No Country for Old Men

• Applying an ICA

  • Political ICA when analysing NCFOM helps reveal the film's postmodern exploration of the changing nature of violence.
  • The political ICA encourages the spectator to question America’s neoconservative foreign policy in the post-9/11 era.
  • Applying a philosophical ICA is essential to fully appreciate the theme of free will vs. fate personified by the key characters.
• Applying an ICA

  • An auteur perspective provides a greater understanding of the Coen's exploration of nihilistic themes and their hybrid use of genre conventions.
  • A genre perspective provides the spectator with an opportunity to explore the Neo Wester and the Coen’s postmodern revisionist approach to genre.
• Louis Giannetti - Stages of Genre

  • Primitive (early stages of genre): Genre is developing - not much variation of style and content - a gradual style emerges
  • Classic: Films made when genre elements are firmly establish - recognisable range of codes and conventions
• Louis Giannetti - stages of genre pt 2

  • Revisionist: Films that 'play with' or subvert stereotypical genre elements - experimentation and exploring new ideas - unexpected differences
  • Parodic: Films that 'mock' the genre or make fun of genre elements - the genre has developed as far as it can - filmmakers start to make fun of the genre and use code to mock the genre for audience pleasure
• Revisionist Westerns

  • Purposeful subversion of the genre
  • Experimentation with codes and conventions
  • Exploration of new ideas
  • The creation of unexpected differences
  • The notions of right and wrong becoming blurred
• Neo-westerns

  • Characters searching for justice is a main theme in a Neo-western
  • Society has turned their back on the main characters of a Neo-western
  • Characters feel remorse for their actions - as opposed to normal westerns
  • There are also consequences for hero's actions in Neo-western that aren't seen in a western
• The ideological message of the film

  • Western genre plays wholly to a romanticised and often contradictory notion of the past, which cemented archetypes and an inlaid morality in the eyes of the spectator
  • It is this notion that NCFOM decides to upend
• Genre in NCFOM

  • The Coens constantly play with genre which encourages active spectatorship
  • Repetition: Archetypal characters: The Cowboy (Moss), The Sherriff (Bell), The Bounty Hunter (Wells)
  • Difference: the spectator is often surprised as the conventions of the Western are consistently challenged e.g. Chigur's captive bolt pistol (cattle gun), Moss and Chigur's shootout that happens halfway though the film and is inconclusive