The year 2007 was a great year for American cinema thanks to two instant classics; both of them stark and intense examinations of the darker side of the soul. The first was Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood; a colossal film which featured a towering performance from Daniel Day-Lewis. The second of these was the twelfth film directed by the Coen Brothers, and the haunting chimera that is No Country for Old Men is their finest achievement on many levels. The meeting between writer Cormac McCarthy and filmmakers the Coens is perfect. McCarthy, who is nothing short of the greatest living American author, frequently toys with the US-Mexico borderlands in his novels; the most notable examples being the aptly-named Border Trilogy and his 1985 masterpiece Blood Meridian. If I haven't given myself away as a massive McCarthy fan, I'll confirm that now, but out of ten novels even I admit No Country for Old Men may be the weakest one. McCarthy actually wrote it as a screenplay first, before transforming it into a novel where it sort of languished on shelves as readers picked up his decidedly more popular book The Road. Then the Coens got ahold of it. The Brothers even said that it took two of them to write the script for No Country for Old Men because one of them had to hold the book open - that's how perfectly McCarthy's conversations fit into a Coen film, themselves being connoisseurs of film dialogue. Thematically too, both McCarthy and the Coens seem obsessed with what makes America America, and this kinship is momentous enough that when Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) crosses the border into Mexico, it's the only time a character in a Coen Brothers movie ever sets foot outside of the United States. McCarthy aside, the Brothers are in full control here. The acting is masterful from Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones, and especially from Javier Bardem whose Anton Chigurh is the greatest film villain since Hannibal Lecter - but the Coens manage so much with so little throughout the film. The shot of the peanut wrapper unfolding itself on the countertop, like that of the spinning shower curtain rings from Fargo, is a shot that no other director would be bold enough to include. The ending of No Country has been the cause of much controversy, which is in truth another point in favour of the film. Any movie can stir up conversation, but this is a conversation that lasts to this day. No Country for Old Men will continue to do that, and Fargo, Barton Fink and A Serious Man will too, as whatever the Coens do next will almost certainly start a new conversation too. What are your favourite Coen Brothers films? With so many great films to choose from, a case could be made for most of them to fall at number one. Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below.
