NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Sometimes a story ends without warning. Should we be warned?

All Images © Paramount Pictures

You can say a lot about the Coen Brothers as filmmakers, but you can't say they don't know what they're doing. They're master story-tellers and playing with expectation, form, genre and metaphor is what they love to do.

So for No Country For Old Men, as well the hero being killed off-camera and the bad guy getting away, the Coens ended the film with a quiet domestic scene that seemed like it it wasn't the end.

But it was - and a lot of people I know were very frustrated by it.

They just hadn't been listening that carefully to Tommy Lee Jones' character recalling his dreams. Had they just missed the entire point of the film in those last few seconds of what they thought was the quiet scene before the real cathartic denouement?

So why weren't they listening?

Today's film audiences are incredibly sophisticated, the amount of information and understanding that they can take in and process moment to moment is evidence of the rich visual and aural culture surrounding us. But culture isn't random, it's full of convention and non-written understandings about the whats and whys and therefores of our daily lives. Fictional narrative relies heavily on convention. Take conventions away and we can get lost because we don't know, or rather feel, what's about to come next.

Let's look at what conventions No Country For Old Men's ending didn't follow and then look at how things might have been...

Here's the original ending of the movie. When I say ending, I mean the last three scenes that constitute the ending. You'll see why we need all three in a moment.

Can you think of why this ending was a surprise?

Here's what I think the Coen brothers deliberately ignored from classic closing minute conventions:

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Accelerate the Tempo of the Scenes

Increasing the cuts per minute suggests a rise in tension, drama, conflict and can help deliver plot resolution in a more compressed time frame.

Cross-cutting

Jumping between between parallel sub plots and characters in spatially distinct situations / locations. The perspective of the story shifts from coal-face to mountainscape.

Change the Role of the Score

Push or add music to the "foreground" of the experience rather its more traditional place of supporting or being "set-back" from the visuals and performance(s).

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So can you guess what I'm about to do? Yes, placing myself in the role of the "studio-who-knows-best", I have ordered a recut of the ending to put back all those very necessary conventions.

Look what we get:

Did you now feel the ending coming? Had this been the end of the film would you have listened more carefully to the retired sherrif recollect his dreams?

This is not in any way a better piece of editing on my part. It's a hugely conservative and conventional way to edit a narrative that feels comfortable.

What's changed in the re-edit?

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Conversation Becomes Narration

Jones' recollections transform from a conversation to an overview.

Images Become Metaphorical

Unrelated images and words are presented together suggesting metaphor and simile:

Boys on bikes / men on horses

The killer limping into the distance / the father going on ahead

The Car Crash is Less of A Surprise

The music's sudden quiet is a well-tread cue for impending shock.

Humour is Absent

The boy's matter-of-fact descriptions of Bardem's injuries are jesttisoned along with the laughs they provide. This is an issue with Jones' recollection continuing to make sense without large gaps of alternative dialogue interupting its flow in the edit rather than a desire to keep a consistent tone.

There's a Closing Shot

Well almost. Bardem's killer walking into the distance feels like the end of the film. But we have to go back to Jones for his final line and reaction.

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Can you think of other endings you never saw coming? And if so were you infuriated or, on reflection, felt that they were inevitable, beliviable or true to what had gone before?

Do you like to be warned?