What's in the box?

This in a goy's mouth Larry

This is what happens when you find a stranger in the alps

A taste of True Grit

Great Characters: Anton Chigurh

Film: No Country For Old Men
Played by: Javier Badem
Memorable moment: The gas station scene

Friendship. Character. Ethics.

No Country For Old Men (2007)

"The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

That opening stretch of dialogue I always keep returning to. Taken verbatim from Cormac McCarthy's novel, it lays out the core themes of the film in the first 5 minutes. While this is going on, we are shown wide vistas of Texas. These shots would not be out of place in a Western, which is one of the genres No Country is apart of. Not only that, it shares the themes of the dying old west but at the same time flips them on its head and adds in thriller elements.

NCFOM was adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel. It is rife with material that would seem to suit the Coens: money, random violence and normal people getting caught up in terrible events.

The performances in this film are top notch. Josh Brolin, plays Llewelyn Moss. A gristled country boy who ends up stumbling upon the site of a drug shooting. He ends up finding a satchel of money. A device used in previous works like Fargo & Big Lebowski and as in those films it is used as a MacGuffin. It brings no peace of mind and no prosperity. The specific era the movie takes place (1980) is significant for marking a change of the direction of our country.














Anton Chigur, the cold hearted embodiment of evil played by Javier Bardem, is a contracted mercenary whose bizarre idea of freewill involves flipping a coin to determine whether you live or not. It is the best he can offer to those in dire circumstances. This is executed to great effect in a gas station scene.

The majority of the film focuses on the tense moments between Llewelyn & Anton, but the core character in the middle of the mess is Sheriff Tom Bell, an aged lawman of a simpler day and age where things were less chaotic. It is his story which elevates the material from being a tense thriller to a great film.
















Longtime Coen Brothers collaborator Roger Deakins photographed the film and it is his richest work yet. Another frequent collaborator, Carter Burwell is less prominent. His scores have added extra dimensions to films like Barton Fink and Fargo. Here the score and music are almost non existant. In this film the directors take a page out of Hitchcock's book on how to use sound to the effect of adding tension.

The final 20 minutes of the film revolve around fate. "A man can't escape what's coming to him." is a phrase uttered by one of Sheriff Bell's friends. It leads to a haunting ending about the death of the old way of life. To Sheriff Bell violence, is just an outcome of recent moral deterioration. This is the darkness his father was guiding him though in his dream.

It's a theme that runs through many of the Coen Brother films. Most specifically Fargo. As generations progress and the world around us becomes more and more violent, we can only stand back in observation and accept it and say O.K. I'll be part of this world.

A Serious Man (2009)

The book of Job centers around a man who suffers torments bestowed upon him by God as a test. The Coen Brothers 14th film centers around another Job like character. This time his name is Larry Gopnik. Larry is a university professor who is about to be granted tenure. His son is coming closer to having his bar mitzvah. Things take a turn for a worse and in true Coen Brothers fashion, they snowball into disaster.

First, his wife tells him that she wants a divorce and that she has been seeing his best friend Sy Abelman, played with pompous charm by Fred Melamad. At the university, a South Korean student gives Larry an envelope filled with money as an attempt to bribe Larry in order to give him a passing grade.

His son Danny's life isn't any easier. He faces a bully who he owes money to. His daughter Sarah is too self-involved to help. His brother has to drain a cyst on his neck and is a bigger wreck than Larry is. Things outside the Gopnik household are not so pleasant either. He a neighbor who is encrochaing on his property and another one, Mrs. Samsky, who sunbathes in the nude. Much to Gopnik's temptation.

As everything is slowly crumbling around Larry he questions the meaning of it all. The heart of the film is based around 3 rabbis. Larry goes to each to ask what does it all mean. Has Hashem cursed him? What has he done wrong to receive such torment?
One visit to a rabbi leads him to hearing a story about a goy's teeth. What he discovers is that it is not always easy to figure out what God is trying to tell us.











The setting is a suburb in Minnesota during 1967. A time where F troop played on the TV and Jefferson Airplane could be heard through the radio. The Coens grew up in this area and this could be considered their most personal film. Like the Coens best works (No Country For Old Men and Fargo) we are faced with themes about the lack of goodness in humanity.

Some might look at such a synopsis of a story and wonder why one would bother with such a morbid piece of suffering. But it’s the Coen Brothers incredibly artistic and delicate approach to the story that really involves the audience into this downward spiral that is uniquely comical as it is realistically depressing. This balance between comedy and tragedy is so well put together that the film moves at a sensible and enjoyable pace that doesn’t alienate nor push the audience away.

One clue to the whole theme of the film can be found in the middle. Gopnik is teaching his students the Uncertainty Principle. It's the only thing that Larry is certain of. A Serious Man is as dark a comedy the Coens have made. The interpretations of the ending of the film are many and they depend on your outlook in life. It will leave some scratching their head and others really moved. It is a film that not only speaks to the troubled Larry Gopnik but to all who suffer hard times. It is a critique on the quest for answers on why bad things happen to good people. When sometimes all we can is just accept the mystery.