Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
rockermike
Mountain climber
Berkeley
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2008 - 01:26am PT
|
Just saw another (evidently) related movie. The Seventh Seal (1957 Bergman). I'd heard about it my whole life but somehow never saw it. Great film, perhaps best in my life in very '50s, existentialist, heavy intellectual way. Death and meaning issues set against the backdrop of the plague. But anyway, the film prof that did the intro commentary said that the bad guy character in No Country for Old Men was a takeoff on Bergman's "death" character. He points out various parallels (flat facial expression; chess game in Bergman, flipping coin in No country, and others).
Now I'll have to watch No Country again to see if I can find a deeper story line. ha
|
|
Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2008 - 10:01am PT
|
Everybody says the same thing, "You don't need to do this."
|
|
wildone
climber
Where you want to be
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2008 - 12:35pm PT
|
Where'd you get tha pistol, Llewellyn?
-At the gettin' place.
or,
"That's all right, son. I laughed too. Sometimes there nothin' to do but laugh"
Since seeing No country, I've been on a Cormac fan.
I've read
The Road
Blood Meridian
The Orchard Keeper
All the pretty Horses
And I'm reading the Crossing right now.
I thought The Orchard Keeper was some pretty goddamned powerful stuff. I'm really glad that I came upon Cormac at this time. If I'd been alive in the mid sixties, when he debuted as a writer with The Orchard Keeper, I'd have been pretty pissed to have to wait 40 years for 9 more books. Or I'd appreciate them more, maybe.
In any case, he's one hell of a writer. I'd make the comparison to Melville and Faulkner, but it's already been done. Besides, I think the only Faulkner work that holds any water in this comparison is the Sound and the Fury, and for Melville, well, Moby Dick. Aside from "The Road", I haven't read a McCarthy that didn't seem to "fit", and even in the aforementioned book, I still enjoyed it immensely in all it's confounding complexity. Well, enjoyed it as much as I could enjoy any book about post apocalyptic starvation and cannibalism, etc. And I really appreciate how, in the border trilogy, there will sometimes be whole pages of primarily spanish dialogue. And not text-book spanish either. Real, slang ridden, colloquial-ridden spanish like my grandfather speaks. A counterpart to the "fixin-to" and "reckon", and "kindly" southern english you would be hard-pressed to find in a english-spanish dictionary.
Blood Meridian. Holy jesus. When they were on the run from the apache marauders, out of gunpowder on worn-out horses, and they went up to the smoking caldera, and under the advancing killers, had the wherewithal to make gunpowder...whoa. And I was right there with that gunsmith who refused to saw off that beautiful, priceless english double barrel. I'd have wanted to shoot that heathen for asking me to.
The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking of a book my dad had me read when I was kid called, "The Travels of Jaime McPheeters", a pulitzer-prize winner from '58 by Robert Lewis Taylor. Not so much in similarity of brutality of subject, but more in similarity of breadth of scope and commentary on humanity. And skill as a wordsmith. Like Twain.
Soon, I'll have read all of Cormac's works, and then what?
Anybody have some favorites I should check out? I don't care what genre or style so much as the fact that they have talent and aren't full of sh#t.
|
|
wildone
climber
Where you want to be
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2008 - 05:55pm PT
|
Little known fact: Tommy Lee Jones owns the movie rights to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian!
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 01:05am PT
|
just saw the video tonight... very dark... good movie but not one I'm likely to watch again and again.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 01:07am PT
|
I believe "The Road" will be coming out sometime in the next few months. It will be interesting, but bleak.
|
|
Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 04:31am PT
|
Right up there with Slingblade. Bardem is as good as it gets. He has an incredible face.
|
|
noshoesnoshirt
climber
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 08:48am PT
|
"The most important lesson is: if you steal $2mil from a herion dealer in the desert, don't go back to give the dying mexican water! "
I thought about this. The conclusion I came to was that it actually helped him. If he hadn't taken water to the Mexican, he wouldn't have been chased and wouldn't have left his home pronto. Meanwhile the crazy shotgun guy was homing in on the beacon.
So the water delivery trip helped him in the short? long? run. Either way he dead dude.
So as far as Coen bros. movies go, any comments on Miller's Crossing?
Sweet! My North Carolina Wren is working on her nest on my porch as I type.
|
|
wildone
climber
GHOST TOWN
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 11:27am PT
|
So-anybody read my comment five posts above? Anyone have any suggestions as to a competent writer (knows his subject matter) who doesn't shy away from ripping your heart out? I've exhausted McCarthy's bibliography (loved the play "The Stonemason").
I've already read all the published works of Faulkner, Hemmingway, Kafka, etc, ad nauseum. I want someone like Cormac!
|
|
Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 12:04pm PT
|
My first exposure to McCarthy a few years ago was listening to 'The Road' driving to Chicago. My wife told me he had a reputation as a great writer. I thought it was unimaginative and mechanical, devoid of any art. I spent the last 200 miles guessing which new sort of depravity would show up in the next stop along the road.
When 'No Country for Old Men' came out I watched it and thought it was well made, with a few interesting story bits such as the role of the coin tossing and Lewelling's ultimate betrayal of his wife. But the story was muddled in making me care about the old men that had lost their country.
Sometime later I had a discussion with a young PhD of literature who commented that some details of the movie were much better put together than the novel. She also mentioned that Harold Bloom thought 'Blood Meridian' was the best American novel since 'Moby Dick.' With those observations I read 'Blood Meridian' and then 'No Country for Old Men.' 'Blood Meridian' is very good in every respect-just hard to read. It helped me to know that it was based on actual events in 1848-50 with the Glanton gang. I ended up reading several books of critical essays on the novel.
I also found it very interesting that the Coen brothers had improved the story telling of 'No Country for Old Men' in several unexpected ways-the coin tossing theme, leaving out 'sugar's' I-need-a-job scene, and 'sugar' inspecting his boots on the porch, in addition to the normal economizing. There was still no resonance with the old man theme, and after reading 'Blood Meridian' I can believe that McCarthy was only interested in the evil side of the story anyway.
I intend to read McCarthy's earlier novels, but with 'No Country for Old Men' and 'The Road' he seems more interested in writing for the movies.
|
|
maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 05:58pm PT
|
Hey wildone,
Read Stegner if you haven't. More of historical novels than fiction but extremely good.
Also, I think James Galvin is one of the most under-rated western writers around. Start with The Meadow and then read the sequel, Fencing The Sky. They are part natural history, part local history and part adventure story and I keep coming back to them. Maybe it's because I spent so much time up on the CO/WY border but i feel like I know the characters. Galvan is a much gentler writer than McCarthy but he nails the moods, the weather, the dialog and the cadence just as well as McCarthy does.
I just read Dick Dorworth's "Night Rider", or perhaps I should say, re-read because most of it was in past editions of the Mountain Gazette. Wonderful, eloquent and powerful storytelling from one of us. I remember when I first read "Coyote Song" in the late seventies I laughed so hard while reading the last page that I had to get a drink. When I read it again a few months ago, I laughed so hard, again, that I needed vodka, again.
Enjoy,
Mal
|
|
Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2008 - 06:06pm PT
|
wildone, the books of Halldor Laxness are well worth reading. Many have recently been re-published. Generally about Iceland, with strong elements of history and natural history, and interesting characters. Independent People may be the best - he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for it. Iceland's Bell is also good. Somewhat black humour, but extremely well done.
Laxness died about ten years ago, but some of the things he says have considerable relevance to what has happened recently in Iceland.
|
|
wildone
climber
GHOST TOWN
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2008 - 10:48am PT
|
Thanks so much guys. That may keep me busy for a few weeks.
Stegner I've read. He and E.O. Wilson are in a class to themselves.
|
|
Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2008 - 11:15am PT
|
Best novel I've read lately, not at all in a western vein, was The Terror, Dan Simmons' scary, complex fictionalization of what happened to the Franklin Expedition.
|
|
Redwreck
Social climber
Los Angeles, CA
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2008 - 12:54pm PT
|
The Terror is an amazing book. Simmons is a fantastic writer. If you're into science fiction, I can't recommend his Hyperion series highly enough.
|
|
Dr. Rock
Ice climber
http://tinyurl.com/4oa5br
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2008 - 01:01pm PT
|
The part where he pulls the guy over and tells him to stand still "why I punch a hole in your forehead" part was a little bit un believeable, I mean who who just stand there, doh, and take that?
I guess Josh is a rel nice guy, he was crying on the shoulder of his co partner everynight, "I don't think the Coen Bros like my performance today" sensitive guy in real life.
I kept getting distracted by the cow puncher thing, I have wanted a Beaman recoiless air rifle for ages, they run on a compressed mini tank that you fill off a scuba bottle.
No spring, no piston, so no hold sensitivity.
If you put most air riffles in a vice, they will shoot four inches low.
That is how much the rifle moves when you shoot it due to all the shifting metal.
Feinwerkbau 124, now thats a rifle.
Give it a Macari tune and a Tarantula spring you are dead eye dick.
|
|
UncleDoug
Social climber
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2008 - 01:39pm PT
|
"The part where he pulls the guy over and tells him to stand still "why I punch a hole in your forehead" part was a little bit un believeable, I mean who who just stand there, doh, and take that? "
If the movie were set in the present day I'd agree.
I think that scene adds to the character Tommy Le Jones plays and the position his character holds in the movie.
Remember this movie is set in the early 80's.
Tommy Le jones is a sheriff from another time.
A time when people where more trusting and naive compared to todays standards.
It's funny to talk about situations like this in a way that seems to hold them as special. Even though the same thing has been characterized by every generation as it passes along in time. Every generation is different than the previous. And change is usually viewed as bad. Just like it is viewed in the movie by TLJ's character..
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!