Evil is a term widely used, but rarely definitively defined. It is by definition, bad, and undesirable. But beyond this, every person has a somewhat different perspective about what evil is and to how to define it. It is possible that some evil is inescapable and is simply a part of life. But there is a general consensus that there is a large portion of evil that is caused by humans. Beyond these very vague general ideas, one's exact definition of evil is a product of society, religion, upbringing, surroundings and even biology. Evil, in almost all of its forms, is something that is in no short supply in the film No Country for Old Men. The movie follows a relatively young Vietnam veteran, Llewelyn Moss who happens to find 2 million dollars in the middle of the West Texas desert.
[...] The evil seen in no country for old men is largely human evil. There are gangs, drugs and money, and the obvious outcome of all of this is death and destruction. We can see that many of the people who die could be said to have deserved it, or at least could have expected it considering their line of work. All of this can be neatly explained by Ray's reiteration of Augustine's writings on lesser goods versus greater goods. The characters in the movie get fixated on money, and not the greater good of god, or doing good in the world. [...]
[...] (No Country for Old Men) Bell admits that if anything but damage control is to be done, one would have to risk becoming the as heartless and unfeeling as the criminals. Here, any suffering that an individual goes through would be for the purpose of stopping crime, and would therefore be productive at least. Pinn conveys the same idea in his writing. The implication of Pinn saying that there is nothing good about suffering is not that people should give up and quit striving for a better world. [...]
[...] There are many aspects to No Country for Old Men that have not been mentioned at all here, but the central themes are covered: evil and the response to it. Ray and Pinn both offer unique and surprisingly complimentary insights to the evil seen in the movie; surprising because one is a Christian and one is a humanist, and also due to the fact that they were addressing completely different topics and audiences. Their ideas stand though, and work in well. [...]
[...] There is no shortage of this evil in the movie, and really in the world in general. As Sheriff Bell points out, all you have to do is open a paper and you will be confronted with the most outrageous and disturbing examples of human depravity and evil. The Sheriff sees this evil different than the evil of the past; he sees it as something new and disturbing. This is debatable, as his uncle points out later in the movie. [...]
[...] No Country for Old Men displays all three of these types of evil in a physical manifestation: Anton Chigurh. This character is a “psycho serial killer” (quote from a character), who is essentially unstoppable. The sheriff of Llewelyn's county, another somewhat central character, describes him as a ghost because of his ability to avoid capture and detection. The most that the police can do is clean up the mess that Chigurh leaves behind. There are only two points where Chigurh is seen as being at all vulnerable: when he is wounded by Llewelyn, and when he gets in a car accident where he breaks his arm. [...]
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