No Country For Old Men

[pete]

I like Josh Brolin.  He's got a freakishly large head, which I respect in an actor.

you mean ON an actor?

[MacGuffin]

Coens tap Root, Harrelson
Source: Hollywood Reporter

The Coen brothers have lassoed Woody Harrelson and Stephen Root for their contemporary Western thriller "No Country for Old Men." The film will be distributed by Paramount Vantage domestically and by Miramax Films internationally. Based on the acclaimed Cormac McCarthy novel, the story deals with the battle between good and evil and the importance of choice and chance in shaping destiny. Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, the film stars Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. Scott Rudin and the Coens are producing, while Miramax is co-financing.

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from composter Carter Burwells site...



Carter's Notes

The film is the quietest I've worked on. Often there is no sound but wind and boots on hard caliche or stocking feet on concrete. Then again there are shootouts involving an unknown number of shooters with shotguns and automatic weapons. It was unclear for a while what kind of score could possibly accompany this film without intruding on this raw quiet. I spoke with the Coens about either an all-percussion score or a melange of sustained tones which would blend in with the sound effects. We went the latter route.

The all-percussion score sounds like fun, and I look forward to doing it sometime, but it is such a cliche to have drums accompany "action" that this sound immediately pulled the film back into familiar territory. The sustained tones, however, kept the film unsettled. Skip Lievsay, the sound editor, and I spoke early about these approaches and he sent me some examples of processed sound effects just as I sent him examples of tone compositions, mostly sine and sawtooth waves and singing bowls. When the film is mixed the effect will be that the music comes out of and sinks back into the sound effects in a hopefully subliminal manner.

The end titles of the film raised an interesting question: the entire film takes place without songs or identifiable score, so what could play over five minutes of end titles that wouldn't be self-conscious (like wind or sine waves) or intrusive (like a pop song)? I ended up writing a tune that features the only acoustic instruments in the score, but they take quite a while to appear. The first sounds are percussion but almost sound like sound effects. The next sounds are the sustained tones which are featured in the rest of the score. Only after two minutes of this do truly familiar instruments arrive - guitar and bass - which then play to the end along with the percussion. Hopefully this somehow works with the rest of the film, although we won't really know this until we mix the film, and maybe not until much later.

MP3:
MP3:

Starring Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Woody Harrelson.

U.S. Release 2007

[MacGuffin]

New plan for manning 'Men'
Miramax to release 'Country' in fall
Source: Variety

Paramount Vantage and Miramax Films, the two worldwide partners on Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of the 2005 Cormac McCarthy novel "No Country for Old Men," are switching gears on the eve of the film's expected launch at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Instead of releasing the noir Western internationally, as initially planned, Miramax will handle its domestic distribution, while Par Vantage will take over international. Scott Rudin and the Coens are producers; the film stars Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem.

"The Coens felt strongly about going in the fall," explained Par Vantage president John Lesher, who had tried to talk the brothers into an August release along the lines of "The Constant Gardener." "These are great directors at the top of their game. It's a really good, muscular movie that works well with older men; it's violent and visceral. The fall is a long time to wait."

Miramax prexy Daniel Battsek, who has enjoyed a long relationship with the Coens via Buena Vista Intl. on such films as "The Ladykillers" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," was happy to add "No Country for Old Men" to his fall slate.

Citing a prior Miramax/Warner Bros. switch on Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," Battsek said, "Looking at their fall schedule, it made more sense for us to take domestic. We have the best interest of the movie at heart. We've been working on the movie with Paramount all along. We're in great shape."

Lesher, on the other hand, has his hands full of high-octane fall contenders. Paramount Vantage will open DreamWorks' Afghanistan drama "The Kite Runner," directed by Oscar perennial Marc Forster, as well as Sean Penn's "Into the Wild"; Noah Baumbach's relationship drama "Margot at the Wedding," starring Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh; and another Rudin project, Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood."

Par Vantage had already developed a marketing campaign and trailer, but with no fall slot available, "It was important for all of us to do right by the movie," said Lesher. "I love the movie. It was a tough decision. But Miramax has more manpower. Every movie is going to get its fair shake."

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test screening review on AICN: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32494

[JG]

no score! 

[polkablues]

...and Carter Burwell's laughing all the way to the bank.

[MacGuffin]

Review: No Country for Old Men
By TODD MCCARTHY; Variety

A scorching blast of tense genre filmmaking shot through with rich veins of melancholy, down-home philosophy and dark, dark humor, "No Country for Old Men" reps a superior match of source material and filmmaking talent. Cormac McCarthy's bracing and brilliant novel is gold for the Coen brothers, who have handled it respectfully but not slavishly, using its built-in cinematic values while cutting for brevity and infusing it with their own touch. Result is one of the their very best films, a bloody classic of its type destined for acclaim and potentially robust B.O. returns upon release later in the year.

Reduced to its barest bones, the story, set in 1980, is a familiar one of a busted drug deal and the violent wages of one man's misguided attempt to make off with ill-gotten gains. But writing in marvelous Texas vernacular that injected surpassing terseness with gasping velocity, McCarthy created an indelible portrait of a quickly changing American West whose new surge of violence makes the land's 19th century legacy pale in comparison.

For their part, Joel and Ethan Coen, with both credited equally for writing and directing, are back on top of their game after some less than stellar outings. While brandishing the brothers' customary wit and impeccable craftsmanship, pic possess the vitality and invention of top-drawer 1970s American filmmaking, quite an accomplishment these days. It's also got one of cinema's most original and memorable villains in recent memory, never a bad thing in attracting an audience, especially as so audaciously played by Javier Bardem.

Set in rugged, parched West Texas (but filmed in New Mexico) and brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins in tones that resemble shafts of wheat examined in myriad different lights, yarn commences with several startling sequences: A crime suspect (Bardem) turns the tables on his arresting officer, strangles him with his handcuffs, then kills a driver for his car using a stun gun made for slaughtering cattle; in the middle of nowhere, a hunter, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), stumbles across five trucks, several more bullet-ridden corpses, a huge stash of drugs and $2 million in a briefcase, which he impulsively takes. When he returns to the scene of the crime that night, he's shot at by unknown men and chased into a nearby river by a fierce dog before getting away.

Central figures in this tale of pursuit is rounded out by Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), the local county sheriff, who tours the truck crime scene on horseback and in short order gets Moss in his sights, although not as quickly as does Bardem's Anton Chigurh, who is able to tune in to a transponder in the moneybag the unsuspecting Moss has stashed in a heating duct in a local motel.

Death walks hand in hand with Chigurh wherever he goes, unless he decides otherwise. Clearly a killer by profession, the lucid, direct-talking man considers anyone else who crosses his path fair game; if everything you've done in your life has led you to him, he may explain to his about-to-be victims, your time might just have come. "You don't have to do this," the innocent invariably insist to a man whose murderous code dictates otherwise. Occasionally, however, he will allow someone to decide his own fate by coin toss, notably in a tense early scene in an old filling station marbled with nervous humor.

In addition to the pared down dialogue, pic is marked by silences, wind-inflected ones to be found naturally in the empty expanses of the West, as well as breathlessly suspenseful interior interludes, notably an ultra-Hitchcockian sequence in which Moss, aware that Chigurh has tracked him to an old hotel, listens and waits in his room as his hunter comes quietly to his door.

It's amazing how much carnage ensues given that the action essentially focuses upon three men playing cat-and-mouse across a beautiful and brutal landscape. Three guys in the wrong motel room at the wrong time get the treatment from Chigurh, and a cocky intermediary (Woody Harrelson) for the missing money's apparent rightful owner makes the mistake of getting in between the trigger-happy assassin and Moss. And they're far from the only victims in a story that disturbingly portrays the nature of the new violence stemming, in the view advanced here, from the combination of the drug trade and the disintegration of societal mores.

The manner in which the narrative advances is shocking and nearly impossible to predict; viewers who haven't read the best-seller will be gripped by the situations put onscreen and sometimes afraid to see what they fear will happen next. Those familiar with the story will be gratified to behold a terrific novel make the shift in medium managed, for once, with such smarts.

The Coens build a sense of foreboding from the outset without being heavy or pretentious about it. They have consistently worked in the crime genre, of course, beginning with their first film, "Blood Simple," whose seriousness perhaps mostly approximates the tone of this one, although there are overlaps as well with "Miller's Crossing" and "Fargo." But while they have eliminated one especially poignant character from the book in the interests of time, slashed Bell's distinctive philosophical ruminations and perhaps unduly hastened the ending, the brothers have honored McCarthy's serious themes, the integrity of his characters and his essential intentions.

They have also beefed up the laughs, the majority of which stem from the unlikely source of the cold-blooded Chigurh. From the outset, the powerful and commanding Bardem leaves no doubt that Chigurh would just as soon kill you as ask you the time of day. His conversation brooks no nonsense or evasion. But it is the character's utter lack of humor that Bardem and the Coens cleverly offer as the source of the character's humorousness, and the actor makes the most of this approach in a diabolically effective performance.

Jones would practically seem to have been born to play Cormac McCarthy roles, and he proves it here in a quintessential turn as a proud longtime sheriff dismayed by what he sees things coming to. Holding his own in distinguished company after long dwelling in TV and schlock, Brolin gives off young Nick Nolte vibes as an ordinary man who tries to outsmart some big boys in order to get away with the score of his life.

Scottish thesp Kelly Macdonald registers potently as Moss's country wife, while tasty supporting turns are delivered by Harrelson, Stephen Root as the latter character's employer, Rodger Boyce as a sheriff who commiserates with Bell, Barry Corbin as Bell's crusty old uncle, Ana Reeder as a swimming pool floozy who offers Moss some company and Gene Jones as the old fellow Chigurh makes call his own fate.

Deakins' stunning location work and precision framing is joined by Jess Gonchor's production design, the Coens' cutting under their usual pseudonym of Roderick Jaynes, Carter Burwell's discreet score and expert sound work to make "No Country for Old Men" a total visual and aural pleasure.

Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Roger Deakins; editor, Roderick Jaynes; music, Carter Burwell; production designer, Jess Gonchor; art director, John P. Goldsmith; set decorator, Nancy Haigh; costume designer, Mary Zophres; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Peter Kurland; supervising sound editor, Skip Lievsay; sound designer, Craig Berkey; re-recording mixers, Lievsay, Berkey, Greg Orloff; associate producer, David Diliberto; assistant director, Betsy Magruder; second unit director-stunt coordinator, Jery Hewitt; second unit camera, Paul Elliot; casting, Ellen Chenoweth. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 18, 2007. MPAA Rating: R, Running time: 122 MIN.

[Pubrick]

i can't wait for silias to remind us he can't wait. seriously psyched.

[MacGuffin]

Coens' 'No Country for Old Men' keeps faith with Cormac McCarthy
Source: Los Angeles Times

CANNES, FRANCE — Expectations to the contrary, Joel Coen is "not an indiscriminate fan of violent films." He and his brother Ethan may have made some legendarily ferocious films, including the likes of "Fargo" and "Blood Simple," but, Joel says, "there are certain violent ones I see the previews for and I say, 'I don't want to go.' "

The Coens, sitting side by side in the noticeably peaceful lobby of the Hotel du Cap, are in competition at the Festival de Cannes with yet another violent film, their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men." Yet there is something different about this one, so much so that the brothers, who share writing, directing and producing credit, say they would consider letting their oldest children, not quite teenagers, see it. "They could both watch this," Joel says, "and take it in the right way."

That's because there is on-screen violence and on-screen violence, and "No Country for Old Men," the story of stolen drug money and the carnage it precipitates, is a film that doesn't celebrate violence, it despairs of it. This is a completely gripping nihilistic thriller, a model of impeccably constructed, implacable storytelling. All you could hope for in a marriage of the Coen brothers and McCarthy, it's a film that you can't stop watching, even though you very much wish you could as it escorts you through a world so horrifically bleak "you put your soul at hazard," as one character says, to be part of it.

One of the things that makes "No Country" different, the brothers agree, is that pitiless quality. "That's a hallmark of the book, which has an unforgiving landscape and characters but is also about finding some kind of beauty without being sentimental," says Ethan. There is, adds Joel, "no sort of relief from the unrelenting nature of the story."

It was producer Scott Rudin who bought the book rights and offered it to the Coens, who at the time were working on a project that fell apart, an adaptation of James Dickey's "To the White Sea," a novel about the firebombing of Tokyo that the brothers say had a similar violent theme.

With this adaptation, the Coens have stuck remarkably close to the book, doing more pruning than anything else. "We weren't going to rewrite Cormac McCarthy in any substantial way," says Joel, while Ethan, dealing with the common misunderstanding of what's involved in adaptation, adds a mocking, "It's work to hold the spine open so you can copy the words."

One of the places in where the Coens found common ground with McCarthy was in the novel's tendency to fool around with genre conventions. "That was familiar, congenial to us; we're naturally attracted to subverting genre," says Joel. "We liked the fact that the bad guys never really meet the good guys, that McCarthy did not follow through on formula expectations."

Another area that attracted the Coens was the novel's intense sense of place. "The regional thing is strong for us, and this was not East Texas or South Texas, this was West Texas," says Ethan. The Coens and their regular cinematographer, Roger Deakins, shot key exteriors in that part of the state. "We turned over the idea of shooting exclusively in New Mexico, where there are great tax incentives, but Tommy Lee Jones, who comes out of that West Texas landscape, yelled at us that it would be a mistake," says Ethan. "So it wasn't all principle, it was partially browbeating."

Jones, who plays disillusioned Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, was the first person cast in the film. "It was an easy decision, but not an automatic one," says Ethan, and Joel elaborates: "You're sort of aware you don't want to be too much on the nose with casting, but it's not exactly like you'd read the book and think Tommy Lee embodied the character exactly. Tommy Lee brings acid to him that isn't in the book, and that was kind of interesting to us." Ethan adds, "We had a horror of sentimentality; we didn't want Grandpa Charlie Weaver."

The next to be cast was Javier Bardem, who plays the golem-like contract killer of mysterious ethnicity, Anton Chigurh. "We wanted somebody who could have come from Mars; we even shot the beginning of the film like 'The Man Who Fell to Earth,' " says Joel. Given that the story takes place in the Southwest, the Coens worried briefly that Bardem's Spanish ethnicity might make him too tied to place, but Bardem's gifts won them over.

But because "No Country" is what Joel calls "a three-headed monster," the Coens still needed to find the third lead, a local named Llewlyn Moss who takes the drug money. "Having cast these two guys," explains Ethan, "we didn't want to cut to 'Here's the dull guy.' We were like, 'Oh God, what are we going to do?' "

Fortunately, just before shooting started, the Coens found Josh Brolin as Llewlyn. The major surprise of the film, Brolin, who grew up on a ranch in Central California, easily holds his own with his costars, bringing the kind of grounded rural presence to the role the brothers considered essential. "We lucked out with the casting," says Ethan. No one who survives this disturbing, unsettling film will be in any mood to argue.

[I Don't Believe in Beatles]

There's a clip here.

Looks fantastic.

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this will be their Jackie Brown.

i can't wait

[MacGuffin]

Coens' Wild West thriller wows Cannes

A taut thriller with existential overtones set in the contemporary Wild West by Oscar-winning film-makers the Coen brothers is emerging as a favourite to snatch the Cannes filmfest's top prize.

"One of their very best films," raved film mag Variety as the movie premiered at the world's biggest film fest, which culminates May 27 with the awarding of the prestigious Palme d'Or trophy.

"No Country For Old Men", Variety added, is "a bloody classic of its type destined for acclaim."

The film, based on a novel by US Pulitzer-winner Cormac McCarthy, takes place in 1980 in the wild, desolate scrubland bordering the US-Mexico frontier, when drug-runners have taken over from cattle rustlers and violence sweeps small towns.

"Some say it's a Western, we saw it as a crime story," Joel Coen said at a press conference.

With corpses galore and rivers of blood -- not to mention a fearsome psychopathic killer whose favoured weapon is a deadly compressed-air device used to slaughter cattle -- the film shows the West more lawless, more violent than in the frontier days.

But the brothers, makers of the Oscar-winning feature "Fargo", as well as "Barton Fink" and "Raising Arizona", and in competition at Cannes for the eighth time, denied the film and its wry dialogue carried a political message on guns or violence.

"That's not the way we think about the films that we do," said Joel.

"We loved the book and wanted to be faithful to it," said Ethan, finishing, as always, his brother's sentences.

The movie centres on three characters: the sheriff, an upright moralistic man phased by the changing times; the killer, who is fundamentally, metaphysically bad; and a decent Vietnam vet whose life takes a twist when he stumbles onto a bag stuffed with two million dollars of drug money.

The latter, played by Josh Brolin (currently in the Tarantino-Rodriguez double feature "Grindhouse"), triggers a bloodbathed sequence of events when he walks away with the ill-gotten gains.

Oscar-winning Tommy Lee Jones ("The Fugitive", "Men In Black") plays the sheriff and Spanish actor Javier Bardem ("The Sea Inside"), wearing his hair in a horrendous long mane, plays the killer.

"Being here at Cannes and working with the Coens is more than I would ever have dreamed of. But did I enjoy my haircut? No!" said the Spaniard, whose character is Terminator-like in his implacable lethal effectiveness.

"The reason I have this look is because I don't speak English," he joked of his unnerving off-kilter gaze through the film.

Also starring is Scottish actress Kelly MacDonald of "Trainspotting" fame, who threw off her Glaswegian accent for a remarkably authentic Texan one.

Joel Coen said her nationality almost excluded her from the beginning.

"When they first mentioned her I said "No f... way!'" he said. But "when I heard her speak Texan I said 'How did you do that?'"

"No Country For Old Men" is one of 22 films vying for the Palme d'Or. It is to hit movie theatres around the world starting November, putting it in line as well for the 2008 US Academy Awards.

[JG]

i think that's really great.  bump it up a few spots on my 'most anticipated' list.