Current Events > Llewellyn in No Country For Old Men *Spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Anyone else kinda disappointed by his death? The whole movie he goes on this epic journey. Back and forth and barely escaping Anton. And then he just kinda dies off screen with a whimper. Fairly anticlimactic tbh

But with the movie the way it is with it's symbolisms, I'm sure there was a reason for it right? Like how he was constantly escaping death, hell the major force of death that is Anton and then he just gets done in by the cartel?

It's subverting the expectation of a showdown between the "good guy" and the "bad guy". Which you would expect from a traditional western style film.

Touch posted...

But with the movie the way it is with it's symbolisms

Basically, it's mimicking real life in this sense. The climactic showdown doesn't always happen. Reality is gritty and unclean, and a lot gets left unseen and unsaid.

Solid Snake07 posted...

It's subverting the expectation of a showdown between the "good guy" and the "bad guy". Which you would expect from a traditional western style film.

Interesting. Ive never thought about it like that

and that's why the movie is stupid

CommonGrackle posted...

and that's why the movie is stupid

It wasn't stupid, friendo

CommonGrackle posted...

and that's why the movie is stupid

At least Chigurh got away with nothing worse than a broken arm. He's the real hero of the story.

I haven't seen it in a long time. I just think it was dumb to kill off the guy halfway through the movie then get told by Cohen Bros buffs it's all about the movie subverting your expectations.
(though as I understand it it was based on a book.)

not that I mind the main characters dying, I just want it to be a bit more thematic to what the story is trying to convey,
[like Janet Leigh getting stabbed in Psycho, because the hotel owner was a crossdressing murderer. Or William Petersen gets shotgunned in the face in the penultimate scene in To Live and Die in LA, because he was always taking too many risks trying to bust the counterfeiters.]

saying "well the main character doesn't always win!" is not really a story. stuff like overcoming an obstacle of some sort is.

remember that Simpsons episode where Homer was watching Free Willy and the whale landed on the kid when it was jumping? that's what this felt like.

MGS_4_evah posted...

Basically, it's mimicking real life in this sense. The climactic showdown doesn't always happen. Reality is gritty and unclean, and a lot gets left unseen and unsaid.

"This arbitrary anticlimactic thing happened because arbitrary things happen in real life" is an argument I can't say I've ever really subscribed to.

CommonGrackle posted...

saying "well the main character doesn't always win!" is not really a story. stuff like overcoming an obstacle of some sort is.

I think it ties back into the talk about the lucky quarter. "Don't put it in your pocket. Don't put it in your pocket, it's your lucky quarter...or it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is."

It's both a "lucky quarter" and just a coin. What matters is one's perception of it. We thought Llewellyn was special, that he would have a different way through the world compared to everybody else involved, but it turns out he was just a coin, too. None of the characters were special, including him. Things happened to him the same way they happened to everybody else in the story.

Touch posted...

then he just kinda dies off screen with a whimper. Fairly anticlimactic

That's the point, in fact

well then the point sucks

Ed Tom Bell is the main character

Yeah I'm not a fan of the hitman guy getting off very easy (killed innocent people, even ones that tried to help him), but that is kind of the point of the movie. Good stuff doesn't always happen to good people and bad guys get away with things at times.

CommonGrackle posted...

well then the point sucks

The movie's not actually about Llewellyn, it's about Sheriff Bell. It's literally No Country For Old Men.

Llewellyn's off-screen death-- something preserved from Cormac McCarthy's novel, which the movie is based on --emphasizes that he's not the action hero he and the audience may think he is. He's just another dude, vulnerable to dying at any moment like the rest of us. Anton is not the grim reaper, he's just good at his job. Even Anton gets owned by a random fluke car crash, and limps off screen pathetically after paying a kid 20 bucks not to tell the police which way he went.

The payoff of the film isn't a gunfight, it's Bell's monologue about his dreams.

"And then I woke up."

It's a little disappointing, but it makes sense within the context of the film.