No Country for Old Men, Essay Example

The Cohen brothers present the theme of luck throughout the film No Country for Old Men. This theme manifests in different ways for different characters in the film. As the them ties the characters together, it’s presented as meteoric throughout the movie as each character experiences varying degrees of luck (ranging from good to bad luck) depending on the what part of their story they’re in (such as act turns and dénouements). This paper will expound upon this theme and how each character experiences it as well as delve into the character understanding and development through the chicanery of serendipity.

The most notable sign of luck in the movie is the coin flip. This theme of luck is presented by Anton Chigurh. What is interesting to note is the impassive, apathetic manner in which he flips the coin. There is no inflection in voice (aside from the accent) nor any indication that it matters which side of the coin lands, heads or tails: this may be interpreted as meaning that luck isn’t a positive or negative thing, it just is. This could further inform the following events in the story. As the other characters cross paths with Chigurh, they play a part in luck; they are forced to play a part in luck, chance, and destiny. The storytellers are however telling another level to the story, making the audience guess as to whether or not its chance or choice that leads the characters to meeting the coin flip. The coin flip allows the characters to pretend that perhaps its just luck that lands them where they are in the story, or even lands them in poverty or riches. The coin is a device used by the storytellers to make the audience (and perhaps the characters) question how they are living the lives they are living. This is also true for Chigurh. As the harbinger of luck (i.e. the coin) the question is present as to whether or not he’s bringing a character good or bad luck. In fact, however, it’s neither; he’s just bringing consequence. Messing around with the wrong people leads to facing the coin. Therefore, neither luck, destiny have any play in Chigurh’s actions, but rather the choices other characters makes require them to cross paths with the assassin. Chigurh may be better equipped shouldering the name “consequence” or “reaper” than simply the man who tosses the coin.

If Chigurh is consequence in the film then one of the penultimate scenes is the hotel scene. This is a true convergence of luck vs. choice. The hunter (Chigurh) stands outside the door and readies himself as consequence for the man behind the door (Llewelyn Moss). The reason this scene is prevalent in relation to the theme of luck is because of the reason these two characters converge here: happenstance. Llewelyn, a blue-collar worker, was “lucky” enough to be at the scene of a crime where $2 million in cash was sitting out in the open for anyone to grab. Making the choice to grab it requires that Llewelyn will later have to face the reaper (Travers para. 3). Thus, choice leads to consequence but the fact that the bag was there may be termed a lucky happenstance by Llewelyn at first then bad luck later on in the film. It seems that the storytellers (Cohen brothers) want the audience to believe that Llewelyn’s luck was good but then turns bad – or perhaps this character’s luck in general has been bad, or something that he believes is bad, at least in relation to social status. Rich men aren’t welders, or any type of blue -collar worker. The fact that the Cohen brothers (or McCarthy) made Llewelyn a welder, a middle class, or maybe even lower middle class member of society is interesting (Schickel para. 2).

It’s interesting because then luck may be defined in these social terms. The Cohen brothers may be using the theme of luck as a way to question what luck really is: is it lucky or unlucky to have a job? Is it lucky or unlucky to have a loyal wife? Is it lucky or unlucky to be stable in life? Llewelyn seems to be an intelligent man, and as such he has probably lent some of his time being self-reflective and thought perhaps how lucky or unlucky his life is. The fact that he took the bag of money however should lead the audience believing that Llewelyn believed his life to be unlucky. A man who thinks he’s lucky wouldn’t see the need to take the bag of money so that his life could be luckier, or made easier by the money. This act was guilt by omission. Chigurh then becomes a means by which Llewelyn sees how his life was lucky.

This is a compare and contrast test. In comparison to how Llewelyn’s life is in act three, his life was luckier before the bag of money, however, with no bad luck comparison as heavy as loss of life (this is an all-encompassing hypothetical in which life, wife, job, are all included) the first act of the movie, the viewer’s introduction to Llewelyn, his life would seem rather unlucky (struggling to make ends meet as a blue-collar worker, hardships associated with this, etc.). Thus, Chigurh and Llewelyn’s relationship is almost symbiotic, in which Chigurh cannot exist as an entity of symbol of consequence or luck without Llewelyn needing such consequence in order for him to see his life for what it truly is (depending on what point of the movie is being referenced here).

If Chigurh is Llewelyn’s consequence then the sheriff is Chigurh’s. This story is a type of ouroboros in which each characters stands as a symbol of luck or consequence for the other characters. Chigurh’s choice in becoming an assassin leads the sheriff Ed Tom Bell on his trail. As a representative of the law he is automatically a societal symbol of consequence as that is what a lawman does: makes people face their choices. Perhaps ouroboros isn’t exactly correct, perhaps it’s that Chigurh represents luck (or a form of luck, at least a vehicle by which the Cohen brothers extrapolate that theme for that particular character) and Bell represents consequence (at least he’s a more strong character for arguing the theme of consequence throughout the movie).

Bell is Chigurh’s consequence, and they work as a foil for each other. Bell is a third generation lawman “whose stoicism can barely mask his dismay at the tide of evil seeping into the world. Whether Chigurh is a magnetic force moving that tide or just a particularly nasty specimen carried in on it is one of the questions the film occasionally poses”(Scott para. 9). This questions ties into the theme of luck as well since Chigurh so readily adapts to the need of it (presenting a coin and tossing it and whether it lands on heads or tails decides whether or not he kills a person – what’s interesting to note is that Llewelyn’s wife tells Chigurh that it doesn’t matter which side the coin lands on, because she tells him that he’d have killed her anyway, thereby discounting Chigurh’s belief in luck). Bell may be the piece of the puzzle that more deftly explains whether or not the crime scenes he investigates (Llewelyn and Chigurh’s gunfights) suggest that both of them were lucky in surviving or that it was choice and skill that allowed them to survive in a fight against each other for as long as they have.

An interesting side theme for Bell is how he associates luck with religion. This can be seen with his lines “I always thought as I got older God would sorta come into my life somehow. And he didn’t. I don’t blame him. If I was him, I’d have the same opinion of me that he does’” (Roberts 20). Meaning that religion, or God, is a form of luck, happening for others in great multitudes and nil for other people. It’s interesting to note this discrepancy as faith leads people to believe that good is on their side (or good luck) and lack of faith leads people down dark paths; but Bell is the films hero. He’s not only the sheriff, but the man after the bad guys, thus, for him to believe that God hasn’t found him yet, and will not by the close of his life find him, means he’s treating God like luck and it just hasn’t found him yet. This is a very different definition of luck that the Cohen brothers present to the audience with Llewelyn (in which luck was good or bad depending on what act the character was being analyzed through) and instead it’s Bell having no luck (no faith/God) throughout not only the entire course of the film, the off camera fiction of his life (he’s devoid of God altogether).

The theme of luck runs throughout each character in the film in varying capacities:

The themes of fate and luck are present throughout the film, bookended by the two contrasting coin tosses offered by hired killer Anton Chigurh first to a filling station attendant (who calls correctly and lives) and second to Carla Jean who refuses to call and is killed. Fate is portrayed as random. Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) another bounty hunter hired to track down Chigurh is described as having a charmed life but is casually killed. Even Chigurh is afflicted by a completely unrelated, random, violent act at the conclusion (Roberts 21).

This charm that the characters seem to fall into and out off may or may not be an illusion, a whimsical God playing favorites depending on their mood, but is certainly clear through the course of the film is that the filmmakers are challenging the audience with such moral dilemmas and such grey ground is fodder for a myriad of theories.

Each character in the film certainly faces consequence if not luck. They become attached to each other in this theme of luck and the geographical landscape is a battleground traversed from mountains, rivers, to the urban landscape as represented in hotel rooms. The characters continue their path of either choice or luck in the film and end up where the filmmakers put them (or where either theme puts them). The question becomes more than a theme, but how each man is linked to the other through the theme. Without the coin toss there is no luck and without the choice of taking the bag of money there is no coin toss, and each of these plot devices becomes nil if the sheriff isn’t involved in the plot to give the audience a barometer on what is moral and immoral in the story. Luck and consequence with moral ambiguity is each found in all three of these characters. There may be varying degrees of these elements in each character but surely, their presence in the characters if felt with the character’s physical affectations (tossing a coin, praying, etc.) It seems that luck, choice, and faith become a tangled ball of ambiguity toward the end of the film (for not only the characters but the audience as well) and this is what makes the characters real, not their adherence to these definitions but their encompassing of all of these definitions.

Works Cited

Roberts, Vaugh. Homeric Heroes in Ethan and Joel Cohen’s ‘The Hudsucker Proxy,’  The Big Lebowski’, and ‘No Country for Old Men.’ Journal of Religion and Film. 17.1. (April 2013). 1-30. Print.

Schickel, Richard. Hypnotized by ‘No Country for Old Men.’ Time. 9 Nov. 2007. Web.

Scott, A.O. He Found a Bundle of Money, Now There’s Hell to Pay. 9 Nov. 2007. Web.

Travers, Peter. No Country for Old Men. Rolling Stone. 1 Nov. 2007. Web.