Hi, I’m Michael. This is Lessons from the Screenplay. No Country for Old Men has become a modern
classic, filled with great characters, riveting sequences, and iconic moments. "Call it." But what I love most about the film is how
it forces us to participate in the storytelling. In his TED talk from 2012 filmmaker Andrew Stanton describes what he calls "the unifying theory of two plus two." "Good storytelling never gives you four, it gives you two plus two. If you construct your story correctly it compels
the audience to conclude the answer is four. "Make the audience put things together. Don't give them four. Give them two plus two. It's the invisible application that holds our attention to story." No Country for Old Men is full of this technique
in action, from how it establishes character details, to how it conveys its theme. So today, I want to explore how a character
can be revealed not just by what they choose to do, but how they do it... To look at ways of moving the plot forward while compelling the audience to fill in the
gaps... And examine how dramatically breaking from
storytelling convention can create an experience that is challenging,
surprising, and meaningful. Let’s take a look at No Country For Old
Men. I’ve spoken before about how important it
is for characters to make choices, quoting Robert McKee’s Story when he says: “TRUE CHARACTER is revealed in the choices
a human being makes under pressure.” But part of what gives a story texture are the specific details of the people who inhabit it. These details are aspects of characterization. Returning to McKee: “Characterization is the sum of all the
observable qualities, a combination that makes the character unique: physical appearance coupled with mannerisms, style of speech and gesture, sexuality, age,
IQ, occupation, personality, attitudes, values, where he lives, how he lives.” No Country for Old Men has three distinct
central characters, and our understanding of who they are comes
not only from what they choose to do, but by how they choose to do it. When the protagonist, Llewelyn Moss, stumbles
upon a drug deal gone wrong, he realizes the money must be with the last
man standing... "Último hombre, last man standing. There must’ve been one. Where’d he go?" ...so he chooses to track him down. This choice reveals true character: Llewelyn is someone who will to risk his life
for money. But how Llewelyn tracks down the money also
reveals a lot about his personality. Moss stops to look out at a new prospect. Flatland, no cover. He raises the binoculars. "If you stopped... to watch your backtrack... you’re gonna shoot my dumb ass." He doesn’t see anything. He lowers the glass, thinking. He raises the glass again. "...But. If you stopped... you stopped in shade." He sets off. Moss is calm and methodical, and just by watching his behavior in this
sequence, we can conclude that he is no stranger to
life or death situations… something confirmed later in dialogue. "Were you in Nam?" "Yeah. I was in Nam." Similarly, when we meet the antagonist, Anton
Chigurh, we immediately see him make choices that reveal
his true character. He chokes the deputy in the police station. Chigurh has no problem taking human life
in order to achieve his goals… but it’s how he kills people that makes
him so frightening. The first murder we see is careful, violent,
and powerful… and the second is polite and clean. Chigurh reaches up to the man's forehead with
the end of the tube connected to the air tank. "Would you hold still please, sir." A hard pneumatic sound. His behavior conveys his apathetic attitude
toward murder, and his disturbing efficacy suggests a long
history of taking life. We don’t need any backstory to understand
how much of a threat he is. The third central character is Sheriff Bell, whose monologue opens the film. "The crime you see now, it’s hard to even
take its measure. I don’t want to push my chips forward
and go out and meet something I don’t understand." While Sheriff Bell does choose to go after
the criminal, the way he does it demonstrates his apprehension. "We goin' in?" "Gun out and up." Wendell unholsters his gun but hesitates. "What about yours?" "I'm hidin' behind you." In particular, Bell’s dialogue is peppered
with dry wit that masks this fear. "That DEA agent called again. You
don't want to talk to him?" "I'm goin' to try and keep from it as
much as I can." "He's goin' back out there and he
wanted to know if you wanted to go with him." "Well that's cordial of him." Allowing the audience to glean this information
about the characters through behavior is more engaging than simply relying on dialogue to describe them. In this way, it’s a variation of Andrew
Stanton’s two plus two theory— showing us the details of how the characters
pursue their goals and letting us determine what it says about them. But No Country for Old Men doesn’t just
use this technique for establishing character, it also uses two plus two to reveal plot. There are several moments in No Country for
Old Men when the film refuses to acknowledge a plot event directly, and instead relies on the audience to put
the pieces together and deduce what has happened. One example is when Moss—now on the run—first
leaves his motel room. Moss pulls back one curtain to look out at
the lot. Nothing there disturbs him. He closes the curtains, crossing one over
the other. At first, this seems like he is simply checking
for danger and making sure no one can see into his room. But when he returns later, the significance of this moment becomes more
clear. The cab rolls slowly up the lot. His pivoting point-of-view of his room. The window shows a part between the curtains. "Keep going. Don't stop." If we’re paying attention, we can conclude that someone has been in his
room, without any lines of dialogue to directly
explain it. "Take me to another motel." The gap in time between these two moments
is only two pages of screenplay, but another example of the two plus two technique
plays out across the entire span of the film. Before Chigurh bursts into Moss’s motel
room, he removes his boots. Initially, this simply seems like a way for
Chigurh to approach the room silently. But later, when Chigurh kills the man sent
to stop him, Carson Wells, we see that there is more to this. Chigurh cocks his head, noticing something
on the floor. He adjusts to sit back and raise his boots
onto the bed. On the floor where his feet were, blood is
pooling out from Wells’s chair. Chigurh is concerned with the cleanliness
of his boots. So toward the end of the film, when he has come to kill Carla Jean and we’re
unsure what her fate will be… "You don’t have to do this." ...rather than providing the answer with yet
another grizzly murder scene, the screenplay simply cuts to: Exterior, house. The front door swings open and Chigurh emerges. He pauses with one hand on the jamb and looks
at the sole of each boot in turn. We’re left to put two and two together. If we know that he cares about his boots being
clean, and he’s checking to make sure there is
no blood on them, then we understand what happened to Carla
Jean. What is particularly powerful about this technique
in this instance is that it changes how her death affects us emotionally. Her murder doesn’t happen within the distant
boundaries of the movie screen, it happens in our imagination. And meaning is always more powerful when it
can be synthesized in the mind of the viewer instead of spoon fed through on-the-nose dialogue, which is why one of the most remarkable aspects
of No Country for Old Men is how it lets the audience synthesize the moral of the story. From a structural standpoint, the film seems to follow the conventional
three-act structure I outlined in my video on The Avengers: There’s an inciting incident... ...a first plot point... ...a break into act two… …and a midpoint that alters the momentum
of the story. And as the film heads toward the end of the
second act, everything seems to be building to the ending
that we’ve come to expect. As Ethan Coen said: "The convention is ingrained that the good
guy is going to meet the bad guy and they're going to confront each other. Most stories end with a showdown between the
protagonist and the antagonist, and for most of No Country for Old Men, that seems like a reasonable expectation for the audience to have. But instead, every convention is thrown out
the window as Llewellyn Moss, our protagonist, is killed offscreen… and not even by the film’s main antagonist. This abrupt turn is one of the puzzle pieces
we’re given to synthesize the moral of the story. The other puzzle piece is the stated theme
of the film, and while Moss is the protagonist of the story, the theme is explored through Sheriff Bell— the only central character to actually change
over the course of the narrative. In his opening monologue, Bell talks about the old days, when he feels that life was simpler and made
sense. "Some of the old-time sheriffs never even
wore a gun." But now, he can’t comprehend the senseless
violence of contemporary crime. "Can't help but wonder how they would've operated these times." During the first two acts of the film, the plot is simple and follows convention
in a way that makes sense. But when Moss is killed before we’ve even
gotten to the third act, it makes us uncomfortable. This is not how stories are supposed to go. So in a way, killing the protagonist suddenly
and off-screen puts us in the same headspace as Sheriff Bell— unsure of what to make of this senseless violence. The third act of the film then becomes about following Bell as he continues to wrestle with the theme— ultimately choosing to end his career… "Loretta tells me you’re quittin’." "I feel overmatched." …and realizing that fear of changing culture
certainly isn’t something he invented. "What you got ain’t nothin’ new… This country's hard on people. Ain’t all waitin’ on you. That’s vanity." So instead of a shootout with the antagonist, the film quietly ends with Bell describing
a dream of what he perceives as a simpler time, concluding with: "...and then I woke up." In this way, Bell accepts his fate. The world is changing and his time is nearly
up— and we’re left to decide what the greater
meaning is in this story of the Sheriff realizing that this is no country for old men. As I’ve said many times before, I appreciate films that respect the audience. No Country for Old Men is one of the greatest
in that regard. It relies on our knowledge of film language, allowing us to connect the dots and inviting us to participate in the storytelling by doing so. The surprising and unsatisfying death of the protagonist challenges our notions of how a story is supposed to play out. It is certainly not movie-watching on easy
mode. But that is exactly why it stands as one of
the best examples of how to consciously depart from storytelling convention in a way that enhances the story’s meaning... Of how to create a textured world with simple,
but rich characters... And how to design a story that is more than
simply the sum of its parts. No Country for Old Men was the first film
edited with a completely digital workflow on a Mac to win Best Picture at the Academy
Awards. It was edited by the Coen brothers on the
old version of Final Cut Pro, and in 2013 they switched to using Adobe Premiere
Pro for their films— the same software I use to edit these videos. If you want to learn the ins and outs of professional
video editing software, I suggest beginning with some of the great
classes available on Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community
with over 20,000 classes in design, filmmaking, technology and more. Premium Membership gives you unlimited access
to high quality classes, such as Jordy Vandeput’s class: “Video Editing with Adobe Premiere Pro 2018
for Beginners.” This class provides a clear and complete overview
of all the things you need to get started with editing in Premiere Pro. And you can get two months of Skillshare for
free by clicking on the link the description below, or heading to skl.sh/lfts6. So head over to Skillshare to start learning
today. Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed the video. There will be a another new video next week! So if you want to make sure you don't miss it, click on the bell icon to enable notifications for the channel. Thank you as always to my patrons on Pateron and my supporters here on YouTube for making this channel possible. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next
time!
I feel like he didn't give enough(any) credit to McCarthy.
The analysis was about the story and defying conventions therein, but a lot of the film's fans don't seem to realize is that the screenplay may as well have been a word-for-word adaptation of the book, which itself was originally written as a screenplay and then adapted to be a book after McCarthy had no luck selling it(which is why it so it was so easily adapted back to screenplay form).
The film was beautifully directed, but if you are going to praise the story McCarthy should get at least some of the love.
I've watched this movie so many times. still don't understand the moral of it but to be fair I am sort of slow
One of the greatest movies ever made in my opinion.
I just watched this movie two days ago, so it's a bit of a shock to see an explaination on reddit!
For the record, everything went over my head. Like entirely.
My favourite movies of all time
1) there will be blood 2) the prestige 3) no country for old men
Don't get me wrong because I really really like no country for old men, but I didn't like the ending and thought it was a mis-step.
Killing your lead off screen and suddenly saying to the audience:
It just left me feeling a little emotionally mugged, like the film makers were chuckling to themselves as I left the cinema.
I didn't necessarily want the big showdown at the end because you get that showdown in the film, enough for me to think "that confrontation has been done". But it would've worked well and if the alternative is what we got, to me that's a mistake.
Great fucking movie
My favorite movie of all time!
This is one of those incredible movies where the theme and moral build up slowly throughout the entire movie and finally come into crystal clear resolution in the very last scene, when he talks about his dream.