Joel and Ethan Coen have always been among the most acclaimed American filmmakers, but they received a new level of acclaim with No Country for Old Men. The dark neo-Western based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name was the tale of a man who stumbles across a drug deal gone bad and finds a suitcase full of money. Now on the run, he must evade numerous parties hunting him, including an aging sheriff and a sadistic mad man.
The movie won the Coen Brothers their first Best Director Oscars as well as their first Best Picture win. It has been hailed as one of the best films of the 21st century and created one of the most unsettling movie villains of all time. But even with all the acclaim, there are still aspects of the movie that have gone unnoticed. Here are some hidden details from No Country for Old Men that you missed.
1980
It’s clear that No Country for Old Men takes place somewhere in the recent past of American history but the time period is never explicitly stated. By the fashion and several characters mentioning their participation in the Vietnam War, we can take an educated guess. However, viewers who are paying attention know the exact year of the film.
In the famous scene in which Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) harasses the gas station owner, he produced a coin. He says the date on the coin is 1958 and that it has been traveling 22 to years to get where it is now. That makes the year 1980.
Bardem’s Unexpected Casting
Javier Bardem was an acclaimed actor before being cast as Anton Chigurh, but he wasn’t well-known by American audiences. He mostly appeared in Spanish-language films but this role catapulted him into superstardom and earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Given how amazing Bardem is as Chigurh it’s amazing to think he almost turned down the role for the simple reason that he felt he was wrong for the part. According to Bardem, he told the Coens that he hated violence, couldn’t drive and couldn’t speak English well, which were all major aspects of the character. The filmmakers insisted that an unexpected aspect is precisely why they wanted him.
The Poem
The memorable name of the movie comes from the poem “Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats. The passage in question reads, “That is no country for old men”. It seems like the poem itself also holds a connection to the themes of the film, particularly as they relate to Sheriff Bell.
The poem is about an elderly man reaching the end of his life and thinking about the afterlife and what it has in store for him. This is somewhat mirrored in Bell’s journey as he realizes throughout the film that his lawman’s life has reached its end and he how must confront life beyond that purpose.
Josh Brolin’s Audition
Though Josh Brolin is a huge star now, before No Country for Old Men, he had trouble getting work in major films. In fact, when casting was underway for this film, the Coen Brothers refused to even meet with Brolin for the part of Llewelyn Moss.
Brolin was filming Planet Terror with Robert Rodriguez at the time and decided to film an audition. Using the high-quality cameras from the film set, Rodriguez filmed the audition while Quentin Tarantino directed. The stunt worked and Brolin jokes that the Coen Brothers were more impressed with how it was shot than the acting.
A Strange Connection
Sometimes fiction and real-life bump up against each other in the most baffling ways. The novel of No Country for Old Men features several passages of narration from Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones in the film). One of these passages makes mention of a hitman who killed a judge in San Antonio.
The random mention does not appear in the movie, but it seems to be based on, or at least shares similarities to a real incident in San Antonio in 1979 when a contract killer killed a judge. The man arrested and charged with the murder was Charles Harrelson, father of Woody Harrelson who plays Carson Wells in this film.
Traveling Abroad
Following the very intense shootout between Moss and Chigurh halfway through the movie, Moss painfully walks across the border to Mexico in the hopes of finding some safety. Though it might not seem like a significant scene, it holds a rare distinction.
In that short sequence, Moss becomes the first character to leave the United States in any Coen Brothers film to date. The brothers are known as some of the greatest American storytellers of our time and they seem to stick loyally to telling American stories.
There Will Be Blood
No Country For Old Men is often compared to Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece There Will Be Blood. Both films are dusty, violent and dark films from auteur filmmakers that were released in the same year and competed for Best Picture at the Oscars in the same year. They are also movies that rank high on many lists of best movies of the 21st Century.
Oddly enough, these movies were filmed quite close to each other at the same time. In fact, production for No Country For Old Men had to be shut down for a day because of the smoke that was visible from filming the famous oil fire scene in There Will Be Blood.
Three Main Characters
The movie sets up an intense cat-and-mouse chase between the three main characters of the film. Llewelyn Moss is on the run with the money. Anton Chigurh is chasing him murdering anyone who gets in his way. Sheriff Bell is following the bloody path and trying to stop the violence.
While most movies of this kind would build to the inevitable face-off with these three characters, this film subverts expectations. In fact, none of these three main characters ever meet face to face in the film and Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald) is the only one to meet all three.
Chigurh’s Shoes
One of the most unsettling scenes in the film is when Chigurh pays a visit to Carla Jean. Even though the money has been retrieved and Llewelyn has been killed, he feels obligated to fulfill the promise he made to Llewelyn earlier. He decides he will give Carla Jean the chance to save herself with the flip of a coin.
We don’t see the result of the coin toss but given what came before we can infer what happened. Throughout the film, Chigurh is seen to obsess over keeping his feet clean from blood, presumably to avoid leaving tracks. When he leaves Carla Jean’s house, he takes a moment to check his feet, implying he killed her.
Bell’s Dream
The film does a wonderful job of setting up expectations and subverting them with the final act. The narrative suddenly shifts to focus on Sheriff Bell and we come to realize that the story was really about him and his reaction to the violence he comes across.
The final scene in which Bell recounts his dream from the previous night has been debated since the film’s release. Some interpret the dream to be Bell realizing that even in a world of darkness, there is always light up ahead. However, some interpreted his closing line “Then I woke up” to be his realization that the notion is wishful thinking and the world doesn’t work like that.
