The Coens joked that in adapting the book, one of them would read aloud while the other typed up the screenplay. In truth they made some nips and tucks, changed Carla Jean's character slightly when she refuses to play along with Chigurh's game, and reduced the role of Sheriff Bell, who is arguably the overall protagonist of the book.
Cormac McCarthy in *The Wall Street Journal*:
“I was at the Academy Awards with the Coens. They had a table full of awards before the evening was over, sitting there like beer cans. One of the first awards that they got was for best screenplay, and Ethan came back and he said to me, ‘Well, I didn’t do anything, but I’m keeping it.'”
Which was obviously a sarcastic joke. Transferring a 320 page novel into a script to make the story work on a big screen in 120 minutes while staying true to the original story is no small feat. That’s what the award is for, not for coming up with the story itself.
they largely 86’ed llewelyn’s teenage distraction near the end (of his life) as well, which in the book really drove home how much of a dumbass he was. it was a little more understated in the movie.
I know beyond Bell you don’t really get a sense of what’s going through the head of the characters in NCFOM but damn I really wish there was a little explanation of why Moss decided to pick up and chill with a teenage runaway while being on the run himself from a psycho killer and a Mexican cartel. He has moments of cleverness and having a sense of danger, but then just seems to get completely sidetracked and distracted on his last day.
I figured it was that he has become more impulsive and reckless over the course of the book.
Either he got cocky that he'd made it this far and having all that money and freedom was too much temptation for him. Or he realised he was never gonna see his wife again or that he was gonna die and wanted to live a little.
He's still clever but that doesn't make him immune to stupidity.
Thats what great about McCarthy. You are not watching a pre written character who follows a template, you are watching a mans life unfold one thing after another.
The line for line dialogue was what really blew me away. To be able to have scenes in the movie transport me back to where I was while reading the book because the scenes were so faithful was really cool.
I thought the movie was better than the book. Wondering if anyone else felt the same.
I will say, though, I'm not a big Cormac McCarthy fan--I know, sacrilege.
I finally read the book this year (latecomer to McCarthy) after having seen the movie several times over the years. It was hard to tell which came first, the book or the movie! They did such a great job with casting, and adapting the text to a script.
I agree, best adaptation ever.
-oo-
Off the top of my head there are a few scenes missing that weren't insignificant
Llewelyn picking up and befriending a teenage girl hitchhiker, sheriff bell talking about his experiences in ww2, Bell meeting Llewelyn's father, bell talking to the boys who were at the scene of Chigurh's car crash.
Well worth reading the book if you've only watched the movie.
I personally have a slightly darker interpretation of Moss’s relationship with the hitchhiker he picks up. Remember he met his wife when she was… well young, and he wasn’t. He has a thing for younger women/ a thing for women who rely on him for protection. I personally took it as he’s mulling over taking the money and running, and taking this girl with him. Which changes A LOT about the story after that. Chugar tells his wife that Moss betrayed her, and she denies it. In the movie she appears to be right, the stand in for the teen age hitchhiker is the women sitting by the pool offering him a few beers, which he considers but refuses. In the book it’s more ambiguous.
I think the scenes imply the same thing, that Moss is considering his options, but that the way it happens in the book would be a little too fraught for film audiences, who would assume the worst/ label Moss as a bad guy. McCarthy had a dedicated audience by that point who could understand that even if part of his motivation to help that girl was that she was young and attractive, that maybe he wouldn’t have picked up a guy that age under the same circumstances, that doesn’t mean that he’s planning to abandon his old life, or even that he wants to get a little side action with this girl (that’s the interpretation I take though, that he wouldn’t force himself on her or demand something in return for his help, but that he wouldn’t say no either, if she offered.) I think that was a little too complicated for a wider audience.
Yup. I found the Llewellyn/hitchhiker scenes wonderfully morally grey.
>Remember he met his wife when she was… well young, and he wasn’t
YES!
I'm not sure I thought about him running off with the girl (I'm a bit naive). But I did think that Llewellyn really got a kick out of the girl hanging on his every word and accentuated how much of a bad ass and outlaw he was to impress her. He was getting off on it. He was at the very least toying with the idea of having some sort if affair with her. Of course there are more innocent aspects to picking her up. He was lonely and also wanted someone to help with the driving.
Llewellyn suddenly becomes a lot more complex and morally ambiguous in the novel than in the movie.
Nah, I really don’t get any interpretation of Moss trying to run away with the hitchhiker girl.
In fact, it’s another example of how his dumb nobility while living an outlaw life gets him killed. Same way he gets caught bringing water to the wounded Mexican in the desert, he gets killed when they drag the girl out of her room at gunpoint and Moss lowers his own weapons. He bought a TEC-9 and drove to El Paso, he’s looking for a fight, not to cut and run with some random girl (if that was his plan he could have disappeared into Mexico as soon as he got out of the hospital and blown it all in on hookers and booze like he joked with Wells).
This is after he deliberately bought two rooms for them to ensure she doesn’t get any wrong ideas, and he gently mocks her and turns her down when she makes advances at him (she asks if he’s “queer” for wanting separate rooms, tries to convince him to her room and he declines multiple times). If he got one room for them he would probably have had a fighting chance or even won.
Every interaction he has with the girl is trying to warn her about the dangers of the life she’s living, he gives her money and tells her there’s no strings attached when she asks about it, then says he’s going to drop her at a bus stop in El Paso to ride to California safely. I genuinely believe Llewelyn only has good intentions.
In the same way McCarthy is trying to say it’s no country for old men like Bell, he also means men like Moss, “old men” in the sense of old-fashioned men who try to preserve a sense of chivalry in the face of soulless men like Chigurh and the cartels, and how that code of honor dooms them to death when they expose themselves.
Where I think your darker interpretation has substance is that this is what we’re supposed to see as the shadow that haunts Llewelyn’s legacy. He thinks he’s going to be the heroic outlaw who helps this young girl safely get to California, kills Chigurh, then gets his wife and rides off into the sunset. Instead he gets killed and Carla Jean dies believing he had the chance to save her but chose to run off with a younger girl instead (all heroic intentions but in the end looks like a villain to everyone but the reader).
>I personally have a slightly darker interpretation of Moss’s relationship with the hitchhiker he picks up.
>
> Nah, I really don’t get any interpretation of Moss trying to run away with the hitchhiker girl.
These are both solid takes from two people with a firm grasp of the source material. This is the sort of dialog that keeps me sifting through minutiae.
Cheers to you both.
THANK YOU! I had the same interpretation and was beginning to think I’d gone mad reading these other comments. I thought maybe I was missing something or misremembering but this is how I perceived it initially too. That Llewellyn was always doomed because he did “the right thing” at really bad times. It’s like he wanted to be a cowboy movie hero and was too naive or stubborn to abandon those little nagging opportunities to be the hero even when it would have terrible consequences
yep. moss was the bad guy, not chigur bad, but a capable man handicapped by his character flaws. that’s a huge point of the story that i think the movie made subtle to the point of missing entirely. that’s why people were confused when he dies “early”. he’s not the main character, he’s a false hero. still a great movie, but the bits they cut add great depth to the super.
I saw the movie first (years ago) and a friend recommended I read the book too. Picked it up and the way Cormac writes took a little to get use to but damn did he end up sucking me in - I couldn't put it down.
Ww2.
Going by memory, there was an incident where he was awarded a prestigious medal but felt that he actually behaved like a coward and abandoned his unit.
I dont have the book handy
This is what I like about the Coens. They are so good that they don't feel the need to dramatically change source material (in their adapted works) in order to boost their egos. Love their adaptation of McCarthy's book.
I also loved the Coen adaptation of Macbeth for the same reason. It felt fresh, yet I felt I was re-reading the play at the same time.
I agree on Joel Coen’s adaptation of MacBeth, it’s not easy to make something new and fresh regarding MacBeth because it’s been done so many times, while also staying true to the original (and *throne of blood* hovering around in history). But he managed to do so. Haven’t seen it since theatres in 2021 but it’s still fresh in my mind.
Ethan Coen’s scathing review of Joel Coen’s MacBeth is one of the funniest bits I’ve ever read.
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/joel-coens-the-tragedy-of-macbeth
Coen’s are by far my directors, but man I just didn’t mesh with MacBeth. They’re so good with dialogue I feel like they could’ve modernized it a bit. I give them all the credit in the world for authenticity, but I just don’t vibe with Iambic Pentameter
A lot is different. Many of Bell's monologues are missing. Also Moss' fate is different.
It is a brilliant movie adaptation, I love both the book and the movie.
The movie focuses on Bell hunting Chigurh hunting Moss.
In my opinion the main story of the stolen money is only part of the moral sermon of rising violence and Bell being disconnected with it.
Who of the 99% mainstream viewers cares about Bell's dialogue in the cabin and with his wife?
These scenes deliver so much! They are so important! Those scenes reveal what Bell is thinking and show his place in the world.
In a country that's no place for old men.
I really enjoyed the audiobook but is definitely the only one of his books I’ll listen to. I feel like his other works need to be held and read if that makes sense
I kinda disagree but agree. I personally think all of his novels should be read for the first experience but I also believe there is a lot to be gained from listening to the audiobooks after reading them.
The Blood Meridian audiobook might be the best audiobook I've ever listened to even though I have read the book twice. I'm currently listening to the audiobook of No Country even though I've read the book and seen the movie A LOT but even already knowing the story its still so intense.
It’s accurate by roughly 90%. The things that are in the book that are different don’t really make me go “aww man why couldn’t THIS be in the movie” with the exception of maybe one part.
(If you’re curious, there’s the part in the book where Chigurh recovers from his injuries in a motel room for a few days and he turns the tv and *sits there* and watches the channel it just happens to be on regardless of what’s on it, infomercials, televangelists, soap operas, whatever. He just NEVER changes the channel and stays like that for days. That would have been a neat detail in the movie)
Other than that the way the book is written is really….matter of factly written
“He did x”
“Then he did y”
“Then he looked back at A, B and C”
“He then did Z”
so it makes sense that it was probably meant to be a screenplay first. They’re nearly identical all things considered
He certainly *has* but that’s not my point. Child of God while simply written isn’t that beat for beat. Blood Meridian isn’t like that. Suttree definitely isn’t that plainly written.
No country is written like that to a rather shocking degree because of its screenplay properties. It’s more pronounced.
Very, but there's one scene that's noticeably different:
When Llewellyn is at the hotel waiting for Anton to find him (this is the part where he calls the front desk only to receive no answer, and knows the clerk is dead). Soon after, Anton pops the lock with the cattle gun and the escape/shootout follows.
In the book, Llewellyn knows that Anton is finding him with the tracker, but Anton doesn't know that Llewellyn knows. So Llewellyn sets up an ambush - he turns the shower on, closes the bathroom door, and hides behind the bed, I think. The trick works, as Anton enters the room and assumes Llewellyn is in the shower. After Anton breaks into the bathroom, Llewellyn ambushes him and has him dead to rights with his gun. He doesn't shoot Anton though, he makes him drop his gun and then runs away. Of course, Anton soon follows.
This is a crucial scene because it shows that Llewellyn is not a killer, even in the extreme circumstances he's in. It's interesting because he was a soldier in Vietnam and likely shot people. Perhaps that's why he didn't do it, perhaps not. But it's one of the most interesting parts of the book and I'm not sure why they changed it for the movie
I’ve always read that McCarthy originally wrote NCFOM as a screenplay and with cinema in mind. Coen brothers basically used all dialogue from the book. One big thing was missing - Ed Bell’s war story. I thought that was a major miss to not have in the film. Gives his character so much more depth.
As with many movies, NCFOM needs to adopt a shot hand. The movie actually added a scene for the sake of briefly demonstrating a person's character. In the movie, moss is chased by the dog. To blow the gun dry, load it, and aim took incredible composure. This scene is a shortcut for letting you know he is a badass. The fact that he returned to the scene of the crime, in spite of his btter judgment, in order to give a dying man water -- that showed character and mercy. He's a badass with a heart of gold.
The book gives more details about him being a veteran.
The core irony is that the sherrif is a coward who is recognized as a hero, while moss is a hero who is looks to many as if he is a villain.
I agree with you on everything and find your last statement interesting. That said, I think part of the point of the sheriffs backstory is that he *isnt* a coward (though he thinks he is) but simply another coin caught in the matrix of chaos. That he feels incredible shame over his actions when he was simply not able to stop unstoppable forces or control the uncontrollable.
I don't judge the sheriff. Let me reword my observation to be more precise, because it makes a difference. The sheriff has a false reputation as a hero. Moss has a false reputation for being of questionable character (to those in the story.) He looks like he's possibly unfaithful, possibly involved in shady business.
Chigur makes it sound like Moss was unfaithful and like he rejected a deal that could have kept his wife safe. That's not true, in my opinion.
He was a much better person than it would appear to everyone else. And he was pretty tough and smart. He almost got away with it, but that "almost" ended up being a huge tipping point. And he did repeatedly underestimate what he was up against, but that's beside the point.
Extremely accurate, yes. The only notable omission from the movie is one or two sentences about Anton and Carson having served together in the special forces.
It’s phenomenal. They added a bit here and there in the book but it’s overall excellent. The books feels more like an extended version or directors cut that just has an extra scene or two and more dialogue.
They are very close. Off the top of my head, the main differences are:
**spoilers**
- Carla Jean picks a side during Chigurh’s coin toss in the book
- The book has a scene where Chigurh returns the money at the end
- The book has a scene early on where Moss has Chigurh at gunpoint and then deliberately chooses not to kill him
- The book includes a scene where Moss has a brief, semi-heartfelt conversation with young woman he meets shortly before he gets killed. It has a quote that I’m fond of
I don’t necessarily mind these minor changes that the movie made, but I do find them somewhat puzzling. I’m not sure what benefit there was to having Carla Jean refuse to do the coin toss, for instance. Anyway, the movie was still great. One of the best adaptations I know of.
Naturally there’s a few omissions, but it’s faithful overall - especially in regard to dialogue. I forget where I read this, but I remember one of the Coens saying the screenplay was written “novel in one hand, script in the other”.
Pretty damn accurate. I even think they outshined the book in a lot of ways. The opening monologue is better in the movie. More pithy.
“You’d have to say okay, I’ll be part of this world.”
Which just sums in up so well.
Overall, it's one of the most accurate novel-to-film adaptations to ever get produced, and the work behind every scene is clearly dealt with and designed with immense care. I have some personal gripes with the last 25 minutes or so of the movie, but despite my own personal thoughts on the film, I can not deny the immense talent and passion behind it. The Coen Brothers joked about essentially just ripping off the book in interviews, and to be honest, if that were true, I wouldn't be surprised. It's that close to the source material. Overall, I consider the book to be far superior, but that is to be expected in most situations. The overall skill and thought that Javier Bardem put into the portrayal of the character that is Anton Chigurh has successfully programmed the minds of many readers, including myself, to only image his depiction of the character whilst rereading. The acting is stupendous, and even though I have a few things that I disliked about the movie, due to the fact that they are just more different than my taste in film and that the entirety of the remainder of the project is spectacular I can easily look past it and rewatch it with excitement.
I was really surprised when I read it. I didn't expect it to be this faithful. Even the dialogues are same with slight differences. McCarthy basically wrote one of the greatest movies of all time.
No country for old men is one of my all time favourite movies, I’ve recently finished the book as well and have to say it’s pretty loyal to the material, some parts I even liked more in the movie than in the book. But overall definitely one of the good adaptations out there
It's a great movie -- but the book is so much more rich and nuanced. It always surprises me to see people on this sub say they are exactly the same. For one thing the book is three times as long -- that means there are things missing from the movie. Lots of gorgeous description for one thing.
Only two important things were missing in the movie:
Towards the end of the book right before Llewellyn dies he’s on the run and he meets a teenage girl who’s run away from home and the two of them spend a few days travelling together. During that time his phone is tapped or something and the Mexicans find and kill him. In the movie the teenage girl character was changed to the woman by the pool at the motel where he dies.
The other part which was removed is in the book several months after Llewelyn has died Sheriff Bell is called up to another county to give testimony in a case against a Mexican who’s on trial for killing a cop, a crime which had happened in Sheriff Bell’s county and which he had attributed to Anton Chigurh. Sheriff Bell testifies that he believes the Mexican didn’t do it but he’s sentenced to death anyway. Later Bell visits the Mexican on death row and he admits to the crime.
That part’s important because alongside the previous scene when Bell returned to the motel to find Anton wasn’t behind the door, it reveals Anton mistakenly likely isn’t real and was just Sheriff Bell’s imagined explanation for all the inconceivable crimes he was seeing, which in reality were being committed by a whole bunch of different Mexicans who were after Llewelyn.
The whole book is much more clearly from Bell’s perspective than the movie too, and has a couple more monologues space out within it like the one at the start of the movie.
I’ll try to explain my theory as best I can.
The book is clearly told from Sheriff Bell’s perspective which is why it has so many monologues of his thoughts but none of the other two main characters. We never get a single glimpse inside the head of any character other than Bell. This lead me to start thinking what if *all* the events of the book are from Sheriff Bell’s perspective, as in the described actions of Llewelyn and Chigurh are actually what he assumes happened based on his analysis of the crime scenes several hours after the events he’s imagining actually transpired.
The chapters of the book following Llewelyn and Chigurh are the Sheriff’s explanation to himself of what he’s seeing. He can’t cope with the fact that so many different men could commit such evil, so in his head he attributes every crime scene to the work of one man: Anton Chigurh. Anton is Bell’s personification of evil. Every inconceivable crime scene he comes across must be the work of this one unbelievably evil man and if he can just find Anton and kill him, everything will be fine. Everything will be back the way it was before.
This is why he attributes a crime clearly committed by a Mexican to Chigurh, and even when he is faced with all the evidence at the Mexican’s trial he still testifies in his favour and doesn’t even really acknowledge that he was wrong after the Mexican admits to him one on one that he was the one who killed the policeman.
And think about it, none of the three main characters ever properly see each other in the book or the movie. Bell only sees Llewellyn once he’s dead, and he never sees Anton when he opens that motel door. Llewelyn briefly glimpses “Anton” in the dark from across the street and shoots at him before he disappears, but what confirmation is there that this was actually Anton? Every body that turns up at a crime scene is a Mexican. The men who actually kill Llewelyn were Mexicans. There’s never any hard evidence of Anton existing and being responsible for everything he supposedly does that is shown to Sheriff Bell.
The Sheriff’s attempts to twist the real messy events into a good vs evil narrative also explains the whole weird side adventure Llewelyn goes on with the teenage runaway right before he dies. From the book’s (Sheriff Bell’s) description of events Llewlyn’s decisions here make no sense. Despite being a highly intelligent and rational man so far who’s only been concerned with protecting himself, his wife and the money, Llewelyn randomly decides to hitch up with a teenage girl he just met and go on a journey together which ultimately leads to his death as a result of his carelessness. Llewelyn is never mentioned as having any romantic or sexual interest in this girl, even though it’s already known he likes teenage girls, as his wife was a teenager (I believe 16) when they first met (and he’d already done two tours in Vietnam so was clearly much older). Llewelyn’s actions start to make a lot more sense if you imagine he was cheating on his wife with this girl, but in the Sheriff’s head he can’t believe this because he’s made Llewelyn out to be Anton’s polar opposite, a bastion of morality and good who he must save before it’s too late. Bell’s Llewelyn would never cheat on his wife, but the real Llewelyn clearly did.
Sheriff Bell is an unreliable narrator whose worldview cannot process what he’s seeing, so he has to change things around and insert the character of Anton Chigurh into the story as an amalgamation of multiple real Mexicans.
Some small changes here and there but overall one of the most faithful adaptions I’ve ever seen. Not just in story but in tone and pace. The flow of the film felt the same as the flow of the book, same with the general vibe. I did not get the same at all from The Road, despite it being a respectable movie. It didn’t have that feeling of being the books counterpart.
in the beginning where he kills the cops just to test the power of his will would have been great if they could of expanded his intentions in the movie.
I watched the movie and then a few weeks later decided to read the book. And it surprisingly extremely accurate, the conversations witty the gas station clerk and the front desk lady were perfect
Nigh on absolutely I would say. Easily one of the most faithful adaptations I have ever seen of a book
I saw the movie before I read the book, so I had that in my mind before I read it, but it didn’t hurt at all. There were slight changes here and there, snips of scenes and dialogue, and even some things added, but honestly, I would say those are for the better. I think if all of it was kept the movie wouldn’t have flowed quite as well
the NO COUNTRY movie is one of those rare adaptations that feels like a product of both the director and the author. it's very much got the spirit of cormac mccarthy while also being very much a coen brothers movie.
my favorite example of this is the scene where chigurh breaks into the trailer. in the book is the following line: "He went into the livingroom and sat on the sofa. There was a perfectly good twenty-one inch television on the table. He looked at himself in the dead gray screen"
the last line of that paragraph, practically a throwaway, is not only included in the movie but highlighted, showing how creepy and affectless chigurh is:
[https://i0.wp.com/img.screencaps.us/200/7-no-country/full/no-country-for-old-men-movie-screencaps.com-3769.jpg?ssl=1](https://i0.wp.com/img.screencaps.us/200/7-no-country/full/no-country-for-old-men-movie-screencaps.com-3769.jpg?ssl=1)
then, shortly after this scene, bell and wendell catch up to the trailer and find chigurh has just left. the scene is almost identical in the book and the movie, but the movie adaptation includes the "aw sheriff, that's aggravatin'" exchange (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzGkQ17mb8o) which is 100% pure coen bros.
I decided to check out both back to back. The Novel is strange in that McCarthy rarely let's you know what characters are thinking and feeling, but in this book everyone is expounding like they are Judge Holden
The movie felt more like a usual McCarthy story in that you observed from the outside and guessed at what was happening inside.
I thought it was one of his weaker Novels (still amazing) and that it was a great adaptation.
That said I haven't read everything yet.
Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, The Road, and Child of God are the only others I have read, in that order I believe.
I don’t get these posts… is this bait? Broski is on the Cormac sub and asking this question. Did you not see the movie or not read the book? Is this what these subs are? Jesus make your own opinions. “Anyone ever wonder if blue is red to someone else!?” Fuck off
The Coens joked that in adapting the book, one of them would read aloud while the other typed up the screenplay. In truth they made some nips and tucks, changed Carla Jean's character slightly when she refuses to play along with Chigurh's game, and reduced the role of Sheriff Bell, who is arguably the overall protagonist of the book.
Cormac McCarthy in *The Wall Street Journal*: “I was at the Academy Awards with the Coens. They had a table full of awards before the evening was over, sitting there like beer cans. One of the first awards that they got was for best screenplay, and Ethan came back and he said to me, ‘Well, I didn’t do anything, but I’m keeping it.'”
Which was obviously a sarcastic joke. Transferring a 320 page novel into a script to make the story work on a big screen in 120 minutes while staying true to the original story is no small feat. That’s what the award is for, not for coming up with the story itself.
I read somewhere that Cormac actually wrote this as a screenplay, so maybe it was a little less work than is typical for an adaptation.
I believe McCarthy wrote it as a screenplay, turned it into a novel, and then the Coens wrote their own screenplay based on the novel
i think so. the prose has a very 'cinematic' quality, sparse, spare and dialog heavy. this is compared to his other work.
Even McCarthy’s comment reads like a McCarthy novel. 😂
they largely 86’ed llewelyn’s teenage distraction near the end (of his life) as well, which in the book really drove home how much of a dumbass he was. it was a little more understated in the movie.
I know beyond Bell you don’t really get a sense of what’s going through the head of the characters in NCFOM but damn I really wish there was a little explanation of why Moss decided to pick up and chill with a teenage runaway while being on the run himself from a psycho killer and a Mexican cartel. He has moments of cleverness and having a sense of danger, but then just seems to get completely sidetracked and distracted on his last day.
I figured it was that he has become more impulsive and reckless over the course of the book. Either he got cocky that he'd made it this far and having all that money and freedom was too much temptation for him. Or he realised he was never gonna see his wife again or that he was gonna die and wanted to live a little. He's still clever but that doesn't make him immune to stupidity.
Thats what great about McCarthy. You are not watching a pre written character who follows a template, you are watching a mans life unfold one thing after another.
Is an explanation needed? I think it’s pretty obvious
he wanted to smash?
This. The power of pussy is a timeless trope because it’s true. Men will walk off a cliff for a whiff.
Bell is the true protagonist of the movie too. First watch you might not see it but on the second watch you do.
Probably one of the best book to movie depictions ever. Very accurate.
I would agree, the dialogue is almost line for line, the movie captures the feel of the book better than most movie adaptations that I can think of
McCarthy originally wrote the book as a screenplay so it makes sense that it ended up being true to the book
DId he talk with any filmmakers or producers, while writing?
The line for line dialogue was what really blew me away. To be able to have scenes in the movie transport me back to where I was while reading the book because the scenes were so faithful was really cool.
Considering the book was supposed to be a screenplay this makes sense
I thought the movie was better than the book. Wondering if anyone else felt the same. I will say, though, I'm not a big Cormac McCarthy fan--I know, sacrilege.
I saw the movie first and was shocked reading the book how close it was. I remember very few differences
I finally read the book this year (latecomer to McCarthy) after having seen the movie several times over the years. It was hard to tell which came first, the book or the movie! They did such a great job with casting, and adapting the text to a script. I agree, best adaptation ever. -oo-
I believe No Country was originally written as a screenplay. Not 100% sure though.
It started that way, and then I believe he switched gears to the novel.
This is correct. That’s why it’s much shorter and less descriptive and abstract than other McCarthy.
It may be less relatively descriptive, but that first act, though... tough to find better
Vroom vroom !
Yes. From what I know, he shopped it around and no one picked it up so he just adapted it to a novel.
Off the top of my head there are a few scenes missing that weren't insignificant Llewelyn picking up and befriending a teenage girl hitchhiker, sheriff bell talking about his experiences in ww2, Bell meeting Llewelyn's father, bell talking to the boys who were at the scene of Chigurh's car crash. Well worth reading the book if you've only watched the movie.
I personally have a slightly darker interpretation of Moss’s relationship with the hitchhiker he picks up. Remember he met his wife when she was… well young, and he wasn’t. He has a thing for younger women/ a thing for women who rely on him for protection. I personally took it as he’s mulling over taking the money and running, and taking this girl with him. Which changes A LOT about the story after that. Chugar tells his wife that Moss betrayed her, and she denies it. In the movie she appears to be right, the stand in for the teen age hitchhiker is the women sitting by the pool offering him a few beers, which he considers but refuses. In the book it’s more ambiguous. I think the scenes imply the same thing, that Moss is considering his options, but that the way it happens in the book would be a little too fraught for film audiences, who would assume the worst/ label Moss as a bad guy. McCarthy had a dedicated audience by that point who could understand that even if part of his motivation to help that girl was that she was young and attractive, that maybe he wouldn’t have picked up a guy that age under the same circumstances, that doesn’t mean that he’s planning to abandon his old life, or even that he wants to get a little side action with this girl (that’s the interpretation I take though, that he wouldn’t force himself on her or demand something in return for his help, but that he wouldn’t say no either, if she offered.) I think that was a little too complicated for a wider audience.
Yup. I found the Llewellyn/hitchhiker scenes wonderfully morally grey. >Remember he met his wife when she was… well young, and he wasn’t YES! I'm not sure I thought about him running off with the girl (I'm a bit naive). But I did think that Llewellyn really got a kick out of the girl hanging on his every word and accentuated how much of a bad ass and outlaw he was to impress her. He was getting off on it. He was at the very least toying with the idea of having some sort if affair with her. Of course there are more innocent aspects to picking her up. He was lonely and also wanted someone to help with the driving. Llewellyn suddenly becomes a lot more complex and morally ambiguous in the novel than in the movie.
Nah, I really don’t get any interpretation of Moss trying to run away with the hitchhiker girl. In fact, it’s another example of how his dumb nobility while living an outlaw life gets him killed. Same way he gets caught bringing water to the wounded Mexican in the desert, he gets killed when they drag the girl out of her room at gunpoint and Moss lowers his own weapons. He bought a TEC-9 and drove to El Paso, he’s looking for a fight, not to cut and run with some random girl (if that was his plan he could have disappeared into Mexico as soon as he got out of the hospital and blown it all in on hookers and booze like he joked with Wells). This is after he deliberately bought two rooms for them to ensure she doesn’t get any wrong ideas, and he gently mocks her and turns her down when she makes advances at him (she asks if he’s “queer” for wanting separate rooms, tries to convince him to her room and he declines multiple times). If he got one room for them he would probably have had a fighting chance or even won. Every interaction he has with the girl is trying to warn her about the dangers of the life she’s living, he gives her money and tells her there’s no strings attached when she asks about it, then says he’s going to drop her at a bus stop in El Paso to ride to California safely. I genuinely believe Llewelyn only has good intentions. In the same way McCarthy is trying to say it’s no country for old men like Bell, he also means men like Moss, “old men” in the sense of old-fashioned men who try to preserve a sense of chivalry in the face of soulless men like Chigurh and the cartels, and how that code of honor dooms them to death when they expose themselves. Where I think your darker interpretation has substance is that this is what we’re supposed to see as the shadow that haunts Llewelyn’s legacy. He thinks he’s going to be the heroic outlaw who helps this young girl safely get to California, kills Chigurh, then gets his wife and rides off into the sunset. Instead he gets killed and Carla Jean dies believing he had the chance to save her but chose to run off with a younger girl instead (all heroic intentions but in the end looks like a villain to everyone but the reader).
>I personally have a slightly darker interpretation of Moss’s relationship with the hitchhiker he picks up. > > Nah, I really don’t get any interpretation of Moss trying to run away with the hitchhiker girl. These are both solid takes from two people with a firm grasp of the source material. This is the sort of dialog that keeps me sifting through minutiae. Cheers to you both.
THANK YOU! I had the same interpretation and was beginning to think I’d gone mad reading these other comments. I thought maybe I was missing something or misremembering but this is how I perceived it initially too. That Llewellyn was always doomed because he did “the right thing” at really bad times. It’s like he wanted to be a cowboy movie hero and was too naive or stubborn to abandon those little nagging opportunities to be the hero even when it would have terrible consequences
yep. moss was the bad guy, not chigur bad, but a capable man handicapped by his character flaws. that’s a huge point of the story that i think the movie made subtle to the point of missing entirely. that’s why people were confused when he dies “early”. he’s not the main character, he’s a false hero. still a great movie, but the bits they cut add great depth to the super.
I saw the movie first (years ago) and a friend recommended I read the book too. Picked it up and the way Cormac writes took a little to get use to but damn did he end up sucking me in - I couldn't put it down.
I thought Sheriff Bell’s WW2 dialogue was pretty significant to his character, not sure why they cut that
Been a while since I read the book. I thought at the end of the movie he talks about being a deserter. Is there more?
WWII or Korea?
Ww2. Going by memory, there was an incident where he was awarded a prestigious medal but felt that he actually behaved like a coward and abandoned his unit. I dont have the book handy
Thanks. I really have to read it again
It’s damn near line by line the exact same. It’s THAT close.
This is what I like about the Coens. They are so good that they don't feel the need to dramatically change source material (in their adapted works) in order to boost their egos. Love their adaptation of McCarthy's book. I also loved the Coen adaptation of Macbeth for the same reason. It felt fresh, yet I felt I was re-reading the play at the same time.
Part of it is that NCfOM was originally written as a screenplay, but he changed it to a book instead
Only Joel worked on that one.
I agree on Joel Coen’s adaptation of MacBeth, it’s not easy to make something new and fresh regarding MacBeth because it’s been done so many times, while also staying true to the original (and *throne of blood* hovering around in history). But he managed to do so. Haven’t seen it since theatres in 2021 but it’s still fresh in my mind.
Ethan Coen’s scathing review of Joel Coen’s MacBeth is one of the funniest bits I’ve ever read. https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/joel-coens-the-tragedy-of-macbeth
Coen’s are by far my directors, but man I just didn’t mesh with MacBeth. They’re so good with dialogue I feel like they could’ve modernized it a bit. I give them all the credit in the world for authenticity, but I just don’t vibe with Iambic Pentameter
when’s the last time you read it?
Really Accurate, I would recommend reading the Book even if you've seen the Movie. There's alot of little details that weren't carried over
Remarkably close. I was surprised when I read it.
A lot is different. Many of Bell's monologues are missing. Also Moss' fate is different. It is a brilliant movie adaptation, I love both the book and the movie. The movie focuses on Bell hunting Chigurh hunting Moss. In my opinion the main story of the stolen money is only part of the moral sermon of rising violence and Bell being disconnected with it. Who of the 99% mainstream viewers cares about Bell's dialogue in the cabin and with his wife? These scenes deliver so much! They are so important! Those scenes reveal what Bell is thinking and show his place in the world. In a country that's no place for old men.
I really enjoyed the audiobook but is definitely the only one of his books I’ll listen to. I feel like his other works need to be held and read if that makes sense
I kinda disagree but agree. I personally think all of his novels should be read for the first experience but I also believe there is a lot to be gained from listening to the audiobooks after reading them. The Blood Meridian audiobook might be the best audiobook I've ever listened to even though I have read the book twice. I'm currently listening to the audiobook of No Country even though I've read the book and seen the movie A LOT but even already knowing the story its still so intense.
It’s accurate by roughly 90%. The things that are in the book that are different don’t really make me go “aww man why couldn’t THIS be in the movie” with the exception of maybe one part. (If you’re curious, there’s the part in the book where Chigurh recovers from his injuries in a motel room for a few days and he turns the tv and *sits there* and watches the channel it just happens to be on regardless of what’s on it, infomercials, televangelists, soap operas, whatever. He just NEVER changes the channel and stays like that for days. That would have been a neat detail in the movie) Other than that the way the book is written is really….matter of factly written “He did x” “Then he did y” “Then he looked back at A, B and C” “He then did Z” so it makes sense that it was probably meant to be a screenplay first. They’re nearly identical all things considered
Thats just how mccarthy writes though. “He looks at x..” etc
He certainly *has* but that’s not my point. Child of God while simply written isn’t that beat for beat. Blood Meridian isn’t like that. Suttree definitely isn’t that plainly written. No country is written like that to a rather shocking degree because of its screenplay properties. It’s more pronounced.
I seriously disagree. I just finished child of god and the prose seems close to No Country for me.
Again, not my point. Also I didn’t ask
Very, but there's one scene that's noticeably different: When Llewellyn is at the hotel waiting for Anton to find him (this is the part where he calls the front desk only to receive no answer, and knows the clerk is dead). Soon after, Anton pops the lock with the cattle gun and the escape/shootout follows. In the book, Llewellyn knows that Anton is finding him with the tracker, but Anton doesn't know that Llewellyn knows. So Llewellyn sets up an ambush - he turns the shower on, closes the bathroom door, and hides behind the bed, I think. The trick works, as Anton enters the room and assumes Llewellyn is in the shower. After Anton breaks into the bathroom, Llewellyn ambushes him and has him dead to rights with his gun. He doesn't shoot Anton though, he makes him drop his gun and then runs away. Of course, Anton soon follows. This is a crucial scene because it shows that Llewellyn is not a killer, even in the extreme circumstances he's in. It's interesting because he was a soldier in Vietnam and likely shot people. Perhaps that's why he didn't do it, perhaps not. But it's one of the most interesting parts of the book and I'm not sure why they changed it for the movie
Was Llewellyn actually a soldier? Carla Jean's mama said he was there as a civilian.
I don't remember that part tbh. I just assumed he was a soldier. Actually that would track with the rest of the scene of him not being a killer
Very close. The addition of the dog chase in the movie is one of the biggest changes. But I think Ethan was right, "McCarthy likes dogs."
Another Coens addition, if I remember right, was how both the lawmen and the outlaws point out the dead dogs at the scene of the drug deal gone wrong.
The most true to source material adaptation ever made.
As accurate as any adaptation I have seen
I’ve always read that McCarthy originally wrote NCFOM as a screenplay and with cinema in mind. Coen brothers basically used all dialogue from the book. One big thing was missing - Ed Bell’s war story. I thought that was a major miss to not have in the film. Gives his character so much more depth.
As with many movies, NCFOM needs to adopt a shot hand. The movie actually added a scene for the sake of briefly demonstrating a person's character. In the movie, moss is chased by the dog. To blow the gun dry, load it, and aim took incredible composure. This scene is a shortcut for letting you know he is a badass. The fact that he returned to the scene of the crime, in spite of his btter judgment, in order to give a dying man water -- that showed character and mercy. He's a badass with a heart of gold. The book gives more details about him being a veteran. The core irony is that the sherrif is a coward who is recognized as a hero, while moss is a hero who is looks to many as if he is a villain.
I agree with you on everything and find your last statement interesting. That said, I think part of the point of the sheriffs backstory is that he *isnt* a coward (though he thinks he is) but simply another coin caught in the matrix of chaos. That he feels incredible shame over his actions when he was simply not able to stop unstoppable forces or control the uncontrollable.
I don't judge the sheriff. Let me reword my observation to be more precise, because it makes a difference. The sheriff has a false reputation as a hero. Moss has a false reputation for being of questionable character (to those in the story.) He looks like he's possibly unfaithful, possibly involved in shady business. Chigur makes it sound like Moss was unfaithful and like he rejected a deal that could have kept his wife safe. That's not true, in my opinion. He was a much better person than it would appear to everyone else. And he was pretty tough and smart. He almost got away with it, but that "almost" ended up being a huge tipping point. And he did repeatedly underestimate what he was up against, but that's beside the point.
Right on.
I am actually just surprised that there was around 2 years between the release dates of these 2
Extremely accurate, yes. The only notable omission from the movie is one or two sentences about Anton and Carson having served together in the special forces.
95%
I’d say like 85 percent. Parts of the movie the book omits. But it’s pretty much as close to perfect for book to movie as possible.
Close except the ending in the book is way better/more thought provoking imo
Extremely Accurate, in fact it actually feels more McCarthy than the book does with the lack of internal dialogue in the film
Almost perfect. The movie honestly tells a better story; it drops an entire character that felt pretty pointless.
Maybe yes - maybe no. Flip a coin and call it friendo
It’s phenomenal. They added a bit here and there in the book but it’s overall excellent. The books feels more like an extended version or directors cut that just has an extra scene or two and more dialogue.
I'm still not convinced the Coen brothers and McCarthy aren't the same person. They absolutely nailed the film adaptation
They are very close. Off the top of my head, the main differences are: **spoilers** - Carla Jean picks a side during Chigurh’s coin toss in the book - The book has a scene where Chigurh returns the money at the end - The book has a scene early on where Moss has Chigurh at gunpoint and then deliberately chooses not to kill him - The book includes a scene where Moss has a brief, semi-heartfelt conversation with young woman he meets shortly before he gets killed. It has a quote that I’m fond of I don’t necessarily mind these minor changes that the movie made, but I do find them somewhat puzzling. I’m not sure what benefit there was to having Carla Jean refuse to do the coin toss, for instance. Anyway, the movie was still great. One of the best adaptations I know of.
This is cool and all but do yall wanna see my Judge art?
They didn’t include a few minor things and they scrapped the hitchhiker but it’s one of my favourite films and I’d say it’s faithful
Most people forget about the hitchhiker. Thanks for bringing it up.
NCFOM, Fight Club, and The Watchmen are still the top movies that were so close to the book that they almost used it as an entire script imo.
At least the No Country for Old Men movie has nothing as terrible as the hallelujah sex scene in The Watchmen movie.
Biggest omissions seemed to center on Sheriff Ed Tom. Character is a bit more interesting in the book. Not that TLJ didn't kill it.
It misses two really good scenes with chigur. I think it works better when he gets a ending but the coens probably wanted it more vague
Naturally there’s a few omissions, but it’s faithful overall - especially in regard to dialogue. I forget where I read this, but I remember one of the Coens saying the screenplay was written “novel in one hand, script in the other”.
Almost line for line
Pretty damn accurate. I even think they outshined the book in a lot of ways. The opening monologue is better in the movie. More pithy. “You’d have to say okay, I’ll be part of this world.” Which just sums in up so well.
Like 97% accurate
Didn’t it receive the Cormac Seal of Approval ™️?
I think it was pretty obvious that McCarthy wrote NCFOM to be very easily adapted, almost like the book itself was a screenplay.
I like the ending of the movie better than the book
Very, but I will say the book is slightly more suspenseful
Very accurate
Overall, it's one of the most accurate novel-to-film adaptations to ever get produced, and the work behind every scene is clearly dealt with and designed with immense care. I have some personal gripes with the last 25 minutes or so of the movie, but despite my own personal thoughts on the film, I can not deny the immense talent and passion behind it. The Coen Brothers joked about essentially just ripping off the book in interviews, and to be honest, if that were true, I wouldn't be surprised. It's that close to the source material. Overall, I consider the book to be far superior, but that is to be expected in most situations. The overall skill and thought that Javier Bardem put into the portrayal of the character that is Anton Chigurh has successfully programmed the minds of many readers, including myself, to only image his depiction of the character whilst rereading. The acting is stupendous, and even though I have a few things that I disliked about the movie, due to the fact that they are just more different than my taste in film and that the entirety of the remainder of the project is spectacular I can easily look past it and rewatch it with excitement.
I was really surprised when I read it. I didn't expect it to be this faithful. Even the dialogues are same with slight differences. McCarthy basically wrote one of the greatest movies of all time.
The closest adaptation
No country for old men is one of my all time favourite movies, I’ve recently finished the book as well and have to say it’s pretty loyal to the material, some parts I even liked more in the movie than in the book. But overall definitely one of the good adaptations out there
Try reading it and watching it
Very accurate, and better. If you read the book you will appreciate how they managed to capture the essence of it and distill it to its core.
It's a great movie -- but the book is so much more rich and nuanced. It always surprises me to see people on this sub say they are exactly the same. For one thing the book is three times as long -- that means there are things missing from the movie. Lots of gorgeous description for one thing.
Only two important things were missing in the movie: Towards the end of the book right before Llewellyn dies he’s on the run and he meets a teenage girl who’s run away from home and the two of them spend a few days travelling together. During that time his phone is tapped or something and the Mexicans find and kill him. In the movie the teenage girl character was changed to the woman by the pool at the motel where he dies. The other part which was removed is in the book several months after Llewelyn has died Sheriff Bell is called up to another county to give testimony in a case against a Mexican who’s on trial for killing a cop, a crime which had happened in Sheriff Bell’s county and which he had attributed to Anton Chigurh. Sheriff Bell testifies that he believes the Mexican didn’t do it but he’s sentenced to death anyway. Later Bell visits the Mexican on death row and he admits to the crime. That part’s important because alongside the previous scene when Bell returned to the motel to find Anton wasn’t behind the door, it reveals Anton mistakenly likely isn’t real and was just Sheriff Bell’s imagined explanation for all the inconceivable crimes he was seeing, which in reality were being committed by a whole bunch of different Mexicans who were after Llewelyn. The whole book is much more clearly from Bell’s perspective than the movie too, and has a couple more monologues space out within it like the one at the start of the movie.
I never considered that Anton Chigurh might not be real
I’ll try to explain my theory as best I can. The book is clearly told from Sheriff Bell’s perspective which is why it has so many monologues of his thoughts but none of the other two main characters. We never get a single glimpse inside the head of any character other than Bell. This lead me to start thinking what if *all* the events of the book are from Sheriff Bell’s perspective, as in the described actions of Llewelyn and Chigurh are actually what he assumes happened based on his analysis of the crime scenes several hours after the events he’s imagining actually transpired. The chapters of the book following Llewelyn and Chigurh are the Sheriff’s explanation to himself of what he’s seeing. He can’t cope with the fact that so many different men could commit such evil, so in his head he attributes every crime scene to the work of one man: Anton Chigurh. Anton is Bell’s personification of evil. Every inconceivable crime scene he comes across must be the work of this one unbelievably evil man and if he can just find Anton and kill him, everything will be fine. Everything will be back the way it was before. This is why he attributes a crime clearly committed by a Mexican to Chigurh, and even when he is faced with all the evidence at the Mexican’s trial he still testifies in his favour and doesn’t even really acknowledge that he was wrong after the Mexican admits to him one on one that he was the one who killed the policeman. And think about it, none of the three main characters ever properly see each other in the book or the movie. Bell only sees Llewellyn once he’s dead, and he never sees Anton when he opens that motel door. Llewelyn briefly glimpses “Anton” in the dark from across the street and shoots at him before he disappears, but what confirmation is there that this was actually Anton? Every body that turns up at a crime scene is a Mexican. The men who actually kill Llewelyn were Mexicans. There’s never any hard evidence of Anton existing and being responsible for everything he supposedly does that is shown to Sheriff Bell. The Sheriff’s attempts to twist the real messy events into a good vs evil narrative also explains the whole weird side adventure Llewelyn goes on with the teenage runaway right before he dies. From the book’s (Sheriff Bell’s) description of events Llewlyn’s decisions here make no sense. Despite being a highly intelligent and rational man so far who’s only been concerned with protecting himself, his wife and the money, Llewelyn randomly decides to hitch up with a teenage girl he just met and go on a journey together which ultimately leads to his death as a result of his carelessness. Llewelyn is never mentioned as having any romantic or sexual interest in this girl, even though it’s already known he likes teenage girls, as his wife was a teenager (I believe 16) when they first met (and he’d already done two tours in Vietnam so was clearly much older). Llewelyn’s actions start to make a lot more sense if you imagine he was cheating on his wife with this girl, but in the Sheriff’s head he can’t believe this because he’s made Llewelyn out to be Anton’s polar opposite, a bastion of morality and good who he must save before it’s too late. Bell’s Llewelyn would never cheat on his wife, but the real Llewelyn clearly did. Sheriff Bell is an unreliable narrator whose worldview cannot process what he’s seeing, so he has to change things around and insert the character of Anton Chigurh into the story as an amalgamation of multiple real Mexicans.
Some small changes here and there but overall one of the most faithful adaptions I’ve ever seen. Not just in story but in tone and pace. The flow of the film felt the same as the flow of the book, same with the general vibe. I did not get the same at all from The Road, despite it being a respectable movie. It didn’t have that feeling of being the books counterpart.
Honestly it was shockingly close. Easily in the top ten most faithful adaptations of a book to film. Maybe even #1.
in the beginning where he kills the cops just to test the power of his will would have been great if they could of expanded his intentions in the movie.
Much like American psycho, the film greatly enhances the way you visualize the book, and the book adds layers to the world building. Love it
I stopped reading the book because it was so close to the movie. It was uncanny.
Very it a short book though so there was no need to trim it, plus it's a simple plot.
I just finished reading the book and watching a movie. The dialogue is practically identical.
You could read the book and watch the movie and decide for yourself
Quite similar, and the movie is far more entertaining and takes less time to finish
Almost 1:1
I watched the movie and then a few weeks later decided to read the book. And it surprisingly extremely accurate, the conversations witty the gas station clerk and the front desk lady were perfect
Nigh on absolutely I would say. Easily one of the most faithful adaptations I have ever seen of a book I saw the movie before I read the book, so I had that in my mind before I read it, but it didn’t hurt at all. There were slight changes here and there, snips of scenes and dialogue, and even some things added, but honestly, I would say those are for the better. I think if all of it was kept the movie wouldn’t have flowed quite as well
the NO COUNTRY movie is one of those rare adaptations that feels like a product of both the director and the author. it's very much got the spirit of cormac mccarthy while also being very much a coen brothers movie. my favorite example of this is the scene where chigurh breaks into the trailer. in the book is the following line: "He went into the livingroom and sat on the sofa. There was a perfectly good twenty-one inch television on the table. He looked at himself in the dead gray screen" the last line of that paragraph, practically a throwaway, is not only included in the movie but highlighted, showing how creepy and affectless chigurh is: [https://i0.wp.com/img.screencaps.us/200/7-no-country/full/no-country-for-old-men-movie-screencaps.com-3769.jpg?ssl=1](https://i0.wp.com/img.screencaps.us/200/7-no-country/full/no-country-for-old-men-movie-screencaps.com-3769.jpg?ssl=1) then, shortly after this scene, bell and wendell catch up to the trailer and find chigurh has just left. the scene is almost identical in the book and the movie, but the movie adaptation includes the "aw sheriff, that's aggravatin'" exchange (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzGkQ17mb8o) which is 100% pure coen bros.
I decided to check out both back to back. The Novel is strange in that McCarthy rarely let's you know what characters are thinking and feeling, but in this book everyone is expounding like they are Judge Holden The movie felt more like a usual McCarthy story in that you observed from the outside and guessed at what was happening inside. I thought it was one of his weaker Novels (still amazing) and that it was a great adaptation. That said I haven't read everything yet. Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, The Road, and Child of God are the only others I have read, in that order I believe.
It is extremely faithful with only slight deviations.
I don’t get these posts… is this bait? Broski is on the Cormac sub and asking this question. Did you not see the movie or not read the book? Is this what these subs are? Jesus make your own opinions. “Anyone ever wonder if blue is red to someone else!?” Fuck off