30 Facts You Didn't Know About No Country for Old Men

you know what date is on this coin no 1958 it's been traveling 22 years to get here hey what's up everyone it's ryan here from the y and today we're going to be taking a look at no country for old men it's widely regarded as one of the best movies of the 21st century and it's even credited with the re-emergence of the neo-western genre in recent years so without further ado here it is 30 facts you didn't know about no country for old men anton chagur is no doubt one of the most terrifying antagonists to ever be put on the screen he kills without remorse and for no reason and the character is considered to be a recurrence of the unstoppable evil archetype found in cormac mccarthy's books and javier bardem did such a fantastic job of playing anton chigurh that his performance was voted the most accurate portrayal of a psychopath ever to grace the screen the study involved 10 psychiatrists who watched 400 movies over the course of three years and at the end of it this is what the lead psychiatrist samuel lesteit had to say about chigurh he seems to be effectively invulnerable and resistant to any form of emotion or humanity and like the two other hitmen he'd interviewed in the past they were like this cold smart no guilt no anxiety no depression the story of how josh brolin came to be in no country for old men actually begins with grindhouse and quentin tarantino it was on the set that brolin learned of the new cormac mccarthy book and the coen brothers desire to adapt it into a film after reading the entire novel in less than a day he knew there was no chance of him playing triger but he had to send in an audition tape anyway and brolin couldn't have been in a better spot as robert rodriguez lent him the camera they were using to shoot grindhouse and tarantino offered to direct the audition after sending the tape to the coen brothers they were astounded with the quality asking who lit it it was probably the best looking audition anyone has ever seen [Music] carla jean was the only person to talk to all three main characters additionally none of the three main cast members shared any screen time together why do we circulate looking for a man who has recently drunk milk because no country for old men involved a decent amount of killing it's no secret they required a lot of fake blood to make it all work but what was unexpected was the cost of it needing to import special fake blood from england joel cohen said the price ran all the way up to a ridiculous 800 a gallon and you might be asking yourself why the need for overpriced special fake blood well as they had extras lying around in the baking hot sun for hours at a time covered in blood using a sugar-free variant was essential so the actors wouldn't be attacked by endless hordes of bugs if you're like me there's almost an inextricable connection between there will be blood and no country for old men whether it's the fact that they were released the same year share a lot of similar themes or are both masterpieces i can't think of one without being reminded of the other so it's crazy to know that not only do they share an abstract connection in my head but they were also shot in the same location at the same time it was in a small town in texas called marfa and one day while filming a wide shot of the landscape for the film the coen brothers were interrupted by a large cloud of smoke drifting over the horizon it was paul thomas anderson testing the pyrotechnics of an oil derrick being set ablaze which created so much smoke that they couldn't film any more scenes that day [Music] the device that anton sugur uses to kill people is called a captive bolt pistol aka a cattle pistol as it's mainly used for stunning livestock prior to slaughter which makes it a fitting weapon for trigger as it plays into the idea that he views putting down a human as no different than euthanizing an animal after moss crosses the u.s mexico border he wakes up to a mariachi band singing to him [Music] the lyrics of the song are as follows you want it to fly without wings you wanted to touch the sky you wanted too much wealth you wanted to play with fire as i'm sure you can tell these lyrics are a reference to the story of the film in the novel sheriff bell says this line about the drug dealers here a while back in san antonio they shot and killed a federal judge mccarthy set the story in the year 1980 so this is most likely a reference to the murder of judge john howland wood who was assassinated in san antonio the year prior by charles harrelson father of woody harrelson do you have any idea how crazy you are a cool piece of foreshadowing comes in the scene when moss is staying at the eagle hotel looking at the painting on the wall you can clearly see it depicts two men on horseback somewhere in the mountains and at the end of the film sheriff bell says this line about his dream i was a horseback going through the mountains of the night going through this pass in the mountains the title no country for old men is taken from the william butler yeats poem sailing to byzantium the full line from the poem is that is no country for old men in it yet spoke on the agony of old age and imagined what the afterlife and paradise might look like this reflection on the end of life and what comes after it can be seen in the closing moments of the film with sheriff bell i'm older now than he ever was by 20 years so and since he's the younger man you would think that because javier bardem had always dreamed about being in a coen brothers film he would immediately say yes when they approached him to be in their movie but that was definitely not the case as he had some serious reservations about the character saying i don't drive i speak bad english and i hate violence they laughed and replied maybe that's why we called you [Music] if you wanted to get your hands on a shotgun exactly like the one that anton sugar uses in the movie too bad because it simply doesn't exist the silenced 12-gauge shotgun was created specifically for the movie as nothing like it even existed at the time nowadays there is a shotgun silencer available for purchase to the general public but it looks nowhere near as cool as the one in no country for old men i'm not sure how many people actually noticed this but there's barely any music at all in the film 16 minutes to be exact with a bunch of that taking place in the credits this is mostly due to the fact that most musical instruments didn't fit with a minimalist sound sculpture ethan cohen had in mind so a lot of the sounds you hear in the movie actually come from singing bowls which are inverted metal bells traditionally used in buddhist meditation [Music] although tommy lee jones had the least amount of screen time out of the three main characters he still received top billing he also ended up suing paramount pictures alleging improper bonus allocation and the matter was resolved in his favor leading to a 15 million dollar payout perhaps the biggest mystery in no country for old men is whether or not anton trigger killed carla gene moss there's no definitive answer but based on what we know about chigurh it can be inferred that she did meet her end not much is said about anton chigurh but carson wells gives us the most insight into his character might even say he has principles principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that the fact that chiger lives by a code is crucial as in a later scene chigurh offers moss this one-time deal he bring me the money and i let her go otherwise she's accountable moss declines and at the conclusion of the movie carla jean is held accountable you got no calls to hurt me no but i gave my word another piece of evidence pointing towards her death is that chigurh doesn't like to get blood on himself before shooting the man in the shower he draws the shower curtain to shield himself after killing the people in the hotel he removes his socks because of the blood on them and upon murdering carson wells he lifts his feet off the ground to avoid the blood finally after leaving carla jean's house he was most likely checking the bottom of his boots or her blood [Music] since the very beginning of the coen brothers partnership they've co-directed co-written and co-edited all their projects which is fine and dandy but it also means they ran into a certain problem with the screen actors guild guild membership rules have never allowed two co-credited editors on the same film so the brothers had to come up with a fake name for who was editing their movies they came up with the name roderick james and this made up person was actually nominated for an oscar for no country for old men roderick james for no country for old men the idea of no country for old men began in 2005 with scott rudin purchasing the rights to the film from cormac mccarthy he then recruited the coen brothers who were at the time trying to adapt a novel by james dickey to the white sea a couple of months later the brothers agreed to make it as the subversive genre of the novel where the bad guy never meets the good guy was right up their alley cormac mccarthy himself has three other books besides no country for old men that were adapted into movies all the pretty horses the road and child of god no country for old men was the first movie to win an oscar that had been edited with final cut pro two days after signing on to no country for old men josh brolin got into an accident that almost jeopardized his role in the film it happened on his motorcycle when he t-boned a car and subsequently flew over the handlebars breaking his collarbone in the process as he was flying over the car brolin remembers thinking [ __ ] [ __ ] i really wanted to work with the cohens to make sure there weren't any problems brolin kept the injury a secret and opted not to have surgery and just toughed it out and luckily for brolin his character gets shot in the shoulder very early on so he didn't have to hide the pain javier bardem was the first spanish actor to win an oscar with his performance in no country for old men he was also the first spanish actor to be nominated for an oscar with the film before nightfalls during the scene where carson wells is hired to track down chigurh he makes an interesting statement you know i uh counted the floors to this building from the street and there's one missing at first glance you might think the answer to his question is that many older buildings omit the 13th floor due to fear of the number being unlucky but looking at the novel it says the 17th floor was unlisted for security purposes which is strange to say the least what buildings have a missing floor with the explanation being security purposes well based on what we know about the story of no country for old men it honestly wouldn't be too surprising if the true purpose of the missing floor was to process their drugs we'll look into it contrary to most literary adaptations the coen brothers took much of the dialogue word for word from cormac mccarthy's book but strangely especially for the coen brothers who are usually known for their talkative characters much of the dialogue was drastically cut down although much of the dialogue was taken verbatim from the book there were a couple scenes that played out differently than the source material this was the case with the scene involving carla jean and anton triger in the film gene refuses to play his little game and outright says no to calling the coin flip call it the coin don't have no say it's just you carla jean in the novel calls heads and as you might guess she gets it wrong after as mccarthy candidly put it then he shot her another change can be seen with regards to this iconic line what's the most you ever lost on a coin toss in the novel it was actually what's the most you ever saw lost in a coin toss of course the film omits the word saw but i think i like the coen brothers take better as their version is much more personal and to the point the book also puts the time of day as almost dark versus the movie's depiction of it being early afternoon and this little change makes a huge difference because of this line now is not a time what time do you close generally around dark and dark as you can tell by making this setting earlier in the day the coen brothers effectively added to the man's sense of desperation that wasn't as apparent in the book the role of llewellyn moss eventually went to josh brolin but there were a ton of other actors pining for the parts garrett dillahunt auditioned five times before he ultimately ended up playing window and the part was originally offered to heath ledger who turned it down to spend more time with his daughter matilda to fully step into the character of chigurh javier bardem put on weight stopped smoking cigarettes and took up a regular drinking habit all of which were designed to make him feel like [ __ ] for chigurh's hairstyle the coen brothers took inspiration from a picture taken in 1979 of a man outside a brothel and mccarthy has even stated that he intentionally made the name chigurh to be as untraceable as possible further adding to the mystery of the character the briefcase that holds the drug money is the same exact briefcase that was used in both versions of fargo when luellen moss discovers the briefcase full of money his reaction was this admittedly it's a pretty indifferent reaction to finding millions of dollars so it's pretty funny to know that josh brolin totally ad-libbed the grunt because at first his reaction was supposed to be that of total silence after blowing up the car anton sugur enters the mike zoss pharmacy this is actually a reference to a pharmacy in minneapolis where the coen brothers spent much of their youth mike sauce drugs and it goes further than that as the two even named their production company mike sauce productions tommy lee jones is without a doubt a seasoned veteran when it comes to acting and this fact was definitely on full display in that ending monologue when asked how many takes the whole two and a half minute sequence took jones casually said he got it all done in one take and whether it was difficult according to him he responded with nah i've been practicing usually for a movie of this length most productions could shoot anywhere from 750 000 to a million feet of film but with no country for old men most of what was filmed went into the movie as they only shot about 250 000 feet of film thank you all for watching i hope you enjoyed it if you did give me a like and don't forget to subscribe alright till next time have a great day

Channel: The Why

Views: 3,040,538

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Id: NK-R-x478zw

Length: 16min 49sec (1009 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 20 2022