Money; No Country for Old Men

Today I would like to talk about a movie. "No Country for Old Men"

Well I was watching "No Country for Old Men" a week or two ago and it seemed that the Coen brothers were expressing their views on what money does to people which I completely agree with. If anyone else has seen the movie you'll probably remember the instances in which I am about to give.

Throughout the movie both the "good" guy and the "bad" guy pay their way through everything. To keep people quiet or to alert them of when someone might check in to the hotel. I paid no attention to it... Until the end. The second to last scene of the movie, the "bad" guy is involved in a car accident. It takes him a minute to recover before he gets out and stumbles to the sidewalk. Two boys on bicycles approach him. The boys asks him if he's alright and he responds with "How much for the shirt?" (This same type of question had been asked several times throughout the movie.) The boy tells him he'll give him the shirt for free. The "bad" guy takes the shirt and makes a sling. He then gives the boy the money. "You didn't see me. I left before you got to the car." He told the boys. They nodded and complied. Before the end of the scene the second boy says: "You know half that's mine right?" They then get into an arguement. The way the movie ends implies that the boys "shut their mouths" and lied to the cops because of a measley 100 dollars and the "bad" guy gets away.

Another scene like the one above happened with the "good" guy. After being injured by the "bad" guy he's walking down a street on the edge of the border when 3 men, probably in their early 20's, walk up. The "good" guy says: "I'll give you 500 for that jacket." Even though these guys can see he's injured they don't care about helping him unless he gives them the money first. After the exchange the "good" guy sees one of the guys holding a beer. "Give me the beer too." And of course the guy holding the beer says: "How much?" To me, this scene is far worse than the one above. A man injured and in need being harassed for money after giving them 500 dollars.

The entire movie was based around money. The "good" guy stumbled upon it and the "bad" guy hunts him so he can get a hold of it. As said before the "good" guy and the "bad" pay their way to, essentially, survive. The two boys made the picture clear to me. Money can control people and often does. Unfortunatley even kids can be bought off. The people that the "good" and "bad" guy ran into kept their "mouths shut" because they were paid a sum of money. The more and more I think about it, people tend to be controlled by money and the last example clearly show this.

The last example that was probably the least obvious but the most powerful. The "bad" guy stopped at a gas station in the movie. He spoke with the owner for a minute. (Really great scene just FYI.) Near the end the "bad" guy flips a coin and asks the owner to call it. Although it's not blatantly stated anywhere in the movie, you can tell that the "bad" guy is debating whether to kill the owner or not. Instead of deciding for himself he looks to the coin to answer his debate. If, whoever, called heads, and it was tails, I imagine the "bad" guy would kill the person. Thus the coin decided whether a person would live or die.

I understand that in this day and age everyone must have money to survive, but it's up to the individual person to decide if he controls his money or the money controls him.
Just thought I'd share.