No Country for Old Men
Short description
Set along the Texas–Mexico border, the film follows Llewelyn Moss, a working man who comes upon a scene of carnage in the desert: abandoned vehicles, several bodies, a shipment of heroin and a case holding more than two million dollars. He takes the money, a decision that draws a remorseless killer, Anton Chigurh, onto his trail and pulls in Ed Tom Bell, the local sheriff, who watches the violence spread and struggles to make sense of it. Carson Wells, another outsider with an interest in the case, also enters the pursuit.
The fourteenth feature in the Coen brothers' directing chronology, following Paris, Je T'aime and preceding To Each His Own Cinema, it was written, directed and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen, with Scott Rudin also producing. Javier Bardem plays Chigurh, Tommy Lee Jones plays Bell, Josh Brolin plays Moss, and Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald and Garret Dillahunt appear alongside them, among a credited cast of 52 and crew of 111. Released in November 2007, it runs 122 minutes.
Made for 25 million dollars, it returned 172 million worldwide, a strong multiple of its cost. Audiences rate it highly, at 8.2 out of 10 on IMDb from 1,200,000 votes and 8 out of 10 on TMDB from 13,788 votes, while a film critics' rating of 9.2 out of 10 from 291 reviews places critical appraisal above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Producers negotiated with Heath Ledger for the role of Llewelyn Moss, but he ultimately declined to participate in the film.
- The Coen brothers refused Josh Brolin an audition for the film. So Josh asked Robert Rodriguez to help him record an audition tape. Josh's audition was filmed with a $950,000 camera, with Robert Rodriguez behind the camera and Quentin Tarantino directing the filming.
- The film does not have an original soundtrack. Only music written for the film is heard during the end credits.
- Joel and Ethan Coen not only produced, wrote, and directed the film, but also edited it themselves. However, the credits list their collective pseudonym – Roderick Jaynes.
- The Coens like to include references to one of their favorite directors, Stanley Kubrick. For example, the film features a motel room numbered 114; this number appeared repeatedly in Kubrick's films as well.
- Filming took place from May 23rd to August 16th, 2006.
- The action takes place in Texas, but for financial reasons, the film was shot in Las Vegas. Nevertheless, at Tommy Lee Jones' insistence, the Coen brothers filmed several scenes in West Texas.
- Paul Walker actively pursued the role of Moss. He said he had always wanted to work with the Coen brothers and even auditioned. However, the brothers preferred Heath Ledger, and after he turned it down, the role went to Josh Brolin.
- The pharmacy near which Chigurh blows up a parked car is called Mike Zoss Pharmacy. In Minneapolis, there is a pharmacy with the same name where Joel and Ethan Coen spent a lot of time as children. Their own film company is also called Mike Zoss Productions.
- The weapon used by Anton Chigurh is a pistol with an exposed striker, commonly used in slaughterhouses.
- The film contains numerous anachronisms: although the film is set in 1980, Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) picks up a Heckler & Koch SP89 pistol at the drug deal location, which was manufactured in 1989. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is armed with an Intratec TEC-9 submachine gun, manufactured in 1985, as well as a Remington 11-87 shotgun, manufactured after 1987. He also fires a Glock pistol, which appeared in 1983. One of the Mexicans in the hotel fires a Cobray M11/9 submachine gun, manufactured in 1983.
- The film is based on Cormac McCarthy's novel 'No Country for Old Men' (2005).
- The film's title is taken from the first line of William Butler Yeats' poem 'Sailing to Byzantium'.
- The hairstyle of the killer Anton Chigurh was taken from a photograph of a brothel patron, taken in 1979. After the hairstyle was brought to life, Javier Bardem exclaimed, looking at himself in the mirror: “Oh no, now I’m without sex for two months!”
- The Coen brothers tried to preserve not only the spirit but also the letter of the novel – most of the dialogues and monologues in the film repeat the book word for word.
- The film was shot simultaneously with Paul Thomas Anderson's “There Will Be Blood,” and the filming locations were close to each other, literally a couple of hills apart. Once, the Coens had to interrupt filming because thick smoke was billowing from the “There Will Be Blood” set, getting into the frame.
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