In the work "No Country for Old Men", the Coen brothers pushed their stylization to the extreme, with reckless and atmospheric camera movements, sharp and crisp editing, weird and wonderful atmosphere, and unexpected black humor, which can be said to be a masterpiece of production, the whole film does not have almost no soundtrack, but sharply magnifies the empty background of the West, and the sound effects of gunshots, wheels, breezes, and footsteps create a psychological projection of oppressive and dull but terrifying and terrifying, which is amazing. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

While the Coen Brothers have produced many acclaimed films, why is "No Country for Old Men" called the pinnacle? It is not because this work won the Oscar for Best Picture that people realize the excellence of this work, but it should be reversed, the excellence and excellence of this work shine brightly, and the Golden Man trophy is just one of the footnotes.

"No Country for Old Men" caused an uproar among the academy judges, but for many Chinese/Chinese audiences, it seemed that they could not understand the connotation and height of the film. The main reason is that the Coen brothers, the style of the brothers has a strong western style, which is unique to the United States, what they are best at is to dig out the vast loneliness, lofty loneliness, and narrow-minded evil of the western region, this unique temperament is impossible for others to imitate, and at the same time for many people to understand.

The reason why "No Country for Old Men" is called a classic is not because of the distinctive style of "Ice Storm", but because the whole movie reveals a kind of despair, a deep despair of human nature.

In modern society, the warmth and kindness of human nature seem to be disappearing, and greedy desires/desires, cold indifference, and vague morality quietly kill all hope. This is similar to Lance's crime trilogy, except that the Coen brothers are more cruel than Lance, every time the audience has a moment of beautiful hallucinations, they directly kill this hope, and they are decisive, that kind of loss and dazedness, hidden in the seemingly random and idle shots of the movie, and even reveals their ambiguous/ambiguous attitude towards the government/government, the system, and even justice, and the carnival that breaks free from the fetters faintly reveals the wanton and uninhibited dance of the demons in the era of no government/government. All of this fits perfectly with the title of the movie, "Old and Helpless", the disappointment of giving up resistance, the kind of boring casualness, and the cold and biting despair, which makes the whole movie put into a gray temperament.

In this regard, "No Country for Old Men" is one step closer than the crime trilogy, and the Coen brothers infiltrate their rebellion and frustration with the government/government in their bones, and it can even be said to be satirical. This is something that Lance has not been able to excavate.

The three main characters in "No Country for Old Men" represent three different groups of people, conveying their position and situation in society.

Hunter, he is a follower of social laws, but he is on the verge of breaking taboos, knows how to use some loopholes for his own welfare, and always has some greedy and cheap thoughts in his heart, maybe occasionally makes some small mistakes, but has never really broken the shackles of the law, and is always a law-abiding citizen. So, when he found the corpse of the gang and the sea / lo / in which he was worth up to two million dollars, greed took over, and he took the poison away, but then he couldn't stand the torture of his conscience and chose to go back to save people, but he handled it too clumsy to get into trouble. If he had insisted on the indifferent choice that he had ignored at first, then perhaps there would have been no such terrible encounters in the future; But he was unwilling to rely on the burden of the system, and chose to deal with it alone and difficult.

This is the general status quo of society, once resisted, after all, they gave up, but they still have a trace of goodwill, adhere to the brilliance of human nature, and move forward in faltering, but many times, even they themselves do not know what they are holding onto, what they are insisting on, and how long they can hold on. The last glimmer of humanity is getting fainter and fainter.

Killer, he is a rebel who wanders outside the law, defying all the rules and shackles, challenging all the bottom line of the rules, he doesn't even have a soul, there is a detailed description of him dealing with his own wounds in the movie, it can be seen that even to himself, he has no mercy. He has no concept of law, no concept of government, not even a concept of morality, but simply acts by instinct, like God, easily deciding the life and death of others, without regard for chain reactions and without fear of after-effects, and destroys all "normal" social relations on a rampage.

This is another general state of society, the social saboteurs, who do whatever it takes to achieve their ends for profit, or for selfishness, or for no reason, even if the world collapses, they don't care. But the irony is that in order to maintain a semblance of stability, society even needs to respect them, so much so that they are embarrassed and cover the sky with one hand. Under the calm of the surface of the waves, it has begun to rot. This rebel who disrupts the order but takes control of the higher order is tearing society apart.

Police/Detective, he is the outcaster of the laws of society, he once tried to follow the shackles of the law and become the guardian of justice, but the cruel reality has hit his efforts again and again, again and again, the society is changing too fast, the decline of human nature and the law makes him sigh that the people are not ancient, just relying on his own strength, but can not shake the whole society, the powerlessness of losing control makes him depressed, and finally chooses to give up. It's hard to tell whether he abandoned the law or the law abandoned him.

This is another common situation in society, the social outcasts, who are nostalgic for the good old days when they did not close their homes and roads for decades, but the reality has severely discouraged them and extinguished all hopes, so they begin to gradually become numb and indifferent.

If Lance's crime trilogy explores the "social process", presenting the process of extinguishing hope step by step, then "No Country for Old Men" explores the "social status quo", the kind of despair that penetrates deep into the bone marrow little by little, making people shudder, and even seeing no possibility of change.

At the end of the movie, all three characters leave in different ways, allowing this evil to disappear unconsciously, and this abrupt and unknown ending truly crushes people's residual illusions about justice, and the collapse of faith is full of powerlessness. What's even more terrifying is, is this the future of society? Everyone began to slowly give up, admit their mediocrity, accept the darkness of society, hide in the corner, and spend the rest of their lives quietly, only to find that they are already alone and have no one to rely on.

It is no exaggeration to say that "No Country for Old Men" takes the sense of powerlessness and confusion of the real society to the extreme, unlike the crime trilogy, they do not discuss the problem, do not try to find solutions, and even have no intention of criticizing, but just calmly and indifferently state the fact that this society is dead.

From this point of view, "No Country for Old Men" is indeed better than Lance's crime trilogy, because Lance's crime trilogy is relatively limited, about a certain aspect of society, from the small to the big; "No One for the Elderly" intercepts three different groups representing different levels of society, puts them in a special criminal case, and digs deeper.

For Lance, playing "No Country for Old Men" will undoubtedly be a special experience, not only because he will work with the Coen brothers purely as an actor, but also the understanding of the film and the interpretation of the role will inevitably collide during the filming process, which will also have a promoting effect on Lance's directorial perspective; And because the role of the killer is full of challenges, it is much more difficult than Jeff in "Hard Candy".

At the beginning, Lance chose to play Jeff in person, because this role inspired Lance a lot, and his desire to perform was completely released, so what about the killer Anton? If he were to play Anton, how would he perform? Compared to Javier Baden in the previous life, will he be able to surpass the breakthrough?

It was an interesting thing to do, and Lance couldn't help but start to paint it in his head.

This is a contradictory character, he has almost no expressions, completely paralyzed, but at the same time there is a strong tension surging in him, and it can be said that the tension of the whole movie comes from Anton. When people saw him for the first time, a kind of crazy chaos and madness erupted from the expressionless zombie face, and this terrifying temperament almost froze everyone's breath. This powerful aura of soul crushing has become the most important footnote of the whole movie.

Lance found that there were too many thoughts in his mind, complicated and chaotic, which meant that his performance would be very rich, even if his face was expressionless, the aura revealed by his eyes and movements would also affect people's impressions, but as Lance discussed with the Coen brothers last night, Anton should be a god character above humans, there are no superfluous thoughts in his mind, only a single line of decisiveness, the coldness brought by this paranoia can often bring condescending detachment, which seems to be real, But the feeling is illusory, creating a kind of alienation from reality.

That's a paradox, isn't it?

An actor can't have a blank brain, he has to think about lines, think about positioning, think about the camera, think about the performance, even if he enters the state of selflessness, his mind can't really be completely empty; But this performance requires this cluttered obsession, in addition to killing and killing, in addition to performing tasks, he seems to be a robot, executed exactly according to the program, these actions can lead to death, these actions can be spared - the object is not good or bad, men and women, but behaviors that meet standards and behaviors that violate standards.

Only when this powerful aura really bursts out from the inside out can the character be interpreted completely.

Lance couldn't help but start boiling again, and the imminent desire to perform and the dream of being an actor kept shouting: Promise down, promise down. (To be continued.) )