I started reading the script while watching the film last night - about half way through so I'll watch/read the rest today. The first thing that struck me was how fluid the writing was. Just about everything on the page is on the screen - which is probably to be expected as the Coens directed it as well. Much has been made about the ending of this film and how it left people confused and irritated - I found it somewhat odd until I actually started to analyze the film about 8 months or so ago. Since then, I've had a greater appreciation of it (though it was fairly high to begin with... just that ending, but - everything one needs to know is right there in the very beginning in Sheriff Bell's opening narration.) This is one of those stories where separating the protagonist from the main character helps to give the film a much more complex feel - not to mention add meaning to the ending (which I now think is absolutely brilliant). Without getting into characters too much at this point, I'll simply say I see the protagonist here as Moss. He's the one who's driving the story forward. But an argument could be made for Sheriff Bell, too - except he's not really part of the story for the first half hour or so. This would be where I see the protagonist function as providing direction to the story - Moss certainly does this in his attempts to stay one foot ahead of Chigur. But the main character - when separated from the protagonist function - provides perspective, and that's exactly what we get with Sheriff Bell. He's the moral compass we view the telling of the story through. He's the authority figure standing above it all, trying to make sense of what's happening. When we get to the story's end, we only have Sheriff Bell left - Chigurh, the menacing metaphor for the inevitable change of times which cannot be stopped has continued on, much like time does. Much of the criticism of the ending stems from the lack of resolution. This is where I think it's absolutely brilliant - because there is no real resolution for Sheriff Bell. He's retired, no longer wishing to be a part of a world that has changed so violently and to which he no longer understands. For him, it has become no country for old men - and as he sits there, reminiscing and ruminating over days gone by and the events of the story, he can't make heads or tails of it all and because we identify with him, we feel that same sense of non-closure... we just don't get it because the main character doesn't get it either. One last bit - I've read in numerous other blogs some people's disappointment that we're invested in Moss's journey for the majority of the movie, but then he dies off-screen. I contend that this is another example of the power of perspective: had we experienced Moss's death in the first person, we would have been robbed of the psychological journey the discovery takes Sheriff Bell on. We don't see Moss's death - but we see the discovery of it, the aftermath, through Sheriff Bell's eyes and it's one of the very few instances in the entire movie where non-diagetic sound was added for emotional resonance.

1. Loved it. 2. No one arcs. It seems that some say that Kelly Macdonald's character, Carla Jean - that she arcs. That at the end, she accepts her fate. But it seems to me that she was always that way - accepting things, knowing she can't change them. For example, on page 81, in a scene between Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and her: BELL These people will kill him, Carla Jean. They won't quit. CARLA JEAN He won't neither. He never has. I'm certainly willing to be shown wrong about this. I'd even like to be shown wrong. But, not in a retrospective way - i.e., not as in, "This is a great drama; characters arc in every great drama; therefore, the characters here must arc... so now let's find [make up] these arcs."

I thought having the killing/dying off-screen was fine, but - It looked/felt like a jump-cut; as if it had been edited for TV. It wasn't even clear to me at first that Moss had died. I thought maybe he had disappeared/escaped. Took me out of the story, which (in spite of the popularity of that expression of disapproval) I rarely say.

It has been some time since I watched “No Country for Old Men.” The fascinating thing is that as soon as I started to read the script, I was instantly transported to the described scenes and actually viewed the film in my head as I read. The Coen brothers have a great voice. As filmmakers, they have license to be very specific with camera directions in SD’s - something I assiduously avoid in my writing. This tends to be a slight distraction in reading but I understand it is a much shorter step in the collaborative process when writer and director are the same. This distraction aside, the script is a joy to read. I’m not a huge fan of McCarthy and have only read a couple of his books. A constant in the books of his that I have read is the process of justice and violence as a matter of perspective. IMHO the Coen brothers masterfully captured this in the script and in the film. The American West is the perfect canvas for McCarthy and the Coen brothers to explore the concept of change, violence, justice and choice as their are few places in history where justice and violence are so commingled. What strikes me most in the script and story is the theme of violence and justice forming a force or character with its own inertia. As ELLIS puts it: ELLIS ... This country is hard on people. Hard and crazy. Got the devil in it yet folks never seem to hold it to account... You can’t stop what’s comin. Change, violence, justice and choice as matters of perspective. Cheers, Wes...

A wonderful script, but I think you wouldn't get away with that kind of writing in a spec - so much dense description in places. But so atmospheric. And not afraid of silence, of pauses, of allowing the characters to think and feel and digest all the things they're unable to express.

Just finished watching it while reading the script and noticed two things: a) The ending was different in the script - a dramatization of what Sheriff Bell was discussing whereas the movie continued with his conversation and b) something very noticeable in the last few minutes... something that is echoed in Sheriff Bell's dialogue here and plays an important role thematically to the story. Anybody catch what it was? It's pretty subtle, yet deliberate.

I read the script yesterday and found it to exude just what the film was. Undoubtedly it is well written even though it doesn't follow script format as we're used too. Their narrative voice seemed so effortless as scenes seamlessly flowed from one to the next and that was what struck me about the way the script was written. The narration that starts the script is much different than what it eventually became on screen. Though it is in the dialogue, when you actually see the movie in the set-up and listen Sheriff Bell give his account of the region, I must say the superb acting and dialect are what truly immerse you into the mood and style of the film. Now as I read and watched the film, I think I've concluded that the real protagonist here is Sheriff Bell, I mean that's what the title is all about and the story is a telling of how sinister life has become for him since the days of his youth and ancestors. The Coens show us why for Sheriff Bell it is not a country for old men. Moss and Chirguh, from Bell's perspective (which I find to be the perspective that the movie unfolds) are those youths in their prime, trying to carve out their existence as they each see fit, namely with merciless violence. Moss and Chirguh are by products of the kind of society Bell's career can't out run or outsmart anymore, in effect, cannot stop (like he's told) because of the degree of violence perpetrated in society. And the script narrative voice establishes this at the get-go of the film when we see Chirguh kill the officer and continue the rampage. The ending completely emphasizes how immorality is exactly the thing Bell cannot stop, as it has been on rise in his parts and will only continue, with or without him in the force. when we know that both Moss and Carla Jean have been killed off by Chirguh, it just proves the point in case as Chirguh remains at large as a psychopath killer. Scary, but true and the Coens make a great case for it with this film, leveraging on contemporary audience zeitgiest and indirectly perhaps posing the question to the audience to ask, what are we going to do the rise of immorality, if anything can be done to stop it?

I think you guys should really read the book for NCFOM. The Coen Brothers really did little in terms of the adaptation and they even said so. The 'narrative voice' actually belongs to Mr. McCarthy, who stated that the book started as a screenplay that no one wanted to make. So in essence, the Coens wonderfully translated visually a master work of literature. Kudos to all.

My sequence has been: saw the movie, read the book, and now am reading the script, comparing it with the book. I'm a bit over 1/2 way done. I agree with Blue Night that the script is fairly faithful to the book, with only minor differences from the chronology. The tone of the script very carefully matches the book and there are very few really new lines of dialog. I am a big McCarthy fan and IMHO both the book and script are excellent. I loved TBBB's comments. My humble, and quite possibly wrong, opinion, is that Bell is the protagonist.Suppose I were to tell you a story of a meteorologist, a tornado hunter, who when around recording data on storms and taking video and wind measurements, etc. Dangerous work. He has close scrapes in his career but survives and retires. Who would be the protagonist? The tornado? No, the scientist would. Bell is that scientist. Moss and Chiguh are his storms. They are forces of nature; greed and retribution are their names.