Movie `No Country for Old Men`

The movie “No Country for Old Men” is based on the eponymous novel by Cormac McCarthy. It remains faithful to the original story by presenting an identical plot and imbuing life to most of the dialogues in the book. So much so that viewers would think directors Joel and Ethan Coen even worship the novel. Although the filmmakers removed a descriptive murder scene from the screen, it’s understandable considering some details have to go when books are transformed into movies.

The novel boasts an outstanding literary style. It sends chills down the reader’s spine thanks to the prose “so thunderous and bare at once that it can occasionally venture toward affected nonsense,” as described by the Boston Globe. The Coen brothers struggled hard to revive most of the elements in the hardboiled fiction on to the screen.

Nonetheless, some scenes are hard to follow by the viewer. The novel crisscrosses between the first person perspective of a sheriff and the omnipotent one of the writer. While the writer keeps a cold-hearted stance through abrupt sentences, the sheriff maintains a relatively warm and humane perspective. Bringing out such a contrast on the screen is not an easy task. So, the directors overlapped the sheriff’s narration to show his first person perspective.

yourcat@donga.com