Sabitlenmiş Tweet
I've been meaning to put this out to the world, but the ending of No Country for Old Men is brilliant, in part because of how it treats the death of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Yes, that's right, Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is dead in the last two scenes of the film. Let me explain ...
Sheriff Bell is killed by Chigurh in the El Paso motel, the same place and room where we see Llewelyn's body and learn of his death. I think Bell knows Chigurh is probably still at that motel and will be in that room and that's why Bell goes back to the motel.
Just prior to returning to the motel, Bell is in a diner having a conversation with local sheriff Roscoe Giddins. During this conversation, Bell and Giddins are discussing Chigurh going back to the Eagle Hotel to kill Carson Wells the day after he killed the desk clerk.
The last thing Roscoe says to Bell is: "Strolls right back into a crime scene. Who would do such a thing? How do you defend against it?"
After he leaves the coffee shop, Bell is sitting in his cruiser clearly contemplating his next move. This is when he makes the decision to go back to the El Paso motel believing Chigurh will be there.
This is Bell's heroic moment or his moment of him acting upon his principles. (Bell actually routinely fails to live up to his principles which is made more explicit in McCarthy's novel, but that's a conversation for another day.) Think back to Bell's foreshadowing monologue that opens the movie:
"I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job, not to be glorious. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand."
The entire movie Bell has been trying to "understand" Chigurh or understand what he is up against, and at this point he makes the decision or he feels compelled to confront the thing he's up against but doesn't understand. Bell is "pushing his chips forward".
Bell clearly thinks Chigurh is at the El Paso motel which is why Bell cuts the engine of his cruiser in the motel parking lot and why Bell closes the car door very quietly with both hands.
Bell approaches the door and sees the lock punched out which tells us Chigurh is there or at least has been there. Then, it cuts to Chigurh standing and hiding behind the door. We know this is the door for which Bell is standing on the other side because we see Bell's shadow obstructing the light in the punched out lock hole. Bell opens the door, but Chigurh is not there. Where did he go? Bell goes into the bathroom and shows us that the bathroom window is locked, telling us the Chigurh did not escape through the window.
To a lot of people, this scene does not make sense. The placement and movement of Bell and Chigurh is unclear and ambiguous. But this is, of course, on purpose. With this ambiguity, the film is telling us something about violence, death, and the world we are creating.
Bell is unceremoniously killed by Chigurh in that motel room. In fact, it is so unceremonious that it is not even shown (just like how the deaths of the other main characters Carla Jean and Llewelyn are not shown).
In just about every other film, the antagonist is killed in some final, drawn-out showdown. And in a lot of instances, when the viewer thinks the antagonist is dead, he suddenly appears again, only to be "killed again."
McCarthy in the source material and the Coens not only buck conventional story-telling and movie-making, but they completely throw it on its head by having Bell killed by Chigurh but not even letting the audience know Bell has been killed; making the audience figure it out on their own. McCarthy and the Coens are making the point that violence and death sometimes make no sense and that they happen in the blink of an eye.
For example, have you ever watched movie where the bad guy has the good guy in his grasp or his sights, but something miraculous happens allowing the good guy to escape or miraculously kill the bad guy? And, do you ever think how stupid and insulting that is from a real world perspective? Why didn't the bad guy just shoot the good guy without saying anything and without some drawn-out dramatic dialogue?
That is the brilliance of NCFOM. It shows that death sometimes makes no sense and it happens in an instant. One second you're alive. The next second you're dead. Consider too the nihilism of the story Bell tells at the beginning of the movie about the boy he sent up to Huntsville for killing the 14-year-old girl. Senseless.
So, what indicators or symbols are littered throughout the film that foreshadow and prove to us that Bell is killed by Chigurh in the motel. Think of how an intangible object or thing like a "bed" or "bedroom" is portrayed throughout the movie, and consider the theme of "retiring" or "retirement". (Also, to a lesser extent, the visual cue of light-to-dark.)
Bell is in the main room of the motel (dark), he then flips the light on in the bathroom (light), and when he goes back into the main room (dark), what does he do? He "sits heavily onto the bed." Him sitting heavily on the bed is the indicator that he is dead.
Where is Carla Jean when she dies? She waks into the house and turns on the light, but then sees Chigurh sitting in the bedroom "in the late-afternoon shadows." Carla Jean enters the bedroom and says after a brief conversation with Chigurh, "I need to sit down" and Chigurh "nods at the bed and Carla Jeamn sits down."
Where does Carson Wells die. Chigurh appears behind Wells on the stairs and says "Hello Carson. Let's go to your room." They go from the light of the stairs and hallway into the dark room. Both are sitting in chairs in the hotel room when Chigurh shoots Wells. Chigurh then puts his feet on the bed to answer the phone.
And then there is the story Bell tells his deputy about the couple in California who were "renting rooms" to elderly couples and then killing them. Again, death and bedrooms.
One of the three Mexicans is killed while lying in bed and all three are killed in a motel room.
Earlier in the movie, Bell stops a flatbed truck and has a conversation about the tie-downs coming loose. What is in the "bed" of the pick-up? Dead bodies. When Bell asks the driver why he didn't use the van instead, the movie is making a point about the relevance of a "bed" as a symbol of death death. Otherwise, what is the point of that scene? The drugs too--the object underlying and promoting all the killing--are in the bed of the truck at the initial crime scene.
Then, consider probably the the most memorable scene of the movie where Chigurh converses with the gas station proprietor. There are a few lines in that dialogue that seem very out of place. Out of nowhere, the following back-and-forth takes place:
CHIGURH: What time do you go to bed?
PROPRIETOR: Sir?
CHIGURH: You're a bit deaf, aren't you? I said what time do you go to bed?
PROPRIETOR: Well ... I'd say around 9:30. Somewhere around 9:30.
CHIGURH: I could come back then.
Chigurh saying he could come back when the Proprietor is going to bed, is Chigurh telling the Proprietor that going to bed is synonymous with the Proprietor dying. Instead though, Chigurh utilitizes the coin-flip.
The other symbol or indicator of death is "retirement" or "retiring".
- Llewelyn is a “retired” welder (dead)
- Carson Wells is a “retired” Army colonel (dead)
- Carla Jean is “retired” from Wal-Mart (dead)
- Sheriff Bell is facing impending retirement throughout the film and is finally “retired” in the last two scenes (dead).
Think also of this dialogue in one of the final scenes where Bell goes to see his uncle Ellis.
ELLIS: Got a letter from your wife. She writes pretty regular, tells me the family news.
BELL: Didn't know there was any.
ELLIS: She just told me you was quittin. Sit down.
The family news is that Bell has retired. Being retired is "being dead" in the story. And Ellis immediately tells Bell to sit down, just like how Carla Jean and Carson Wells were told to sit down before they were killed by Chigurh. The entire story is leading up to Bell's retirement.
Then, in the final scene, Bell and his wife Loretta have the following dialogue:
BELL: Maybe I'll go ridin.
LORETTA: Okay.
BELL: What do you think.
LORETTA: I can't plan your day.
BELL: I mean, would you care to join me.
LORETTA: Lord no. I'm not retired.
Matt Walsh@MattWalshBlog
Absurd list. No Country For Old Men is the best film of the century, hands down.
English
