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