I'm thinking that he grabbed the cash from the second room.

Moss probably put the cash in the room next to his.

12/29/2007 4:26:52 PM

heads or tails this movie blew

12/29/2007 4:40:27 PM

You are an idiot, sir.

12/29/2007 7:16:53 PM

Quote :

"Alright....so they show a shot of the removed grate in the room that TLJ was in, right? Are you thinkin that Chigurh was in the room next door? If so, why on earth would he grab the money, and then go next door, instead of walking away?"

We see that the vent is open, but how do we know the cash was in there? Perhaps Chigurh checked there first only to find that the money was actually in the other room. We don't know for sure, and it doesn't really matter. Choices and consequences are a major theme of the movie. Chigurh being in one room provides TLJ with a choice.

12/29/2007 10:12:27 PM

true dat

12/30/2007 12:03:57 AM

do we really see TLJ consider going in another room?

12/30/2007 12:30:18 AM

Did we have to?

12/30/2007 1:30:05 AM

i expected much more from this movie. what a let down

12/30/2007 6:15:13 PM

What more were you expecting?

12/30/2007 6:35:12 PM

A
faux
dramatic
hollywood
shootout
ending.

12/30/2007 6:37:02 PM

Quote :

"Did we have to?"

uh yeah.

if he is choosing between two rooms, there needs to be some indication that he is making a CHOICE of one room rather than another, and some reason he would pick a different room other than the one that the camera is clearly fixed on, but again, I saw it a while back so I could be wrong.

12/31/2007 2:59:34 AM

There is specifically a few shots right before TLJ enters the hotel room that show Chigurh can see TLJ through the deadbolt hole in a reflection. It's unclear as to whether or not TLJ sees Chigurh through the hole.

So how is Chigurh in another room?

12/31/2007 1:02:53 PM

yeah I saw it again today and saw no reason to believe Chigurh was in a different room. I assume he slipped out the door which was left open when TLJ was in the bathroom.

1/3/2008 3:15:12 AM

The movie sucked when they killed off Woody Harrelson.

I mean, if white men can jump, then white men can dodge air-powered shot gun..

1/3/2008 4:10:39 AM

ok so i saw this tonight. and was thinking about it to myself...and thought i figured out the main themes of this movie....then came here and read up, and realized i'm either way off....or this movie is even more awesome than i thought and functioning on many different thematic levels...

WARNING: WORDS (and of course spoilers)







all right so i thought the movie was all about what was just recently mentioned here....

Quote :

" Choices and consequences are a major theme of the movie. Chigurh being in one room provides TLJ with a choice."

i mean it was a direct parallel to Chigurh flipping the coin. TLJ makes a choice and it determines whether or not he lives, just like everyone who calls heads or tails. BUT there's a definite dichotomy at work here...

and that is that really...their choices are pointless....the grand scheme of the movie seems to reinforce the notion that in the end, we're all helpless, subject to the tides of life.

Tommy Lee Jones is helpless. he lived by choosing the right door...but in the end, like we see in that last scene where hes talking ab his dreams (i think....i didnt really pay attention then), his future is pretty hopeless anyway. hes gonna die. like everyone else. life/time doesn't wait for anyone. to think it does is vanity like the wheelchair guy says....

yeah Tommy Lee Jones survived by picking the right door, but maybe his sigh when he sat down on the bed was one of relief (b/c he lived) mixed with one of the realization of his helplessness. that chigurh got away. that TLJ is afraid to face him, to chase after him, and that this really is no country for old men.

so us thinking that our choices have any big effect on anything...is vain even. which is the awesome dichotomy that im not sure i've figured out. Chigurh gives his victims the choice...heads or tails...but even when they choose....it's not really an active choice. they have no idea what the consequences of their choice are going to be...they are totally helpless under their circumstances. the utter sensation of helplessness that the victim feels before practically guessing at their death has got to be pretty overwhelming. not even chigurh makes any sort of an active choice during these moments. his killing is totally determined by the flip of the coin.

someone said something earlier about how carla jean or whatever her name defied him by not choosing heads or tails...b/c she knew she was going to die anyway. i don't think that was the case. she could have very well lived if she called tails or heads and the coin landed either heads or tails, respectively. just like the guy in the convenient store near the beginning. i'm not sure why she didn't choose, but i think it was because she realized the degree of utter helplessness at work. she realized that the victims don't have any choice (even though Chigurh attempts to make them think they do?), and so she wasn't going to pretend to think she ever had a real choice of any real consequence. she wasn't going to let herself get her hopes up. she wasn't going to play his games.

i mean yeah, the victims can get lucky, but that's all it is...it's luck...which just reinforces more the idea of us being subject wholly to the tides of life.

that's what makes Chigurh so scary imo...b/c he doesn't think he plays an active role at all in these people's lives...that he (and his assassinations even) are simply a product of life, of time, of our circumstances. he refers a couple times in the movie to the roads that led the characters to where they were. the circumstances that shape who we are and what becomes of us. so the result is this guy has no conscience at all. everything is just....blah...to him. no meaning really. just...life happens.

(hmm...that's what moss said early in the movie...when talking to carla jean and she was stressing about him being in trouble. i think he was all calm and said something along the lines of "i cant do anything to change it. life happens" i wonder what the parallels are between him and chigurh are with respect to that idea)

and the car crash maybe goes to show how chigurh is just as subject to the tides of life as anyone else. goes to expose his vulnerability, like already mentioned here.

anyways, those were my scatter brained thoughts that probably don't make much sense but it's late and i don't feel like editing.

oh. and yeah it was an awesome movie. i gotta admit at the ending i was like wtf. but its absolutely one of those movies where the more you think about it the more you like it. i definitely want to see it again.

1/3/2008 4:27:08 AM

hmm. on second thought, for as much as chigurh talks about the roads that lead us to our respective places in life..he says stuff like, "The coin has no say. It's just you" to carla jean at the end. Is he just trying to convince carla jean she actually has a real choice, but doesn't believe it himself? Or does he believe it? Or is he torn by the same dichotomy of our choices vs. fate that seems to tear the movie? Or am I completely grasping at straws?

1/3/2008 5:03:31 AM

^ I think it was Carla Jean that said the coin has no say its just you

1/3/2008 7:41:26 AM

Yeah. You're rambling would maybe make a semblance of sense if you could get any of the facts of the movie right.

For example, just off the top of my head, you are wrong about:

-TLJ making a choice about which door to go in. You're making too much shit up with this. Chirgurh clearly saw TLJ character through the lock hole. In the same door he goes in. He goes to the bathroom, sees the bathroom window is locked from the inside, and then realizes that he just let Chigurh get away. He sighs because he realizes that he is an old man in a new world. MAJOR THEME ALERT.

-Carla Jean realizes that her only choice in the matter is to not play Chirgurhs sick game. She tries to humanize him by telling him that HE has the choice, not the coin.

-THE grand scheme of the movie isn't helplessness and fate. There are several themes at work here, and that's definitely one of them, but there's a whole lot more at work here.

1/3/2008 10:31:28 AM

^the first point you made....well, plenty of people on here have proposed that chigurh was in the other room. would definitely make sense. i need to see it again though to make a judgment on that.

secondly, the only fact that i see that i didn't get straight is that it was carla jean that said "the coin has no say. it's just you."

everything else you said is just opinion. but yeah i agree with carla jean trying to humanize chigurh. but i think that's obvious and just touches the surface.

i think the theme of fate/choices plays a bigger role in this movie than you think. imo this tension defines chigurh as a character. the coin toss and chigurh constantly talking about the roads that lead us places are pretty prevalent throughout the movie.







so after reading some on imdb's message boards....i realized that i'm not totally off. ha, i'm not the only one who picked up on this theme. this post from imdb nails chigurh's character imo:

Quote :

"He's psychotic. He doesn't believe that he's at all responsible for his actions. When he kills someone, there's a reason for it. Or at least that's what he tells himself. He's buying gas and some food. He's got no real reason to kill the guy. Sure, you could argue that he doesn't want to leave witnesses. He'd need to walk around with an arsenal then because that sort of logic would mean he'd be killing every single person he meets on a daily basis. The gas station guy asked the wrong question. It bugged Anton. He wanted to kill him, badly. That he chose to use the coin toss just showed how arbitrarily he chose to kill people. It's not me, it's the coin. Moss' wife didn't buy that. She challenged him on it. Anton doesn't like to be challenged. No sociopath does. It isn't a game. It's a way for him to pretend as if something or someone else is calling the shots so that he can shirk off the responsibility. "

[Edited on January 3, 2008 at 1:19 PM. Reason : ]

1/3/2008 1:10:58 PM

just saw this movie tonight and really emjoyed it. A+



SPOILER

can someone explain the roles of woody harrelson and jimmy james? i get that they were somehow tied to the money, but how? and how does harrelson know exactly where to go to find moss?

as for the scene where TLJ goes back to the hotel room, i don't get the whole thing about he chooses whether to live or die by the door he chooses. he clearly chooses the door on the left because the lock has been shot out of it. its also the room where moss was gunned down, as evidenced by the giant blood stain on the carpet. if anything, this scene reinforces the theme of "you can't stop what's coming" because a: moss couldn't stop his inevitable death in this room and b:TLJ is unable to stop chigurh from completing his unfinished business.

i don't think chigurh ever lets his guard down, even as he's driving just before the car crash. just after chigurh kills carla jean, you see the kids ride by the house on their bikes. i think he notices them in his rear view mirror because he's considering taking them out because they are potential witnesses. the traffic light is green when he enters the intersection, he really had no cause to be on alert for on coming traffic.

1/6/2008 10:21:39 PM

ok if this movie's winning mad awards - i'm baffled - 2007 must've sucked balls for movies

1/7/2008 10:59:42 PM

Quote :

"Chirgurh clearly saw TLJ character through the lock hole. In the same door he goes in."

How do you figure that he "claerly" saw him?

I have a *cough* copy here on my computer and it's not clear at all. I've watched that scene several times, and it's not clear either way what's going on there (which is not out of place in this movie).

First they show this, the most notable thing is that there is no shadow on the lock:


Then they show this, it appears to be light coming from somewhere, presumably from the lock hole and being reflected off a wall:
(sorry about the clarity, i blame tww)

Then they show the same shot, but it's actually zoomed in a bit, and from a slightly different angle. It's not obvious, to me at least, if the light source is now gone, or just occluded by the camera angle:


Then they show the lock hole from the inside, notable, there appears to be either smoke or something coming through the lock hole here:





[Edited on January 7, 2008 at 11:22 PM. Reason : ]

1/7/2008 11:17:20 PM

In my opinion it isn't a coincidence that they are both looking at a door with a hole in the lock, and there is movement(iirc) on one side right when TLJ is moving around and there..

i don't think the Coen brothers are trying THAT hard to trick and deceive us at this point in the movie...



[Edited on January 7, 2008 at 11:57 PM. Reason : hjb jbuihb]

1/7/2008 11:51:35 PM

^ There's no movement there that's not just TLJ's shadow.

I do think though that they were in the same room. Cigurh is an extremely precise and experienced killer. I don't think he would have been hiding there if there wasn't something to hide from.

In any case, even if they weren't in the same room, if he was in the other room, it doesn't change the point of the scene in that sugrh was able to slip through TLJ's hands.

1/8/2008 1:16:16 AM

Look, moron, when you watch it in real time Chigurh can clearly see a reflection of TLJ through the lockhole.

It's as simple as this: Chirgurh blows the lock, goes and while he's grabbing the money TLJ shows up. TLJ sees the lock out and knows Chigurh might be in there, so he hesitates and doesn't know if he can face him. He decides to try it, goes in while Chigurh is hiding behind the door. Chigurh slips out while TLJ is in the bathroom, and TLJ realizes it when he sees that Chigurh didn't escape through the bathroom window (locked from the inside).

That's when he sits on the bed and realizes that hey, maybe this isn't a country for old men.

1/8/2008 11:26:02 AM

Quote :

"ok if this movie's winning mad awards - i'm baffled - 2007 must've sucked balls for movies"

1/8/2008 12:50:52 PM

i'm pretty certain that TLJ and anton were in the same room; but why did anton not kill TLJ, when he killed everyone else without hesitation? i feel like i should maybe read the book.

1/9/2008 1:16:04 PM

^TLJ never saw him. no point in killing him. chigurh was a very scrupulous killer.,

[Edited on January 9, 2008 at 6:04 PM. Reason : .]

1/9/2008 6:02:11 PM

This was one of the best movies I've seen in a LONG time.

1/23/2008 1:15:40 AM

just saw, enjoyed.

1/27/2008 3:14:16 PM

Loved the acceptance speech at the SAG for best cast

"We made a pretty freaky little movie...whether you liked the ending or not!"

1/28/2008 7:12:08 AM

i found myself asking myself "how did they know that exactly" during this movie, like how woody found moss so fast, or how he knew where to look for the case, etc...

other than that i enjoyed it

2/27/2008 6:14:25 PM

Not sure how I feel about NCFOM. It was nowhere near the level of There Will Be Blood, Sunshine, The Orphanage, I'm Not There, or even Sweeney Todd.

But I can't help but think I completely just saw the movie with the wrong people. I walked away from it feeling like it was very good, but not a masterpiece at all. But after all the recent buzz, I guess I'll have to go back and re-watch it closer.

2/27/2008 6:17:32 PM

Quote :

"masterpiece"

2/27/2008 6:21:49 PM

just got back from finally seeing this.

Though I thought it was great, I was a victim of overhype

And honestly, I wish it was less of a metaphor for the many views on destiny and more of the story it portrayed. I thought Llewelyn's life ended so anticlimacticly. It took a while to identify with him, but when I did, I was entirely sympathetic for his character. Kinda pisses me off he died by the hand of the Mexicans with no camera time!

Anyway, overall a great movie.

3/3/2008 9:17:53 PM

Quote :

"so us thinking that our choices have any big effect on anything...is vain even."

I think that this is a theme of the movie, which is precisely why I didn't like it.

3/3/2008 10:50:24 PM

I bet you liked all the pretty horses better.

3/4/2008 12:11:07 AM

Quote :

"I thought Llewelyn's life ended so anticlimacticly. It took a while to identify with him, but when I did, I was entirely sympathetic for his character. Kinda pisses me off he died by the hand of the Mexicans with no camera time!"

FWIW, it happens identically in the novel.

3/4/2008 7:06:50 AM

Well, it's as if he eluded this badass killer for quite some time with a couple near-misses then he dies by the hands of a mob of amateur mexicans. I guess they were just hellbent on killing him and there was enough of them with firepower, but they didn't even make the scene a big deal in the movie.

3/4/2008 11:50:01 AM

It helps to emphasize that Llewellyn isn't the focus of the story. Ed Tom is.

3/4/2008 12:57:32 PM

Clearly. I'm just saying I enjoyed the action story inside all the metaphors, etc.

3/4/2008 3:26:01 PM

Quote :

"I guess I'll have to go back and re-watch it closer."

But I do this with all of the Coen brothers' movies.

As I understood it, the Mexicans got the money at the end. Llewelyn was bringing it to Carla Jean, whose location was discovered by the Mexicans, who beat her and her mom to the hotel.

Herein lies the moral code of Chigurh. He kills Carla Jean because he has to, not for the money, not in spite of it. That is simply his code . . . twisted as it is. In that dark sense, he is the moral center of gravity for the movie. The rest of the characters are all acting in their own self interest, as is our nature. Chigurh is the force of uncertainty moving through the world. No matter how much control you have, or think you have, over your life, your ability to shape your destiny is limited.

"it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity."


On another note, Stephen Root comes from out of nowhere into a role I never would have cast him in. gg Coen Brothers.

3/10/2008 10:11:20 AM

^ chigurgh has the money, thats the whole point of showing you the grate of the air duct off having been unscrewed with a dime, exactly like in the first hotel. the mexicans didn't have time to search for the money (and they never found it in the first hotel anyways)

3/10/2008 10:25:02 AM

Is that from the book, or speculation?

3/10/2008 10:28:57 AM

out on DVD tomorrow

3/10/2008 11:50:09 AM

^^ Besides which, he whips out a huge wad to pay the kid at the end.

I didn't think there was any question that Chigurh had the money.

Here are some illuminating discussions on it:
http://www.ericdsnider.com/blog/2008/01/07/no-country-for-old-men-bell-and-chigurh-and-the-motel-room/
http://www.ericdsnider.com/blog/2008/01/08/more-no-country-for-old-men-questions-and-answers/

[Edited on March 10, 2008 at 12:09 PM. Reason : .]

3/10/2008 12:05:47 PM

Yeah, but I figured, as an assassin, he probably had wads of money . . . this was just another wad of money.

3/10/2008 12:44:31 PM

Theyre releasing it on DVD too early

If youre still making money in the theatre, you dont release the DVD yet

9 dollars per person to see it > 4 dollars to rent it and everyone can watch it

3/10/2008 12:54:16 PM

Yeah, but it's about time it winds down in theaters

it's already made $72,659,000 in the US alone

[Edited on March 10, 2008 at 12:58 PM. Reason : since November]

3/10/2008 12:57:41 PM

Just watched. Quality.

Though I definitely need to watch it again.

3/20/2008 8:22:36 PM