I’ve had so many conversations about this movie, I felt like I needed to just sort out my thoughts on it once and for all (for now). No Country has so many layers of meaning, I’ll tackle one at a time.
Everyone focuses on Sheriff Bell’s final monologue – and why not, since it’s such an abrupt and unique ending? It seems like a pessimistic and overly philosophical last scene: Bell has a dream that his father is waiting for him in a cold, dark place. But the key to that monologue comes earlier in the film, when Bell speaks to Ellis (Barry Corbin). For Ellis, all of Bell’s self-doubt and the sense that the violence surrounding him is somehow personal is “vanity.” Bell’s last monologue isn’t exactly uplifting, but Bell is essentially just coming to accept that he is, like all of us, merely one organism among billions in a complex world. Bell would love to believe his service as an officer of the law has made a positive impact on the world, but frankly, a minute percentage of humans can rightfully say that. It isn’t what we all would like to believe, but ultimately, none of us are all that important on our own, and believing that all the destruction in the world is somehow “about” us or being done to us is, indeed, vanity.
Which leads to, in my opinion, the more important monologue – the opening. Bell muses on how much more violent the world has become. Not only is there more violence, but it is increasingly senseless, random, and shockingly brutal. Ultimately, though, in order to do his job Bell must say, “Okay, I’ll be a part of this world.” And so must we all. No doubt, just when you think you are beyond shock, the news throws something more horrific at you. Babies in microwaves. Sex trafficking. An Austrian sicko with a hostage family in his basement. How do we digest such things? I avoid using accept, because the optimist who lives somewhere deep inside me wants to believe that these sorts of things have not become the norm, and thus we should not accept them as permanent. But at some point, we have to resign ourselves, as Sheriff Bell does, to the reality that we live in a world that can be unimaginably grotesque. Unless you plan to shelter yourself either physically or mentally, though, you’ve got to make the same resignation.
And what about that perception that the violence in the world has become more frequent and senseless? Well, again, Ellis points out that similar things happened within the Bell family back in 1909. Anyone ever read about the oppression of the American Indians? Or the Aborigines in Australia? How about the Roman Colosseum? Or the nature of medieval warfare? Or Elizabeth Bathory? Or…or…or. We could list a hundred large-scale or small-scale events from any period in history and be shocked by how brutal life was back then or at that moment. The violence in the world now is nothing new.
Anton Chigurh: It might be enough to say he’s one of the most brilliantly conceived (thanks, Cormac McCarthy), designed (thanks Coens), and acted (thanks, Bardem) characters in film history. I believe that. Chigurh symbolizes all the violence that Bell and others refer to. For me, he is the human manifestation of an action. He kills. Whom he kills is determined by the will and behavior of others. Like the coin to which he compares himself, he bounces around the world of corruption. He is used by some. He is used against others. He is the active part of the code of violence.
And we can’t forget the most superficial but no less interesting layer of meaning in No Country: the proliferation of drugs during the late 70s and early 80s that caused and shaped the violence in the film. Despite having these other philosophical, universal meanings, when you look at it from a certain perspective, the story is very specific to its setting and captures a significant moment in American culture from a distinctly American point of view. Placing Bell -and Lewellyn – within this setting is a bit like plucking cowboys out of some classic Westerns and asking them, what would you make of this?
That’s all for now. It’s late and I’m tapped. I am an obsessive reviser of my own writing, so expect updates. (Yeah, that just happened – I just finished my second go around on this one. But I’m done.)
Posted by jeffwmarker 
