Speaker 1: Every neighbor got deaf flavor. Somebody saystye them kids, nine
three little words. It's dinner time. Head sets down for
some highbrow it's the oil. G we all that smell.
Have you seen ragging? I think he's made a new
sign and tasting up and nine from the menu.
Speaker 2: Riv whoever you are, whatever your flavor.
Speaker 1: Every neighbor deaf flavor. If somebody said jasteve.
Speaker 3: Meaning a light man, it's like this man letting butterfly,
flapping his wings.
Speaker 2: Dig down in the forest. Man, it gonna cause the
tree fall, letting five thousand miles away. Man, nobody's seen nobody.
Speaker 1: You don't need no man. We don't like you. A
little story and you got like you like that man,
that's the wind.
Speaker 2: Man. Don't like you da on pane right.
Speaker 3: Now, gonna be letter man. Okay, all right, Andy Edwards,
welcome back to the jay Burd and show how you doing.
Speaker 2: Man good. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this is going to be a little bit of
a departure for you and I. The previous one was
obviously talking about your book, and while I have finished
The King of Dogs and we will be talking about
it at least at some point in the future. Figured
it might be fun to do some media analysis. Been
on a little bit of a kick, you know, talking
about different films, different books, franchises, even largely because politics
is depressing and there's sort of a limited amount to say,
and when you put out five shows a week, you know,
it's nice to freshen things up. But when I reached
out to you about this idea, you gave me a
really excellent list of films, including one of my all
time favorites, No Country for Old Men, obviously based on
a book by Cormick McCarthy that is also very very good.
I think it was the first thing I read by him,
if I'm not mistaken, a very long time ago. So
the book is worth your time. It's easy to read,
but we will primarily be focusing on the movie. So
I'll throw it to you Andy to sort of introduce
the film and we can take it from there.
Speaker 2: Okay, Like you, I read the book many many years
ago when it first came out, and by the time
the film came out it wasn't that it was maybe
a couple of years later. I remember being shocked at
how because there was always at that point in time,
the idea that some of McCarthy's work was unfilmable Blood
Meridian in particular, the Crossing even you know, the middle
book in the in the Border trilogy is kind of
in that ensue tree. This idea that some of his
stuff was unfilmable seemed to be rigid, kind of lodged
in the consciousness. And I mean the book itself was
kind of a shock. That was when he switched from
his very ornate, you know, four to five hundred page
book routine, and he just went for this slim down
I think, you know, that's coming in three hundred pages,
and then the road is right around there, and then
you know, his final books are similarly sort of truncated.
So the book itself was kind of a shock. I
remember just thinking, wow, like what happened here? And then
the movie came out and it was perfect. It's as
we said earlier. I think for a lot of us,
you know, this is like a top five, top three,
maybe the best movie ever made. And the backstory, you know,
how how does that all happen? How does agree literary
work come into into the hands of you know, I
think great directors. They made some other good movies. We
both agree on this point as well, that No Country
for Old Men is probably the Coen Brother's best movie,
but other people would disagree with us. You know, they
have a ton I mean even Big Lebowski, like it's
a classic. I love it. I refer to it all
the time.
Speaker 3: But oh, look like I'm a I'm a Hail Caesar enjoyer.
So I wod bit my taste of the Coen Brothers
is not exactly unimpeachable. Yeah, your point being right. Sorry
not to interrupt, but no, they have produced a great
number of films right which are considered classics. But sorry,
I'll throw it back to you.
Speaker 2: No, that's a great point. I mean, it isn't like
we're just talking about some fly by Night one hit
wonder types. This is their greatest movie, and they're gonna
go down as you know all timers. I mean, they
wou and they probably deserve it. Maybe we keep We
could touch on the Cones now if you want. I
mean they have a number of sorry about the dog Riker,
the they have a number of cult classics, sorts of
of films. Miller's Crossing is when when that I remember
seeing that with my dad. It was kind of controversial,
but over time a lot of people will say that's
their best movie, and I have come to love that
one myself. Big Lebowski, we touched on. They had their
very first one Blood Simple I believe it's called This
is a this if you guys haven't seen this movie,
this is how they made their their bones. And the
interesting part is that it's sort of a gritty, new
er Western set in Texas, which is striking because that's
where they start and in many ways for me, I
sort of checked out on the Cohens after No Country
for Old Men. I haven't seen most of their later catalog,
but they come back to Texas and this gritty, new
er sort of feel, you know, at a level far
surpassing their early stuff. So I guess what I'm saying
is that the fact that this great work from McCarthy
winds up in the hands of these guys really at
the peak of their powers, and Hollywood too, was sort
of about to make a like a turn for the worst.
You know this was correct me if I'm wrong, But
this is like two thousand and eight, two thousand and
nine ish somewhere. Yeah, So you know, the proverbial shit
is hitting the fan for American culture pretty hard about
that point, and I think Hollywood power sort of begins
to well, it's peaked, probably, so then you have these
other weird, you know or maybe just serendipitous, sort of
auspicious inclusions into the story, like the fact that Josh
Brolin winds up being at McCarthy's deathbed, you know, fifteen
or some years later. How does that happen? How does
a guy like McCarthy who again kind of pre explosion
into the consciousness of how good and important McCarthy is
or was going back like late nineties. His reclusive nature
was the legend of it, right, Maybe not the reality,
but the legend was was beyond Pinchon or any of
the other like American reclusive novelists. It was profound, like
people even then were going to Elpaso to try to
find him. They couldn't find him. And it turned out later,
of course, none of this was really that true. He
he just kind of avoided it, but he seemed to
at that time sort of distance himself from things like
big budgets, Hollywood, anything that's sort of smacked of the
inauthentic or glamor or anything that would be tempting. And
then you know, I think he changed his tune or
we misinterpreted it early on, but then he comes around
to have some sort of and I don't know the
details necessarily, but clearly Josh Brolin, who is like Hollywood
royalty of one sort or another, winds up being really
important to Cormac McCarthy. And this is a bizarre, a
bizarre turn of events to me. I noticed as well.
This is just a side note. I want to throw
it back to you as as I was watching the
movie last week, the scene where they go to the
hotel and they kind of, you know, he and Sugar,
Moss and Sugar have this incredible shootout in the hotel.
The way that it's uncanny. I mean, people should go
back and maybe check this out. But as Brolin, the
Brolin character is kind of taking cover as he's you know,
being fired upon by this you know, the what's well say,
you know, one of the most dangerous things on the planet.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: The way that the Kohen brothers have framed his face,
it can't be a coincidence that this is the way
his hair hangs. The mustache. There are pictures of McCarthy
himself at an earlier, probably about that same age, forty ish.
I'm not sure it looks exactly like McCarthy, which is
odd because you know, if you stand these two guys together,
they're very different, maybe not that different, But there are
these internal echoes happening within this work in total that
you know, what do you say about it? Is it
real Hollywood magic? I tend to think maybe something like
that is at play when when it all works out,
you know, when we when we get a movie this good,
when every almost everything else for the twenty years before
that and the twenty years after it, you know, I'd
kind of like take it or leave it in many ways.
But anyway me rambling, let me throw it back to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there are several things there, you know, the
mythos around Cormack McCarthy. A lot of this came out
after he died fairly recently. You know, there were a
lot of people remembering him and to your point about
his his sort of tendency to shun the spotlight. He
went through a couple of different marriages, and I can't
remember which wife it was was remembering him and basically
said like he would get letters from universities forering him
ten fifteen thousand dollars to appear to speak, just to
be present, and he wouldn't even read them, and just
tear them up and throw them out. And he lived
at least for a large portion of his life in
a unheated shack in the middle of nowhere without running water,
infamously eight you know, rice and beans almost constantly, which,
as you can imagine, it was sort of hard on
marriages to put it mildly and see, it is very
much unexpected. You know that he went from this kind
of famous recluse to a major Hollywood production with you know,
a great number of famous actors in it. It's not
necessarily a superstar studded cast. It's not like you know
the Rock or you know, Brad pitt is in this movie.
But still like these are famous actors you've seen before.
And additionally, going back to this film, I hadn't watched
it in a couple of years. I was struck by
how oddly it's paced. And when I say odd, I
don't mean bad. But you can very very much imagine,
you know, some producer saying, no, this is all wrong.
You know the the you know, the big climactic shootout
with you know, Llewellyn at the end where he dies
spoiler alert sorry is off screen, it's not shown. We
see that through in the eyes of the eyes of
Sheriff Wells right as he you know, walks in or sorry,
not Sheriff Wells. Well Well, what's the name of Sheriff Bell?
Excuse me? H? And our main character up to this
point is just dead on the ground, you know. It's
a very And the film continues for a good bit
after that, right, this climactic event, and you could see
over and over again there are moments where, you know,
this imaginary producer would say, don't do it like that.
You know, that's not how you make, you know, a
blockbuster film. And that's true, right, this isn't really, you know,
like a blockbuster crime film, but it's it's incredibly unique.
There's nothing else I've seen like it for any number
of reasons. So zooming out a little bit just for
those who haven't read the book or seen the movie
one you should. It's not hard to find. But the
broad beat to this plot is that Llewellyn, who's sort
of a welder, is out poaching antelope basically and shoots
an antelope and it, you know, runs off, and when
he finds the blood trail, he realizes there's two blood
trails crossed, which is a great shot. And so he
looks to one side and sees the antelope running off,
and on the other he sees a pit bull, you know,
kind of hobbling off wounded into the desert. He follows
the blood trail the other direction and finds a cartel shootout, right,
a deal gone wrong, a number of dead men, one
clinging onto life, dogs all shot with you know, a
truck bed full of I think heroin, and a little
bit further down the line he finds satchel full of money. Right,
this becomes sort of inciting motivation to the plot. Now,
what's interesting, and I'll kick this back to you Andy,
is when he's first there, he sees, you know, one
of the cartel men, I am still alive, asked for water.
He doesn't have water, and he just leaps takes the money,
takes a few guns, goes back to his trailer, hides
them both. But we see, you know, he has this
interaction with his wife which is kind of funny, and
then he's kept up at night. He can't stand to
see to leave this guy out in the desert dying
without water. So in the middle of the night he
goes back. When he goes there, this man has been
blown away, right, his head is basically missing, and there
are cartel members on their trail, assumingly looking for their money.
He's forced to flee, and this is what sort of
incites the plot, right, there are different people looking for
Llewellyn character. He has the money. So I'm curious, what
do you make of the fact that sort of this
this inciting incident when they get on his trail they
find out his identity because of his car.
Speaker 2: Is there sort of.
Speaker 3: Being the result of him doing a good deed because
oftentimes when people talk about this, they reference the fact
that in this world, kindness is not repaid, and the
kindness of in going back to this man is ultimately
what dooms him. Obviously, you know, there is a we
find out later there is a tracking device in this money.
But still the fact that they know who he is,
his name, his identity, which later you know leads to
the action of the film, is directly due to the
fact that he went back for this man, this narco,
And you know, in an act of mercy and is
punished for it. So what do you make of that?
Speaker 2: Andy? Yeah, this is this is a ponderable thing. And
I've sat, like, I guess us in awe or envy
of the simplicity of the setup here. I like I
would sit around and ask myself what similar ideas could
I come up with as a writer or you know,
a screenwriter that are this just clean where you have
this moral conundrum built in and it just so seamlessly
perfectly fits with all these resulting plot elements. Because you're right,
if Moss doesn't make this choice, if he isn't driven,
literally he's kept up at night. He leaves his wife,
he tells her, you know. She asks, where you're going.
I'm going to do something dumber in hell, I think,
he says. But I'm going to do it anyway, And
he mentions his mom. Know, he says to his wife
as he leaves. If I don't come back, tell mom
my lover, llewell, and your mama's dead. Okay, I'll tell
her myself then. And I think that what he's doing
is amazing, but it's in its simplicity, like he's McCarthy
I'm talking about here. But obviously the Cohens are getting
this as well. He's taking Moraley and just yoking it
right to this generally. Can you know it's considered like
our mothers are the first conscience that we have, and
this is kind of what is emplaced into the child
as right or wrong. And from here, you know, McCarthy
uses this to bring up all these questions about things
like predetermination, free will, fate. Because he then uses our
foil character of Anton shagor who himself is, we find
out we should talk about this too, of course, is
he is running on some sort of a code where
choices are incredibly simple, they're not debate. He doesn't debate them.
It's the people that he has to deal with who
want to debate about right and wrong. He and we
call this the course of sociopath or what have you.
And and that spins off into that next layer that's
so stunning and like perfect about this book is the
law element. You know in Sheriff Bell, he's later asking himself,
can I even handle this? What is this thing that
operates on some other code? And I'll add one more
thing that because you know, a book like this, it's
deceptive in its simplicity and that's why I said earlier,
I still find myself sitting around like a guy. Is
an idea this full of Jews that's just so simple
ever going to like drop into my mind and I
you know, I'll keep looking, but it's it's exquisite and
it's super rare. And so this last element you have
Bell again asking himself, what is what is this entity
or this type of the mentality that I and he decides,
of course, like he's not sufficient to the task, and
he has this incredible conversation with his uncle that takes
it back into history. And so now McCarthy has like
tied this book to the Border trilogy and he's sort
of made this cultural commentary that guys such as yourself
and I in this particular space are are asking right now,
what is Western civilization or whatever, you know, whatever you
want to call it? Law order? Is this is this
like an I identity issue? And it you know, we
know the answer like it kind of is. We've tried
to work this out in many different ways, whether it's
we just slaughter everybody, we do colonialism, we do you know, liberalism,
or what have you. And you know, McCarthy's not going
to give us an answer, and nine out of ten
people who watch this movie aren't going to ask that
question or even see that McCarthy's posing it in that way.
But to my lights anyway, establishing the story at the border,
you know, this line that is somewhat imaginary, that does
kind of require adherence to, if you will, a sort
of advanced code, you know, something that may require more time,
more intelligence, a different type of creature entirely. You know,
this is debated all the time, but it's so beautiful
that McCarthy never seem to really. Maybe one of the
benefits actually, you know, of him taking this reclusive posture
in his life was that he he didn't get that
that full dose of sort of implicit brainwashing that, let's
face it, almost every other novelist, almost every movie has
had to incorporate in some sense. And all I'm trying
to say before I throw it back, it is just
that there's there's like an elegant brilliance that that by
virtue of the fact that he was able to insert
these questions and almost nobody even knew because these are
very like hotly debated, very difficult, divisive questions that are
going to determine probably, you know, the outcomes of our
our civilization. Do we decide to put up borders, do
we decide to do mass migration? Can we have some
sort of identity? Or is this thing, this massive entity
out here going to overwhelm us? And I'll leave it
right there, because you know, we could keep going into
Christ and all sorts of other things, and I believe
once again it's all there in this incredibly dense kernel
of the moral question where we started out with, you know,
on the track.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so again talking about the non standard structure of
this novel. Most of the action follows or a guess
movie we're talking about the movie, but they're so similar, right,
you feel like you want to pull them in at
the same time. But most of the action follows Llewellyn,
but in a way. The dad that makes this film
so interesting is Sugor and the sheriff Tom Bell. The
sheriff is a very interesting and character. He is the
old man, he's sort of late in his career, comes
from a line of other sheriffs, and we get these
continual interactions where he is talking to his subordinates, to
other sheriffs, to people involved in this case. About the
way from his perspective that things are changing, and ultimately
he retires, he gives up because he feels as if
the world has sort of changed and let him buy.
And what's particularly interesting, and the reason I'm bringing us
up is to contrast it to the determination of the
terminism rather of Anton Sugar, is this fascinating interaction he
has at a diner with Llewellyn's wife and let me
get her name exactly, Sorry, I have way too many
taps over yeah, Carla Gene. And at this point in
the action, Llewellyn has sent his wife away to stay
with her mother to sort of protect her from, you know,
this man hunt, and hasn't told her almost anything. And
he's given her explicit instructions, you know, don't talk to
law enforcement. But Carla Jean is she's young, she's a teenager.
I think she's nineteen, understandably very nervous about this whole thing.
And you know, Sheriff Bells has promised her, you know,
I won't hurt your husband, I'll protect him. So she
goes in for a conversation and to start off this interaction,
the sheriff tells her a really interesting story about a
friend of his, and this friend is someone who was
you know, he was a rancher. He would slaughter cows.
And this is also relevant because if you know almost
anything about this movie, you're familiar with the fact that
Anton Sugar kills quite a lot of people with you know,
a pneumatic device designed for killing cow. Right, you put
it up to their head and if rod goes into
their brain. It's very dramatically shown in one of the
opening scenes of this movie, and he talks about how
in the past things weren't done like this. You would
you hit him on the head with a hammer, slit
their throat, and he describes an incident where this man
is butchering a cow, goes through this process, but when
he's strung up right about to slit its throat, the
cow wakes back up starts thrashing around. So in the panic,
he pulls out a gun and shoots the cow, but
it is a glancing blow, bounces off and hits him
in the arm. Right, the farmers is crippled, and he
brings it up to say, look, even in a conquest,
in a contest between a man and a steer, the
outcome isn't determined right, there's an element of random chance.
I thought that was very interesting because you compare that
to Shagor, who believes in this sort of strict determinism
in his own actions. Right, he promises Llewellyn, if you
don't do this, I will kill your wife. And in
the closing scene, months after the action is subsided, he's
reclaimed the money. He goes to make good on that right.
He makes it clear that this is for him ironclad.
But the one small speck of randomness Sigor will allow
is the famous flipping of the coin. See he asks
this gas station attendant, you know, the famous line, what's
the most you've ever lost on a coin toss? Making
him pick heads or tails to play for his life.
And I think that's such an interesting comparison between the
two men. You know that this man, the sheriff, who
does believe and an aspect of randomness at the very least,
versus Shigor, who has a very very tight, deterministic worldview
with one small element of freedom in it, which even
then he's not truly free. He is bound by the
decision of that coin. Couple other things that I think
are interesting. I don't know if you caught this, Andy,
But there's a fascinating scene close to the end where
Carla Jean calls the sheriff and asks him almost off
the rip. Do you remember that story about that farmer
and Tommy Lee Jones, who plays the sheriff, he goes
who and then when she clarifies other farmers? Oh, yes, yes,
of course, kind of at least implying he might have
made that story up. Sort of an interesting moment there.
But I'm curious, Andy, what do you make of that
contrast between the two men there they are different views
of I guess the capacity of human action in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is so where I'm at with it.
I can't I think it's I'm not at like decided
on entirely what what the truth is, you know, independent
of McCarthy's position or what. I'm still sort of stewing
on the relationship between the coin in the sense that
the sugar uses it and other coins. In McCarthy's work.
There's two parts or two little bits in Blood Meridian
where this coin figures very importantly, and you know, it's
maybe a little bit out of the scope of our conversation.
But for those readers who have read it. You know,
we're talking about the moment where Judge Holden is sort
of testifying before the fire and he's doing these magic
tricks with this coin. And then there's a later bit
which is actually told in sort of like semi dream state,
where the judge once again is dealing with coins as
he looks over the forgers that is, like a cold forger,
somebody who stamps metal coins. He is looking over his
shoulder to determine the image on the coin. Now, when
I first read that twenty some years ago, that was
about the most esoteric thing that I had encountered, like anywhere,
I mean in I just sort of sat stunned, and
you know, here I am twenty years later. I have
a lot of theories, and many people do because this
is one of these Like I think that at that point,
you know, you have to look at somebody like this
who's stretched this theme or these questions of in these
this imagery over I don't know, I guess that was
forty years or something in McCarthy's career to explore certain
questions for himself. And then once again he he has
boiled it back down whatever you know, issues or philosophical
questions what have you are surrounding this image of the coin,
and there are many and again we could we could
do a week's series of speculation and we're never gonna
maybe be entirely sure. But that's you know, that's one
of the best things about literature in my opinion. But
McCarthy then boils it down to this incredibly dense, very clear,
as you rightly point out here, kind of distinction between
and it's and it's a it's a triad kind of
between these three characters where and I actually hadn't. I
didn't actually in the last viewing. I'm glad you brought
this up because I didn't really think about Oh yeah,
you're right. Bell is concerned with the same issue of
randomness or chance, but he views it in a different way.
He does not view it in the He kind of
acknowledges that, you know, it could go left, could go right,
could be heads, could be tails, it's uncertain. But he
has a very different relationship with it than as you say, Shigre,
who is just kind of cold and the margin is
much much slimmer. So I guess what I make of
it is that I just stand in awe frankly that
the writer here, you know, the storyteller is able to
carry these ideas forward through his career and actually in
some ways improved. One is presentation such that people can
watch No Country for Old Men take away. I've said
this before. I almost feel like No Country for Old Men,
if we combine both book and movie as sort of
a thing, contain more power than Blood Meridian. I'm not
saying it's a better novel. And we'll see, you know
what happens with John Hillcoate's movie version of Blood Meridian.
I think it could be really good, but who knows,
could be really bad. Nonetheless, to me, this, uh, it's striking.
You know that a book as it's like uniformly anybody
who's serious and says, well, what's the greatest novel? If
you are not dealing with Blood Meridian? You know, I'm
not interested in your opinion. Frankly, I mean this is
a This is a level of work, way over way
beyond anything that almost anybody in all of history, my opinion,
has has come to deliver. But then somehow he concentrated
that in such a way that No Country for Old
Men as a movie or or you know, a story.
Let's say contains, you know, arguably even more power than
Blood Meridian, and you kind of talked about, you know,
the pacing and one one other thing I wanted to
add to that as like a really important and striking
piece of the movie is did I was? I was
trying to pay attention, but did you detect even a
single note of music soundtrack? I don't think there's even
a ton there is?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 3: There is one? And it's when Josh Brolin has made
it into Mexico. So he is, you know, running away
from this kind of dramatic shootout we mentioned earlier Always
crossed the Border. Yeah, he's able to, you know, buy
a coat off of some drunk high school students coming
back from Mexico, sneak across the border and then he's
shot up, right, he's bleeding out and he falls asleep
on the ground. And when he wakes up, there's a
mariachi band playing to him, and it seems like they're
kind of in on the joke, like, oh, he got drunk.
And then he kind of turns over, his coat falls
open and you see he's gut shot and he holds
a bloody one hundred dollars bill up and just you know, says,
you know, take me to the hospital. And that moment,
which starts off as this like jolly mariachi music and
then as soon as he turns over, very abruptly dies
and then just dead, silent kind of city Center is
as far as I am aware, the one moment of
music in that entire movie.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think that's exactly right. When again,
like I guess maybe we could hand it to the
Cohens at that point, because you're right, it's just it's
how can you not laugh? But also just kind of
cry at the whole the whole setne a business. You know,
Here's here's my dirty, you know, disgusting, blood soaked money.
Here's these guys just you know, kind of kind of
it's silly, and they seem kind of dumb, like can
they not see that this dude is not prepared for
like some you know, some the morning entertainment. Right now,
this guy is dying, and you're right, and the pacing
you know that you mentioned earlier. This goes back to
this one little bit I wanted to bring in as
far as you know, lore or background, and I don't
know how I've never been to the McCarthy the Witlift Papers.
It's called It's where all his you know, his early
manuscripts and correspondence. I have friends that have gone and
I've read a few things about it, and that's the
extent of it for me. But one bit of this lore,
and I think this is pretty true, is that McCarthy
turned his first draft of No Country for Old Men
into his agent, who is a woman I believe she's
still alive named Binkie binky Something's. She's one of the
like two or three real major literary agents you know still,
I guess, applying her trade in New York right now.
And she worked with McCarthy for I think maybe the
last half of his career. Adams Binkie anyway, Binkie's Something.
So Binkie takes this manuscript and it's I think it
was six hundred but it might have been eight hundred
pages and reduces it essentially on her own to the
three hundred roughly pages we have in the in the
final edition. What my understanding is that most of what
was excised was Sheriff Bell and more of the generational
sort of histories that are alluded to in the movie,
and of course the book to some to some extent anyway,
and this is this is I think pertinent to the
pacing idea where and this struck me similar when I
went to watch this last week, maybe like you feel
like you're like five minutes in or ten minutes or something,
but I realized, like, damn, the movie is half over.
I mean, it's just screaming pasted you and stuff is
happening so quickly. Do you do you remember what the
like to what the movie clocks in at total, it's
something like ninety minutes just at two hours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not a very long film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it And.
Speaker 3: The reason I remember that is because I had a
very similar experience where my memory of this movie is like,
and this happens often where you know, if I asked
you to, you know, give me the plot of a
movie that you saw, you know, ten years ago, you'd
get the beats there, but it would be proportioned differently.
You know, you'd overemphasize some things and minimize others. And
to your point, the Llewellyn storyline, which is the majority
of the film, moves very very quickly. You were going
through a lot in a not a lot of time.
There's not a whole lot of downtime, per se. And
not to say that this section with Sheriff Bell afterwards
is long, but it is much slower paced, is much
more relaxed. And yeah, that's it's a fascinating dynamic there.
But your point is correct because I had the exact
same experience last night with my brother in law where
I was going through it and you know, someone came
into the room, so we paused it for you know,
all of thirty seconds, and so I saw the progress
bar at the bottom. It's like, wait, what, We're eighty
percent done with this movie. It feels like we're at that,
you know again, the halfway point, just because you know,
it is not very long. Ah teer. And by the way,
her name is Amanda Binkie. Urban is a nickname urban uh.
But the point is several things I want to get
to there. And I think that's an interesting point because
Chriff Bell is the main character, but he's not in
the majority of the film right the obviously the title
no Country for Old Men, he is an old man
in this country. It sounds stupid when you say that,
but that is, you know, sort of what we're getting
at and are there are a series of really fascinating
interactions with with Sheriff bell Uh kind of continually he
is sort of marveling and despairing at what his county
has become. You know, he talks about how at the beginning,
it's the opening, many of his colleagues, a great many
of his father and others never wore a gun. They
didn't feel the need to. And we get these kind
of flashes from his previous life. Like he has one
example where he talks about, you know, a guy I
sent to the electric chair. You know, a guy who
you know, had killed a fourteen year old and he
was talking about in the media, they portrayed this as
a crime of passion. You know, he had this obsession
with this girl. But he remembers interacting with him, you know,
fifteen minutes before this man's final moments. And the guy said, no,
it was random chance. It was I was born wanting
to kill and my whole life was just waiting for
that right moment. And I think we see two things there,
one that same element of randomness. Are we ascribing motivation
to random actors, which is a very interesting theme in
this Are we building a narrative around random events and
then also right this idea that things in the past
were better, men were more virtue this because there's a
really interesting one of the closing scenes of this movie
where he after Llewellyn has died, after the action has subsided,
he goes to visit one of his friends, I can't
remember his name off the top of my head, who
is an eighty year old sheriff's deputy, even older than
he is, and we find out that he has been crippled.
The sheriff's deputy. He was shot in the line of
duty and he lives in farm in the middle of
nowhere with a whole bunch of cats in a wheelchair.
And there are several interesting things about that because we
hear one that this former sheriff's deputy when you know
the sheriff asks him, well, you know, what would you
do if your murder or if you're you know, assailant
had gotten out, you know, if he had been let free,
And he gives him really interesting answer. He says nothing,
and it's this great line where he says, you realize,
when you're so desperate at trying to get back something
that you've lost, you realize your life is running out
the front door, right, you're losing that, which is a
great line and a powerful scene. But what's particularly interesting
is there the two of them start talking about I
think it's someone's uncle. I actually think this sheriff deputy
is his wife's uncle or something like that. There's some
sort of distant relation there. And they're talking about this
incident from nineteen oh nine, right well before the events
of this film, talking about you know, one of their
relations who was you know, gunned down on his front porch,
you know, a law man shot at home by a
group of Indians. He bled out over the you know,
over that night, and he uses that as a foil
because he says, after this men was shot, you know,
his wife has gathered around him, the Indians have left.
He's still trying to grab the shotgun to go after
these men. Yeah, and there are two interesting things. They're
one that that theme that we've mentioned before, right of
trying to hold on to something, as we saw with
this money, it sort of motivates this plot forward. Also,
we see again this idea that things in the past
were equally violent and hard, you know, that there was
this sort of random violence that I don't remember what
the inciting incident is with the Indians. But it's not
some great thing. It's just sort of an argument that
goes bad. And additionally, we also see a comparison in
contrast to what happens with Llewellyn and his wife, because
there's a moment and I know I'm throwing a ton
at you, Andy, so I'll give you a chance to respond.
In a moment when Schigor, who has killed another bounty
hunter on the trail of this money, gets on the
phone with Llewellyn, the second bounty hunter played by Woody
Harrelson in a very good performance from him, tracks him
down to this hospital and says, hey, look, you know
you got to give this up. Give me the money.
We'll make sure you're protected, and when you want to
do it, call me at this hotel. The meantime, Shagor
is on the same trail, kills this bounty hunter in
a very great scene and literally over his dead body,
picks up the phone when Llewellyn calls and says, you
know there's only one way this is going to go.
If you bring me the money, I won't kill your wife.
If you don't, she's dead again. This is what happens
in the end of the film. But I think that
that anecdote there with the older sheriff's deputy is really
interesting because, as you said, a lot of these family
histories were pulled out of the final version, but that
one's almost perfect. We see it lining up with so
many other things in the film, and you know, next
to the very closing of the movie with him and
his wife, you know, him recounting this dream after he's retired.
I think it's perhaps one of the most interesting, you know,
moments in the film. But I've been going on for
a while, Andy, I'll throw it back to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was well done, Jay, I didn't I didn't.
I don't think that I made that particular set of
connections between that little story that he the guy's name
is Ellis. I believe that he's the guy with the
cats who has been shot and he's he's there, you know,
the recounting this family showdown. That does have instant parallels
with an obvious parallels with with Moss and uh, what's
her name again, Carla Jean. The way that kind of
winds out, I don't know. Something that occurred to me
as you were saying this and this may this may
help flesh out some of the bigger, I believe implications.
You know this again with this density that's sort of implicit,
and McCarthy seems to feel like he doesn't want to
or knee or the audience can't manage or you know again,
miss Binky Urban doesn't believe the readers want and honestly
she made the right calls. That's another thing about that
little literary agent story. It made me think, like, damn,
maybe these people aren't entirely parasitical, and they do serve
occasionally as some function. But so as you're talking about this,
I thought back a bit that is in the book
and it's not in the movie, and I forget now
who's talking about this, but it does stem from this
material that seems to have been mostly excised again from
the early manuscript, and then is is incredibly well, you know,
compressed into the movie. There's a point where one of
these I again, I'm I'm failing to remember who it's
been a while since I read the book who is
delivering this little diatribe, But I think it's it's bell
or or or the uncle or they're recalling a story
together something like this, and they're talking about someone who
carved a water trough, a stone water trough in in
like their backyard. And as time went on and I
thought about this, and I would see the picture of Heidiger.
There's a famous picture of Heideger in his backyard and
he's at like a stone water trough getting some water,
you know, in Bavaria or wherever the hell he was from.
And it's it's massive, you know, it must weigh ten
thousand pounds, and it's carved of stone, and it's it's
it's very simple. It's provincial, you know, it's like old
school Europe there. They're probably long gone up by now.
And the question that's raised in the book is why
would a man, after laboring all day come home and
with chisel and hammer work to make a very simple
but very functional water trough for his house and family
that and I remember this very clearly, that would last
ten thousand years. This is the line in the book.
And I think the reason this came back to me
as we talk about this issue of random violence, you know,
and the ways that this is managed, and how does
somebody confront this. It's striking that this is kind of
a choice, like, you don't really have to do that.
You don't really have to build civilization, you don't really
have to pass down tradition. You can. It is an
option for us that we can just reduce this to
virtually some sort of state of nature and just kind
of chop each other's heads off and randomly, you know,
proceed to eat fruit or whatever until time runs out.
And I believe that it's it's this. It's kind of
the heart of the whole issue is why would we
do this if it's random, or if there's even just
this slight margin. And I think what McCarthy is telling
us is that that margin is pure magic, that's you know, God,
that's our divinity, that's the soul, that's our choice to do.
We want to sit down and take the ten thousand
year option, Like after I labor, I'm going to come
home and do this thing for my family so that
my son doesn't have to spend his time doing it.
He's going to spend his time doing something else. And
so in this way, no country for old men is
freighted with many many you know, bits of commentary on
our situation, but in particular, maybe we can look at
that example and see that he's making a comment ultimately
about that choice. You know, well, you have to have faith,
I think, and this is an element that you know,
in theological terms or what have you, is you know,
you have determinism, you have randomness, you have chance, you
have evil. Well the next and these are obviously very
valid questions that as you become a man and you
grow up, you're like, fuck, I got to deal with these.
Pardon my French. But the faith bit is is almost
like a ghost in the room or something in the
whole book. It's it's the only answer. Uh, there is
really no right now great answer for why this guy
would sit down to do this, this labor of love.
And again I would invite people to read that book
again for bits like that, because it it's one of
these cases with the movie be where there's this beautiful
harmony between the book and the film and is one
better than the other. I don't think it matters much.
I think they're both genius, brilliant, almost near perfect. And
I feel Jay, I feel like I left your question
on the sideline. But if I did, please drag me back. Well.
Speaker 3: And this this connects to the final scene of the
movie where now retired Sheriff Bell is talking to his wife.
She asked him, how did you sleep, and he says,
you know, I had a I dreamt all last night
and she said, well, you know what, you're retired, you
can tell me about it now. And he recounts this
dream in the past right in a I think he
describes it like an olden days or something like that.
And it's this dream where he's struggling through this blizzard
and alongside him appears another figure with fire carried in
a horn, which apparently is how they used to carry
fire over long distances. He can see the heat of
the fire glowing out of this horn, and he says,
you know, I he went past me, and I knew
that he would keep going ahead of me, and whenever
he stopped, I would be able to arrive there and
there would be a fire out in the cold and
out in the dark, in the middle of this nighttime blizzard.
And I think that that is exactly what you're talking about, right,
The idea of carrying literally like the flame of civilization
forward through this dark and chaotic world on behalf of others.
This is something we see again in Blood Meridian, right
in the very start, you know, talking about this dark
world with a spark in it, and that spark even
amidst dark chaos, right, this intractable blizzard in the dark.
That is you know how McCarthy chooses to end this,
you know that, And we see again this idea that
you know, this sort of like random violence is not new.
This is the state of humans, This is the state
of man. But you can carry forward sort of light,
you know, a civilization of faith, so to speak. And
I think that is right, This like a beautiful way
to end it, because, as you've said, you use this term,
you know, the ghost in the room, because you know,
people look at McCarthy's writings and they call they call
him a nihilist. Do they call him a gnostic? You know,
they love to throw these kind of terms around, and
it's like, well, not really. He is describing the state
of of fallen man. He is describing a sinful world.
But how do you escape from that? Right, how do
you escape from this kind of animalistic violence, this kind
of you know, random slaughter. Well, he gives you a
way out, both in this and in Blood Meridian.
Speaker 2: There's Jesu.
Speaker 3: We're running out of time and there's so much to cover.
But there's an interesting reading of this that I've seen
multiple places, and I'm not sure how much I buy it,
but I have heard some suggest that because it's very
notable that Sheriff Bell and Anton Sugar never interact, there's
never an explicit meeting between the two, and so one
reading I've I've seen is that, you know, Anton Sugar
is not real. He is Sheriff Bell trying to narrativize this,
this violence, trying to make it a person instead of
just kind of the you know, the result of human nature.
I don't know if I buy that. It's probably an
easier argument to make in the book than in the movie.
But nonetheless, there's a really fascinating being seen. Uh you know,
after you know, the shooting where Llewell and his gun down,
where he returns to the scene of the crime before
you know, after after you know the scene has been
kind of shut down, he goes out to dinner with
another local sheriff and they're talking back and forth, you know,
you know, signs and wonders. He says, you know these
you know, the times are a changing. You know, you
have kids in South Texas with green hair and you know,
as he says, bones in their noses, which I found
kind of funny. But they're talking about the fact that
this guy, you know, it's crazy psycho.
Speaker 2: What do you do to.
Speaker 3: Defend against someone like this, the other sheriff says. But
they talk about the fact that he always returns to
the scene of the crime. And when Sheriff Bell returns,
he sees, well, the lock is shot out. This is
sort of Sugar's calling card. He uses this you know,
euthanation device to very dramatically blow the lock out of
the door, and we see this shot of Sugar standing
in the room with his kind of a silent shotgun
right waiting behind the door. But when the sheriff opens
the door, there's no one there. So I'm curious. I
realized that is a reading, and not even necessarily one
I agree with, but I thought it was worth mentioning Andy,
do you see anything there?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yeah, I don't believe that reading. I don't think
I agree with it either. It's cool because it sort
of draws these you know, into like relief, the fact
that there is this attempt to grapple, like via a
narrative or finding an individual like to embody something like
an eagergre or a spiritual fact. But in terms of
the you know, how it really goes. I always took
that that scene and maybe I'm just reading into it myself,
but I took it to mean that Sheriff Bell returns
Sugar is in the space. Whether he's in the under
the bed or in the bathroom of the hotel room
or what have you, or if he's you know, behind
some other door, he's there. And I and I took
it to mean that Bell knows he's in there and
just simply by entering that space, like we we see
the limit. You know, it's it. He's an old man.
Another way to interpret that title, by the way, you know,
is young men. This is a world for young men. Yeah,
old men are done. Like if that's what it's going
to be, where we're going to turn the reins over.
And we talk about this all the time, right, like
I mean the octagenarian congress that we have and I
have gen X. I can't name a single person in arts,
politics or anything we've just.
Speaker 3: Been Oh you have Dan Crenshaw, right, thank you, well
you've got a couple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my god. So uh, I always took that to
mean that it's kind of this confirmation for us that like,
on the one hand, like, you know, good job, old timer.
I mean, he probably shouldn't be in this position. He
should have you know, a swat team with him and
and younger dudes at his side, and he makes it's
it's almost like an old dog or something like, just
just let him retire. He did the best he could.
That's how I took that scene. But again I might
be uh, just reading into it what I want to see.
And as far as far as you know, the very
last bit where the sheriff is having this conversation about
his dream, I think you're exactly right, like you Bullseye
on that one where there's the father, he's having this
of the father. The part that the line that adds
so much tension ambiguity, I guess is where he says
I woke up. Well. To me, that's that's just yet
again confirmation of everything else that we sort of said
with respect to faith that maybe it's that generation, maybe
it's something about the Texas sheriff line, maybe it's something
about Texans in general. I don't know, or maybe it's
you know, neither here nor there, but the fact that
this man chooses at this point in his life. You know,
there's I don't recall in the book if there's mention
of children that Sheriff Bell has children, there's none at
the table, and there's none mentioned in the movie. And
so that's kind of striking in that maybe maybe what
we're getting here is the completion, like of this man's
arc where he didn't fully live out, you know, everything
that was tasked to him, and he does have to
go away and with a little bit of shame because
I'll say this, then shut up, because I know we're
running out of time. This idea of the fire being
carried in a horn into time, into the darkness. You know,
we pick right back up with this exact same imagery
with The Road, where we have the father literally carrying
the fire. I mean they repeat this line over and
over in the book The Road. And I think that
in some ways this is McCarthy just saying, look, I
cannot compress this inner vision that I have down to
a simpler thing. And I don't think he's being condescending.
I don't think he's playing for the crowd or trying
to make money. I think that he wound out in
his genius as this is what I get to offer you, Jay,
you Andy. And that's why I think what we love
McCarthy so much is he's the real thing. This is
an earnest Mom. Why did they call it Scottish cheese?
This cottage cheese, Honey?
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Did dogs in other countries speak different languages?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 2: When when we get there, well, we've got to fix
the car first. But there's someone coming to help us.
Is it the man from Geneva? Not Geneva, he's from Aviva.
Oh there's a van now.
Speaker 4: For car insurance with breakdown rescue, it takes a Viva
visit a Viva Dota eat to say fifteen percent acceptance criteria,
terms and conditions apply. Minimum premium of three hundred and
ten year old. Fifteen percent discant applies to new policies
BottomLine see Aviva Dotta ev details. Car insurance is underwritten
by a Viva Insurance Ireland DAK. Aviva Direct Arland Limited
is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
Speaker 2: It communicate to us, this isn't irony, This isn't playing
to the crowd and for the money, like this is
the real thing, and that's how I take it. And
so that's why these you know, his work in these
movies are are so moving and important to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So two things there. I think there is one
very explicit mention of children, which is that scene we
mentioned earlier with Anton Sugar flipping the coin for the
life of the gas station attendant, right, because he yess him,
you know, do you have any children? You're married? And
he does, right, he's the wrong life and he's sort
of retired. Interesting note there one more point on the
element of randomness. Actually, and I think the only on
screen appearance of children in this entire entire book or
movie rather is the way Anton Sugar leaves this movie.
So he is he has killed Llewellyn's wife well after
the fact to sort of, you know, make do on
this promise that he made to a man he would
end up killing, I guess indirectly or directly, it's not
explicitly said. But when he when he leaves, he just
gets into her car and drives away. Something you see repeated.
He's constantly murdering people for their vehicles, but he's driving
through the suburban neighborhood and you know there are kids
behind him on a bike and he goes through one
stoplight and then he looks in his rearview mirror and
out of nowhere a car just t bones him, completely random.
This is not a person coming to get him, as
just a simple traffic accident, and he is on He
gets out on the side of the road. His arm
is poking through this or is you know, the bone
in his arm is poking through the skin. These two
kids right up and in sort of an interesting parallel
to the scene with llewell And in Mexico, he hands
them a bloody one hundred dollars bill or his shirt
something again you saw llewel and do earlier. Kind of
a lighting two moments there and he just walks off.
He gets up and leaps. This is also the most
injured we have seen him. He Llewelyn shot him, certainly,
but he was able to patch himself up. He goes
into a pharmacy, you know, raids it for supplies. Another
great scene, but I think it's interesting again that element
of a randomness. You know, this this man who is
a determinist, right, who believes that everything has sort of
set out. The most he is injured is by pure
random chance. I think that's sort of an interesting element
to the film as well.
Speaker 2: Absolutely great point. I yeah, and with the children too,
they're I mean, I don't really hold this against those children,
but they do seem to kind of go along with
the program, right, Like the kids are kind of already corrupt.
They give this guy the shirt, they cover up for
him apparently. I think in the book he leaves his gun,
Sugar leaves his gun maybe in the car, or the
kid winds up with the gun or something like that.
So Sheriff Bell comes around, pardon me, and it winds
up speaking to one of those kids who is pretty
much mute on the topic. And yeah, great point because
that scene, once again, it's like this incredible compression and
layering throughout the movie that must function in some way
to like amplify these these bigger issues, because you're right,
I mean randomness. In the end, his choice to go
to believe in this is what probably takes him out,
or at least takes him down a notch. Anyway, So Andy,
we're over time.
Speaker 3: This has been great. Before we you know, wrap this up.
I just want to say, watch this movie. It's like
two hours long. It's not hard to watch. The book
is not long either. Both of them are are well
worth your time. But that said, man, where can people
find you and where can they find your work?
Speaker 2: You know at X it's Golden Goat gild and that's
the main place right now. Yeah, check it out, check
out the books. And thanks for having me. This was
a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure thing, man, we'll have to do this again.
I enjoy watching and talking about movies, and there's so
much to pull from. I've told you before we went live.
I mentioned it on air. My hatred for modern cinema
really cannot be understated. Every time I go to the
movie theater, I end up leaving in a rage for
any number of reasons. And so to go back and
find a film like this, which you know, like I said,
I've saw before, but there's so much depth to it,
it's really well worth it. We'll maybe get into some
parallels when we talk about your book King of Dogs,
but there are interesting parallels between No Country for Old
Men and your first novel. In fact, there's actually a
scene in the movie that reminded me very much of
you know. Well, actually i'll just say it when well
it is running away from this attack Dog. There's a
similar scene in your book. I won't spoil it, but
check that out. Both At and Crowbar are quite good.
I've enjoyed them.
Speaker 2: Both.
Speaker 3: Thomas seven to seven seven, who you recorded some with,
recently enjoyed them as well. Check those out and Andy
will have to have you back on soon. As far
as my stuff, Jay Burton Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, this
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Axios Remote Fitness Coaching. I was actually just chatting with
JD because this is my favorite flannel and I can't
fit my arms in it anymore, which is an inconvenient
problem to have, but sort of a testimonial for what
JD does. Again, any man, this was so much fun, dude. Likewise,
everyone know, keep your head up. I can't last forever.
Speaker 4: Good night, h.