talking about here? John Ford or Stagecoach? Or Henry Ford the actor? Or Ford's actor Henry Fonda or Honda? This is a welcome turning point for the Coen's (much like Cronenberg's recent forays into making British, er, Russian gangster films. In this poker game, instead of coming up with an ace of spades, or even a joker, the Coens have come up most incongruously, and appropriately, for these times, with the Death Card.<BR/><BR/>Now l will go back to writing my Western, featuring telemarketing fraudsters…just kidding. Or maybe not. Remember the phone sex scamsters in P.T. Anderson's Punch Drunk Love? Speaking of which, stay tuned for my review of There Will Be Blood, which I will be watching tonight with my reading group friends.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15907060405795620941noreply@blogger.com