No Country movie discussion--put yer two cents in here!

Funny piece in this week's New Yorker by Nora Ephron about the movie. Thanks to my colleague and Neanderthal invitee Andy Delfino for passing this one along. So, have you seen it yet? What did you think?

EDIT, DECEMBER 13th . . . Lumpy, Peter, Chris, and I saw the movie together last night, and the email discussion has been flying around all day. Here's the conversation with only nominal editing . . .

Enloe
Looks like we're not the only ones confused by the scene with Bell and Chigurh in the hotel - from wikipedia -

'Bell arrives in El Paso moments too late: Moss is dead (along with some of the Mexican hitmen who killed him). Bell later returns to the crime scene and finds the lock blown out by Chigurh's cattle gun. We see Chigurh hiding behind the door of the hotel room, but when Bell enters he finds no-one and the bathroom window is locked from the inside (it is unclear whether Chigurh is hiding behind the door, unchecked by Bell, or whether Bell is imagining Chigurh, who is in fact no longer present). Bell then sees that the vent cover has been removed with a coin and realizes the money is gone.'

Lumpkin
Chip Parker just pointed out that the door opens fully to the wall. Chigurh was not there. I now think Bell was imagining him.

Enloe
I don't know - the movie was pretty much straight narrative. It would be off kilter for them to toss in an imagination sequence out of the blue without warning or tipoff. I also would think it a cop out. Was the shower curtain closed in the bathroom?

ps - IIRC in the book Chigurh is in his car with the $ when bell pulls up. He waits in the car watching bell go up to the room and enter it. Bell realizes he just missed Chigurh and emerges and calls the local cops, who lock the lot down and search each car, but Chigurh has slipped out.

Kopp
It was a great movie. I have been talking with people here at work that have not read the book. Honestly, I would be interested to know what their reaction would be to the film version. They did such a good job with it I feel like they wrote it just for people who actually read the book. Shows what respect they have for the material. There were several times the movie could have been much more theatrical if they decided so. But they resisted that urge. Do you think you would have enjoyed it as much if you didn't read the book? I don't think I would have.

Parker
I really enjoyed it and did not read the book. Just one person though.

Lumpkin
Books/movies/books/movies…..

I have a positive attitude about both. A movie has never ruined a book for me. A few movies have made the story (book + movie) an all-around better experience. A million decisions go in to creating either and that creativity is what keeps me coming back for more. Lolita is a perfect example.

For No Country, the synergy between book and movie makes both more enjoyable. Some people find it gratuitous when the film maker "winks" at the audience by bringing an obvious aspect of the book into the movie (Peter Jackson did this in LOTR I. When the hobbits stumble over the embankment while fleeing the Nazgul, they land next to a patch of mushrooms and a chapter title from the book emerged from the dialogue). It doesn’t bother me terribly even if it takes my attention out of the "world" the movie is trying to create--as long as it’s not too blatant. It’s a film maker’s way of positively acknowledging some intelligence in the world.

Unfortunately, you have to experience one or the other first. Wouldn’t I be great if you could somehow separate them as completely different experiences and THEN enjoy that synergy?

Kopp
Step away from the bong Michael.

Just kidding, I agree.

Lumpkin
I know. I am a huge nerd.

Enloe
My take is more mundane. I'm glad I read the book so I knew when to duck and didn't get too depressed when that SOB killed Carla Jean.

Also--I don't think the Coen Bros made Chigurh an anti-hero, a-la H Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, but I think they painted him as almost superhuman. This struck me as silly in the book and equally silly in the film. Don't tell me evil is getting tougher and then expect me to believe evil is not bound by the laws of physics--if so it's always been tough.

And--spare me the killer as philosopher. The first coin flip scene with the gas station owner is chlling and perfectly staged. But the same bit with carla jean is lame.

Lumpkin
Killed Carla Jean? If you blink while Chigurh is checking his shoes for blood, you would not know if he killed her or not without reading the book. How do we know he killed her in the book?

She is played by Kelly MacDonald, by the way (hot hottie from Trainspotting).

Kopp
Just in. No Country nominated for best picture - golden globes

January's book choice and other news

Okay, the Neanderthals have spoken, and our book for January will be Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men. No meeting date set as yet, but that should be soon in coming (EDIT: January 7th--be there!). There are also a couple of film versions available, including last year's Sean Penn vehicle, which received mixed reviews. Oh, and an unabridged audio recording, as well.

Next on the agenda, the rave reviews for No Country for Old Men don't lie: it is an astonishingly good film . . . very faithful to McCarthy's book, with a couple of notable omissions from the later chapters. I'd love to see it again and discuss afterwards if anyone's interested.

So I revisited Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors last month following our Dostoevsky discussion, and it was just as provocative and fun as I had remembered. Then, Googling around to see what others had to say about it, I came across this terrific blog/analysis about the film . . . the YouTube clips are well worth your time! Anyway, I left a brief comment and later heard back from the blog author, who himself is a member of an all-male book club, the Gentlemen's Literary Society. Interestingly, while they don't have a "No Oprah" policy, they have passed a "No books by Margaret Atwood" injunction. You'll notice that their name and logo aren't nearly as cool as ours, but then again, they are Canadian (I'm pretty sure) and they're working on it, so I won't give them any grief.

Anyway, I take it from the ClustrMap below that they've been snooping around in here (a giant Vancouver dot just appeared), so let me extend a warm welcome to our Northern brothers.

this week's meeting / choosing our next book

We had a good turnout on Monday evening, with newcomers Chip Parker and Hunt Jackson joining Chris Enloe, Michael Lumpkin, Steve Carvalho, and myself to contemplate a little Crime and Punishment. I think Enloe was the only one who made it through the entire book; I must confess (after interminable internal debate) that I resorted to listening to an audio recording (there, I feel better now . . . on the road to redemption). Unfortunately, my recording was abridged, so I'm determined to push on through to the end in print.

For those of you who weren't with us, I offer an interesting quote from midway through Part Three to chew on . . . this is the murderer Raskolnikov in conversation with inspector Porfiry Petrovich:

"In my opinion, if, as the result of certain combinations, Kepler's or Newton's discoveries could become known to people on no other way than by the sacrificing the lives of one, or ten, or a hundred or more people who were hindering the discovery, or standing as an obstacle in its path, then Newton would have the right, and it would even be his duty . . . to remove those ten or a hundred people, in order to make his discoveries known to all mankind."

Dostoevsky ultimately shoots down this line of thinking, Raskolnikov being unable to find any peace until he owns up to the error of his actions (his punishment being almost entirely internal). It was interesting to me that this conventionally moral conclusion made the book ultimately less challenging and enjoyable to me than a more modern treatment of the same subject matter might. I guess it's just too comforting to agree with Dostoevsky to be fun. I contrasted it with my recollections of the film Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which the protagonist finds inner peace only when he discards this internal struggle and decides that his crime is justified by the pain it has circumvented for those around him. Oh, by the way, someone mentioned Match Point as another Woody Allen film that reaches more or less the same conclusion . . . I Googled around and came across an analysis noting that Allen has Rhys Meyers' character reading Dostoevsky in an early scene. Looks like I'll have to see this film again sometime soon (oh twist my arm--Johansen has never looked hotter!).

At any rate, our next meeting, we decided, will be sometime in January, with a date TBA shortly (dependent on those Uber Group fellows' travel schedules). We decided Christmas is just too damn busy for everyone. We bandied about a number of possible titles and agreed in the end to put it to a vote (just like the olden days). So here are the possibilities: All The King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren; Hiroshima, by John Hersey; Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier; The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald; and The Trouble with Poetry, by Billy Collins. The poll will be open until the end of the week, so put in your two cents. If you are compelled to lobby for one of these choices, add a comment below!