SPOILER WARNING: No Country for Old Men review contains spoilers.
the Protagonist dir: Jessica Yu starring: Hans Joachim Klein, Mark Pierpont, Mark Salzman and Joe Loya.
Winchester '73 dir: Anthony Mann starring: James Stewart, Shelly Winters, Stephen McNally, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis.
No Country for Old Men dir: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Stephen Root.
Notes:
- House of Leaves, an experimental novel by Mark Danielewski.
- Winchester Mystery House wikipedia entry.
4 comments:
Thanks for editing and posting this, Erin! Super sexy new podcast look!! xo
dudettes, what happened to the link to the podcast? it disappeared or sumtink.
Sorry Cryptogay, I accidentally killed it. But it's now been repaired. Enjoy!
Hey, I just listened to your podcast and would suggest that the both of you might want to read William Butler Yeats poem "Sailing to Byzantium" from which both the novel and film "No Country for Old Men" gains its title. It is the first line of the poem (there is no country for old men) and I think it clarifies much of the movie's various themes and especially the final words of Tommy Lee Jones. You may also want to read up on Yeats' personal beliefs if you aren't aware of them already to get a better understanding of his vision of this physical world vs. eternity and how that applies to the film.
After I watched the film I was filled with questions such as why most of the film's imagery is that of hunting/arbitrary winners and losers? What makes Chigurh particularly vile? Which characters are connected least to wordly events, which are connected the most? Why didn't Jones' character attempt to rectify things as would occur in a more normal narrative? What did his dream signify and how closely did those images relate to Yeats' poem? Just a few thoughts for the two of you before you schlep this film off as a superficial masterpiece. However I think that's kind of the point of the movie, everything of this world is superficial and without inherent worth, as "there is no country for old men".
Found the poem, so here it is.
Sailing To Byzantium
William Butler Yeats
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
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