There is a nice irony in knowing that the No Country For Old Men ending has caused a seemingly never-ending debate among critics and filmgoers since the movie was first screened.
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Why The Controversy?
Quite a few movie-goers complained about the last part of the film. And it wasn't just popcorn movie lovers who were saying "What's with the ending?" "I didn't get it." "It just... ended." "I didn't like it because it was stupid." Or more, succinctly:"The ending sucks."
Even some ardent Coens' fans were disappointed by the way the film finished. One said the final scene ruined a flawless film and advised the Coens to go back to the cutting room and take it out.
The No Country For Old Men ending certainly goes against all the rules of a Hollywood genre movie. In a traditional thriller, Western or crime story, the movie builds to an overtly dramatic climax.
The audience spends most of the film in anticipation of the final shoot-out. And of, course, always, the bad guy must die.
No Country For Old Men's Ending - Ambiguous?
SPOILERS ALERT!
Many commentators have used the word 'ambiguity' in describing the No Country For Old Men ending.
In simple terms, the ending might be said to be ambiguous. We do not know, when the bad guy (Javier Bardem) limps off down the street, that this will be our last sight of him. We surely expect him to meet up with his adversary, Sheriff Bell, Tommy Lee Jones, for the predictable showdown. And when the screen goes black, we don't know whether he is to shortly die of his wounds, or whether he will survive.
Sheriff Bell Tommy Lee Jones in No Country For Old Men. Mike Zoss Productions Scott Rudin Productions. Paramount Vantage. Miramax.
No Final Cathartic Showdown
But in the context of the movie we've been watching up to this point, to have a traditional final showdown where evil is conquered and good is triumphant would negate the deeper meaning of the whole story.
Whatever interpretation you put on Jarvier Bardem's unfathomable, chilling killer, evil in this world is not a force that can be eradicated.
The flawlessly structured layering of suspense keeps the audience locked in a terrifying grip.
Until the final scene, the movie has built up the tension. The experience is disquietening, almost unbearable.
Anticipations of denouements, multiplying and deepening, are repeatedly blighted, and serve only to strengthen the audience's acute need to know what will happen.
With such a relentless hold on our fears, the expectation of how it will all end reaches fever pitch.
There Can Be No Moment of Carthasis in the No Country For Old Men Ending
Instead of the conventional high-wire tension of the final, cathartic shoot-out between good guy and bad, in a dramatic, often 'epic' setting, Sheriff Bell sits, sad and weary, in the small, domestic space of his kitchen - talking. In one almost completely static shot, he delivers a lengthy monologue about the dreams he has dreamt.
It is the quietest, most intimate of scenes. And it is the final one. Anti-climactic, anti-dramatic. Four simple words, before the screen goes back. 'Then I woke up'.
You could call No Country For Old Men's ending a cruel joke - playing with the audience's feelings. And it is cruel.
It's worth just watching the last part of the movie as it leads up to the final scene. The clip here starts with Carla (Kelly McDonald) at her mother's funeral before her scene with the killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). It's significant that Carla refuses to play Chigurh's coin-toss game, the first person to tell him it's his responsibility to decide whether to act or not.
Here's the clip:
Anton Chigurh Needs a Shirt. Sheriff Bell Remembers His Dreams Video Clip
No Country For Old Men. Mike Zoss Productions Scott Rudin Productions. Paramount Vantage. Miramax.
We've been denied the comforting satisfaction of watching a David slay Goliath. And if we don't like it, tough.
That there is no consoling denouement in the No Country For Old Men ending is perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the experience.
The movie holds up a mirror to a world in terminal moral decline and refuses to soften the dark, apocalyptic nightmare for us.
So in one sense, there is nothing ambiguous about the ending of No Country For Old Men.
In keeping with the uncompromizing moral theme, it's an uncompromoizing ending that refuses to give us an ending.
Ethan and Joel Coen have often said they love playing around with genre.
This time, with No Country For Old Men, as well as exploding the rules of the crime thriller, they went some way in redefining how film-makers treat mainstream movie audiences.
Respect for the intelligence of the audience might be one way of putting it.
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