No Country For Old Men Meaning
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anonymous Jun 19th 2009, 13:56 report
At first glance, this movie is about missing drug money and a bunch of "old men" who are involved in the plot. A man trying to get away with the money, a killer who is after the money, and the sheriff who is after both of them. But there is an underlying message that you don't see right away.
No Country for Old Men points out that in the big scheme of things, nothing matters. At the end of the movie, everyone is dead, the money is missing and the sheriff retires. Why? Because he felt overwhelmed. At first he thought he could make a difference but in the end he learns that no one makes a difference.
Just look at the gas station scene. The killer's conversation about the coin.
"Don't put it in your pocket."
"Why not?"
"If you put it in your pocket it will become mixed with all your change and it will become just another coin, which it is."
The Coen brothers were subtly giving us a view of life, represented by coins.
Another thing is the ending. Why did the movie end with a monologue of some dream about the sheriff's dad? Well honestly, the Coen brothers could have ended the movie anywhere. The point was that life doesn't just end after the resolution of a film. Things go on and whatever events took place in the movie matter very little to everyone else in that universe.
This movie is amazing. Action, emotion, and deep thought provoking undertones. -
Jag528cbr Jul 14th 2009, 02:30 report
It took me a while after watching this movie to come up with an idea of what the meaning could be. I think the message of the movie is that the world is changing and isn't the same as used to be. Thus the title "No Country For Old Men." But then again I could be completely off track.
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Author418 Dec 29th 2009, 07:31 report
I think that the title itself leads me to believe that the idea of the film rests (as others have said); that the world has changed. If you think about traditional westerns (and traditional judeo-christian values) good triumphs over evil. That tended to be represented by an upstanding lawman in a white hat. In those passion plays, evil swept into town in a black hat (in this movie, black clothes and a black bowl haircut)and did bad things until Act III where the good sheriff would triumph and the movie ends happily. I beleive that this film is showing a different view of that archetype. In this film the Tommie Lee Jones character strives to be "Gary Cooper" but he is unsuccessful not because he is unworthy, but because the times and the rules have changed so much that "old men" like himself and their values are no longer valid. So while evil did not really triumph either, at the end of the film the Sheriff did not "save the day" and his retirement is the ride off into the sunset, not in triumph but in resignation that his time has passed.
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Graceless.Lady Mar 2nd 2010, 11:07 report
Author418 is definitely on the right track, I think. The title comes from the first line of W.B. Yeats' famous poem "Sailing to Byzantium"; readers might profit from looking up the poem and reading some of the analysis of it.
But Cormac McCarthy, the literary giant who wrote the book, is also going deeper and darker than merely exploring the bewilderment of a retiring small-town sherrif. Killer Anton Chigurh (a play on "chigger," that annoying parasite in the South) is an agent of Chaos and Radomness. Crazy psycopath that he is, he sticks to a code that makes no sense to a sane person: Flip a coin. Heads, you live; tails, you die. And yet, McCarthy insists, does not the world often seem to operator in just such an insane manner? Notice who survives: the killer and the sherrif, which suggests that we may be able to strike a blow at evil/chaos/randomness, but we will never eradicate it, and that only those who can see and accept this vision can be truly alive or effective, although they may be sadder for it.
It's a shuddering view of the world, one designed to shake up our naive, complacent ideas that we can impose order or create a world that makes sense or operates rationally. -
anonymous Sep 21st 2010, 01:04 report
Read the poem that the movie is based on, I believe that the movie, and poem, is essentially saying that there is "No Country For Old Men"--those that age with their country--instead of striving for timeless knowledge; that which transcends the degradation of societies.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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anonymous Apr 8th 2011, 15:33 report
This movie, imo, is about "growing old" - where once youth and no fear of death reigned, old age creeps in and everything becomes scary. Chigurh is "death" - sometimes random, sometimes planned, sometimes avoided, sometimes seemingly defeated, never permanently escaped. Death wins in the end, in all cases. The sheriff never really is a player, he is old, he can't engage - impotent, if you will, scared - no match for an impending meeting with death. He is overwhelmed by the circumstances. He laments "The world has changed" and indeed it has for the old. The dream scene he recounts at the end is an old man trying to reconcile his life - namely his relationship with his father - a not unprominent theme for a man.
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anonymous Jul 18th 2011, 20:28 report
The dream monologue at the end sums up the sheriff's feelings about/hopes for the world. He was travelling through a pass in the cold, dark mountains, (living in an age he doesn't understand, in a place he can't escape or see out of), when his father travels by him, doesn't say a word, wrapped in a blanket, (the old world/way of life is passing by him, it needs protection from the harsh present), and it's carrying a flame to light a fire way ahead, (there's still some good left in the world, but it won't last long in the cold, needs to be rekindled in a blaze).
Then the sheriff says he's going to arrive there eventually, and either he means he hopes the world will change to the way it used to be (a hope he realises is futile, because he tiredly says "and then I woke up", it's only a dream), either that or he's hoping for a life after death that'll make some sense to him.
I just thought that was important, everything else I think has been covered by u gaiz ^_^. -
anonymous Sep 2nd 2011, 11:26 report
I feel like the whole message of the film was subjectivity itself. It's only bleak if you take it from the sheriff's point of view. Thus, ending on that monologue was key, in that the Sheriff only just started to realise he was getting old, and getting old was coloring his view of the world. When he was younger and his mind was sharper he would have solved the crime. Now he can only tell 'something' is going on but he can't solve it.
What his monologue told me is that he was merely preparing to step aside for the next generation to come through; a new generation of good guys and bad guys, that behaved completely differently to the goodies and baddies of his day. He's realized that the game is completely different. Bardem and Brolin's characters only serve to illustrate his point.
I concur with everyone else who stated what a brilliant film this is. -
anonymous Sep 11th 2011, 02:50 report
I dont want to sound like a snob, but some of you really should just read the fucking book. It's not nearly as simple as "the world is changing". Thats part of it, but the major theme is chaos and man's complete inability to prevent it. The book makes this idea much more clear. It doesn't say so up front, but it makes it easier to pick up on it.
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anonymous Feb 6th, 10:00 report
I concur with 9-11... I didn't read the book but his comment is the basic idea I took from the movie. "You can't stop what's coming." Ed Tom's visit to the old deputy's house and their conversation, in my belief, is the basic message of this film (though I do concede it goes deeper.)
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