No Country for Old Men w/ Andrew Edwards: The J. Burden Show Ep. 403

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

I know the ads are irritating, but they pay my mortgage and I do need to live somewhere, so I appreciate that. Guys. You can also check out our sponsor, 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.