The film is loyal to the source material, and thus, it is violent, ambiguous, and packed with the kind of metaphysical exploration that has come to define McCarthy's best work. The film is ripe for interpretation and analysis (the film's Wikipedia page is expansive), and the most interesting character in the film is the psychopathic hit man, Anton Chigurh, masterfully portrayed by Javier Bardem.
One thing is certain: he is an enigmatic, iconic, and memorable villain.
YouTube film critic Rob Ager explores the possible "supernatural" aspects of Chigurh in two brief videos:
Part of the appeal of the character, Anton Chigurh, and the film itself, is ambiguity: No Country For Old Men invites and almost demands multiple viewings and multiple interpretations. Though this is brilliant, it is anything but new. In fact, William Shakespeare was employing this very same technique some 400 years earlier.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
In Act I, Scene 4, Hamlet prepares to speak to the "ghost" of his father. In the next scene, Hamlet and the "ghost" appear together; no other characters are present. Act I, Scene 5 invites multiple interpretations. Does Hamlet actually speak with the ghost of his father? Or perhaps he simply imagines the conversation in an effort to justify his own anger and resentment regarding his uncle. Maybe the ghost is really a demon that spurs Hamlet to pursue a course of revenge that is ultimately self-destructive. These are all valid interpretations.
"Supernatural" elements allow for this narrative flexibility, and when used properly, this plot device can create something endlessly engaging.
Your Assignment
The following is an excerpt from the film's Wikipedia page:
Characterization[edit source]
"[Anton Chigurh] is the one character in the book that actually departs from a certain sense of realism, he's both sort of real in the book and an idea."
In an interview with Charlie Rose, co-director Joel Coen believed that Chigurh "is the one character in the book that actually departs from a certain sense of realism, he's both sort of real in the book and an idea."[57] Questioned about his character in an interview for the Los Angeles Times, Javier Bardem said, "He belongs to somewhere else. I'm not saying from outer space, but [he] belongs mentally to someplace else."[58][59]
"[Anton Chigurh] is the one character in the book that actually departs from a certain sense of realism, he's both sort of real in the book and an idea."
Devil, Antichrist and Grim Reaper[edit source]
Manuel Broncano describes Chigurh as the 'Antichrist'. "Of the three major branches of Christian eschatology," he says, "No Country for Old Men orchestrates an apocalyptic rhetoric by which drug dealing is described as a devastating and biblical-like plague and Anton Chigurh as a true Antichrist. Furthermore ... the text identifies him as the human agent of the demon Mammon. All this we learn through Sheriff Bell's remembrance, in his attempt at making sense of things that go beyond his understanding ... The opening monologue provides an interesting clue about the religious architecture of the narrative: the unnamed convict is depicted as a man who 'knew he was going to hell', a man who by his own admission has no soul. It is therefore evil at its purest, in close resemblance to Anton Chigurh, 'the true and living prophet of destruction', a being that is 'real' beyond doubt, for the narrator has been witness to his deeds. The sheriff is an individual who does not want to put 'his soul to hazard', a requisite to confront evil."[60]
Don Graham states that "we are introduced to one of Satan's chief subalterns, Anton Chigurh, he of the pneumatic device, an otherworldly psychopath possessed of a philosophical bent ... Chigurh's philosophy doesn't come from Christianity but from a source that's not identified and is therefore sure to intrigue the intrepid McCarthy exegetes on the Internet ... Bell is anti-abortion, anti-drugs, and anti-kids who dye their hair green and put bones in their noses. He thinks the disintegration of civic polity is much advanced. He thinks things begin to fall apart when people stop using ordinary manners ... Bell's forebodings, his absolute certitude that evil, however mysterious, certainly does exist, his very seriousness –all of this deepens and extends the [film] beyond the predictable boundaries of thriller."[61]
Actor Josh Brolin described the character of Anton Chigurh as "the Grim Reaper." He added in a press interview released by Miramax: "He's the devil incarnate ... You don't understand [his violence], you can't pigeonhole it. You can't categorize it. He's very malleable, but not malleable on your terms, malleable on his own terms." Javier Bardem said of his character: "That's his power: You cannot really understand him completely. The good thing about Anton Chigurh is that he can't be described. He's not even described in the book by Cormac McCarthy. He doesn't need to be explained. It's a character that comes out of the land and, at the end, comes back to the land, which means everything ... What Anton Chigurh does is a new kind of violence, and I guess one of the issues that the novel, and the script and the movie, is talking about is the way to understand this huge wave of violence that has taken the world. Chigurh more than represents, he symbolizes the violence. [He] shows that violence doesn't really have an explanation sometimes, or any roots. It just happens, and it's unstoppable."[62]
Angel[edit source]
"Anton is an angel, sent by God to destroy all of those who suffer from greed. He is punishing normal, human sinners, which is something the Catholic God does. Anton (after Saint Anthony, renowned for his work against the Devil) kills everyone who in any way took money, drug money, which did not belong to them. He is the opposite of evil. He is divine power. He is fighting the Devil in the shape of drugs"
–Paula Bomer[63]
In her review of the novel, Paula Bomer believes that Chigurh is "an angel sent by God". Chigurh "is called 'evil'", she says, "'theepitome of evil', he's considered to suffer from 'bloodlust'. None of these things are true and in fact, they are the actual meaning of his violence inverted. Anton is an angel, sent by God to destroy all of those who suffer from greed. He is punishing normal, human sinners, which is something the Catholic God does. Anton (after Saint Anthony, renowned for his work against the Devil) kills everyone who in any way took money, drug money, which did not belong to them. He is the opposite of evil. He is divine power. He is fighting the Devil in the shape of drugs and drug money. Bell basically sums up the plot and moral center of this novel during one of his first person italicized parts when saying, 'I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics.' One of the main things God does in the Catholic religion is fight against the Devil, and that fight takes place in our very lives. We are but a battleground for forces much larger than us, and I think that is the best way to read No Country for Old Men. McCarthy’s characters exist to demonstrate his vision of how this universe works.
"Here is Anton talking to the man in the gas station, who just flipped a coin that saved his life: 'Anything can be an instrument...Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same.' Anton is there for the accounting. And nothing else is about to be the same. When he leaves the gas station, the nervous attendant laid the coin on the counter and looked at it. 'He put both hands on the counter and just stood leaning there with his head bowed.' Yes, his head was bowed, in reverence.
"With a seemingly creepy touch, McCarthy employs a strange, animal method with which Anton kills the innocent victims during his all-important fight against the devil. Anton guns down every person directly involved with the drugs and the money, but for those few he must sacrifice who are not culpable, he kills them with a livestock stun gun. This symbolizes how we are the 'sheep' and he is the Shepherd. It is not 'random' or sick or anything but another sign that Anton is doing God's work and that sacrifices must be made in order to obtain His goal.
"One of the final scenes, where Anton kills Carla Jean, wonderfully combines McCarthy's use of chaos theory to bolster his Catholic vision. But prior to Anton’s great speech on destiny, he explains himself as aligned with God’s word to Carla Jean. Carla Jean: 'You give your word to my husband to kill me?' / Chigurh: 'Yes' / Carla Jean: 'He's dead. My husband is dead' / Chigurh: 'Yes. But I'm not' / Carla Jean: 'You don't owe nothin to dead people' / Chigurh (cocked his head slightly): 'No?' / Carla Jean: 'How can you?' / Chigurh: 'How can you not?' / Carla Jean: 'They're dead' / Chigurh: 'Yes. But my word is not dead. Nothing can change that' / Carla Jean: 'You can change it' / Chigurh: 'I don't think so. Even a non-believer might find it useful to model himself after God. Very useful, in fact.' The key points are that his word is not dead—God's word lives. And, in saying that 'even a non-believer might find it useful to model himself after God' Anton is giving Carla Jean advice. Advice too late, but advice nonetheless.
"And so lastly, we get Anton's speech, his explanation how he is just acting out her destiny, God's destiny for her, that her actions, her free will, put into motion: 'Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.' I find it hard to miss that her path was visible to Him, to God, and to Anton, God's servant."[63]
"Anton is an angel, sent by God to destroy all of those who suffer from greed. He is punishing normal, human sinners, which is something the Catholic God does. Anton (after Saint Anthony, renowned for his work against the Devil) kills everyone who in any way took money, drug money, which did not belong to them. He is the opposite of evil. He is divine power. He is fighting the Devil in the shape of drugs"
–Paula Bomer[63]
Ghost, Terminator and instrument of karmic consequence[edit source]
Critic David Denby of The New Yorker wonders: "Who is Chigurh? What is he? He slaughters twelve people, and yet somehow manages to be seen by no one. He kills a cop, yet the authorities never get their act together and track him down."[64]
Jim Welsh assures that "there is no ultimate showdown between the professional lawman and the professional assassin, and one wonders if this is by accident or by design. . . . Sheriff Bell is tracking a killer, but there will be no clear, dramatic confrontation, perhaps because Sheriff Bell knows he can't cheat Death or kill the Devil, that the deck may be stacked against him. If not the Devil, then maybe a ghost, as Bell himself suggests? So who said he was chasing an abstraction? . . . The killer, the 'ghost', Anton Chigurh, seems too spooky, too otherworldly to be 'real.' Considering what happens to him in the story, Chigurh ought to be dead, but at the end, after being broadsided by an auto accident, he limps away to continue his never exactly specified mission. The man and his motives are utterly mysterious."[65]
While discussing shooting techniques in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, cinematographer Roger Deakins wondered whether Chigurh was present in the motel room (where Moss was murdered) when Sheriff Bell returned at night to the crime scene. "I wanted the motel room to be totally black," he said, "because [Javier Bardem's character] Chigurh is hiding in the corner. Or is he? So you wanted this kind of mystery."[66]
Louis Proyect highlights that "[Chigurh's] character is a mixture of a less interesting version of the Samuel Jackson hit-man in Pulp Fiction and the very first Terminator–the unrelenting evil one. Entirely missing is the kind of bent humor found in the kidnappers in Fargo, who despite being creeps were a source of amusement.
"After Moss blasts him with a shotgun, Chigurh retreats to a seedy motel (No Country is replete with some of the scuzziest motels and hotels ever seen in a film) and performs surgery to remove the shotgun pellets from his knee. With the Terminator flicks floating in the back of my mind, I almost expected to see metal rods instead of bones beneath his flesh."[67]
William Ferraiolo states that “Chigurh is the irresistible force pervading every scene of No Country for Old Men. Even when he is not on camera, the viewer feels the weight of his presence and sees the toll it exacts upon every other significant character in the film.
"None of us knows quite what to make of Chigurh. His victims do not understand him, law enforcement officials are baffled by his exploits, the viewer is stunned by his ruthlessness, and yet there remains something about this figure that we cannot quite condemn. Is he, perhaps, beyond condemnation? Is there something, somehow, to admire in this man – even if it is only grudgingly and only at a safe distance that one may experience (or admit) this admiration? Perhaps Chigurh is intended to remain a bit of a cipher – an enigma. Even his name, after all, is awkward to both spell and pronounce. He eludes us. We are told of no childhood trauma, no biochemical imbalance or neurological impairment, no ancient outrage for which he now exacts revenge against society at large.
"We have no idea how he came to be this way – or even how one can become what we behold. There is money involved in the plot, but it becomes clear that this is not his primary motivation, nor is it a sine qua non of the film's evolution. The matter at issue could just as easily have been a package of cashews, a woman, or even an offhand remark. Chigurh kills almost as does a force of nature (albeit a selective one). Ahab was driven by his irrational hatred of the white whale. Chigurh, on the other hand, does not seem to be driven – he just seems to be. Chigurh kills. That is what he does. So . . . why toss the coin?
"He appears to operate in accordance with something like an 'ethical code' (though, again, the term is severely deformed in this context) . . . . Perhaps Chigurh is just a killing machine with a built-in abort system that may be triggered under fortuitous circumstances. . . . As far as Chigurh is concerned, his victims cause their own demise (or secure their survival) through their behaviors. . . . He seems, at some points in the narrative, to behave as an instrument of karmic consequence; he ensures that others reap what, in his estimation, they have sown. . . . Chigurh is something closer to a force of nature – as inexorable and disinterested in human life as a flood, earthquake, or, indeed, a [bubonic] plague.
"Chigurh is something more than a merchant of death, something more implacable than 'the ultimate badass,' as was earlier suggested by the stubborn and ill-fated Llewelyn Moss. Chigurh is the inevitable. He is the embodiment of the darkness that Bell cannot understand. . . . Chigurh is the implement linking karma and consequence – as he is also a product of karma and consequence. Killing machines do not simply fall from the sky. They are, somehow or other, made – and the wheel of life and death goes round and round. Occasionally, a coin is tossed.
"Many other characters just happened to be driving down the wrong road at the wrong time, sitting behind the wrong desk, or drinking beer beside the wrong hotel pool. Even in these instances, however, we might ask what led them to that particular place and time. In fact, and this may be the real point, we may ask what leads any of us to this place, this time, this character, these proclivities, this life unfolding all around and through us. Are any of us, ultimately, authors of the selves into which we evolve? Are any of us in control of the twists and turns our lives take – or are we all simply caught in the turning, grinding wheel of karma (or fate, or destiny, or randomness, or call-it-what-you-like)?"[68]
Still, and opposite such interpretations of Chigurh's character, Jim Welsh quotes "[Co-director] Joel Coen from a bonus DVD feature on the making of the film, 'It's about a good guy, a bad guy, and a guy in between. Moss is the guy in between.' ('The Making of No Country,' 2008) . . . This is a very serviceable genre story for the Coen brothers to transform into an Oscar-worthy motion picture, and a playground of archetypes (from the mythical Celtic to the Bible) and stereotypes raised above the level of cliché and taken beyond the realm of allegory."[65]
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
- In a 500 word essay, select the interpretation of Chigurh that you feel is most accurate: Devil, Angel, Ghost, "Karmic Terminator," Psycopath, et al.
- Relate the essay to Hamlet and its use of "supernatural" ambiguity.
- Typed; double-spaced; size 12 Times New Roman
Outline
I. Intro: Introduce the character - Why is he interesting? Engaging? Terrifying? etc.
II. Interpretation of Chigurh: Use three specific examples from the film to support your interpretation of the character
III. Hamlet Anecdote: relate the character and the film to the play, Hamlet. Explain how both use ambiguity, supernatural characters, and conventions of tragedy
- Due Tuesday, October 8th
- Due Tuesday, October 8th
Man, I was surprised by how long that Wikipedia page was on No Country for Old Men. There's an entire page dedicated to an analysis of the movie! That blows my mind!
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, Mr. Clark, I wanted to ask: Do we turn in hard copies of our essays in your class, or post the essay on the blog?
Hard copies, but please continue to comment on the blog, Kenny!
ReplyDeleteQuestion: is it 500 words MAX or MINIMUM?
ReplyDelete