There Will Be Blood vs. No Country For Old Men: Liberty vs. Coercion

Economics Political Theory
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WARNING: SOME SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

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I’ve been an anarchist for a while now. I’ve also been a fan of movies for a long time. As a result, after watching what I think is a good movie (if it’s a bad movie I try to forget it and don’t analyze it at all), I’ll often think about it in terms of libertarian analysis. I’ll look for libertarian tendencies in the society that is presented in the movie or for characters who share similar ideas as I do or for quotes or actions that I think express ideas I have in a effective way. Consequently I also look for the extreme opposite.

Recently I have seen the two big movies everyone is talking about, they’re in the title. I thought TWBB was terrific and NCFOM seemed decent. After thinking about them though, I came to the conclusion that There Will Be Blood demonstrates to a large degree how a free and libertarian society functions and the movie shows the benefits. While No Country For Old Men in turn shows the reverse. When government tries to interfere too much in the life of the people, death, destruction, killing, all occur. The results of this are shown in the movie.

Let me briefly explain There Will Be Blood. It is about an oil driller seeking to make his fortune in the western states in the early 20th century. Demonstrated in the movie are the principles of homesteading land for use; making contracts and business deals almost hassle free due to no government regulatory paper work and red tape; strict respect for property rights as is demonstrated by the main characters inability to bypass a holdout through any other means other than by buying his land; easy labor for workers, who despite poor conditions (as is to be expected at the time), were not thrown out or kept out of jobs because their employer did not have to meet strict labor safety regulations and whatnot; easy access to materials necessary on the job such as dynamite (try getting that nowadays); the ability, no, the RIGHT, to walk around with a shotgun or pistol for safety. There are many more things that I have probably forgotten that you would all probably notice if you watched this film from a libertarian point of view. I rate it very highly.

Ahh but the case is very different in No Country For Old Men. Its supposed to be about a drug drop off gone wrong and that should already sound some alarms. This movie seems to show to a large degree the very opposite of what is shown in the movie just described. Due to drug laws, the only people involved in the entire movie with the drugs are obviously crooks and murderers; this one regulation of the American people pretty much alone sets the entire movie on course. Guns are highly regulated as well, does this stop the violence? No. The police, who are largely futile throughout the entire movie, have guns, but they are often not there when needed and usually arrive after they are needed. I wonder if this would be the case if they were facing competition from other agencies? Do restrictions on guns thwart the killer? No, he just uses a device for killing cattle instead ([:P]) to get his murdering done, while innocent house dwellers are being more and more denied even handguns, let alone anything else. Lets see how far a cattle killer would get the villain in a one on one situation with Mr. Daniel Plainview and his trusty rifle if they were to meet in the wild in 1903 eh? There are many more things that one would probably notice in this movie. I didn’t name many, I saw this around January, so it’s been a while.

I guess I just wanted to explain how I think these two movies and the societies they present contrast to each other. If there are any of you who have seen these two movies and would agree or disagree with me I’d be interested in hearing it, as well as hearing your analysis on other movies of similar sort.

BTW: Best picture should have gone to There Will Be Blood. Superb.

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I hated no country for old men; it was essentially a series of somewhat good performances loosley tied together by cinemotagraphy. The entire thing felt like an excuse to see if the cohen brothers could make a movie without showing the climax, and then see if every single liberal-arts student in the world would worship the movie because hey, they made fargo right?

Mission Accomplished I guess.

Nice explanation though; there will be blood sounds considerably more worthwhile, and I’ll get to renting it sometime soon. I guess I’ll just have to be more cautious with watching movies from now on.

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Hehe, my thoughts on No Country were almost the exact same. Acting and cinematograpgy were great but asides from that it felt very unorganized.

Keep in mind There Will Be Blood is far from a libertarian paradise.

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You’d kind of have to read the book to understand… It was based off of a book and that’s just kind of how Cormac McCarthy writes. Javier Bardem was excellent though!

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Hold on here one moment mister! “There Will Be Blood” is supposed to be libertarian? Well, I haven’t seen the movie, but I very much doubt it! I’ve read reviews of that movie on the internet and in magazines and many times they mention something like “this movie is great, it really shows the explotatative nature of capitalism, bla bla bla”.

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Agreed.

It does show how one man can be consumed by greed and lose sight of everything else. See the movie[:)].

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You guys didnt like No Country eh? I actually enjoyed it very much. I can however, see where your coming from about it being tied together weakly. My dad read the book by Cormac McCarthy and helped explain it to me when I was confused. Lol. I have not seen There will be blood yet, but I plan to. The performance by Javier and Tommy Lee Jones were amazing. I have heard that Daniel Day Lewis tops it though. I look forward to finding out.

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Not that I did’t like it, I simply liked the other one more. The acting was great in all of them though.

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I think TWBB was just a more conventional film and that appeals to more people. NCOM is more of a cult classic and seems to require more of an acquired taste.

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I’m pretty huge on cult classics & favorites, and I have pretty varied tastes, but I could never say NCOM was a good movie. It was a terribly executed movie, that essentially built up all this tension throughout the movie, but does not show the actual climax (which would’ve normally been built up) to relieve the tensions & solidify interest, leaving me wondering what did I miss, and why is the movie suddenly more interesting as a not-seen-yet curiosity then the actual execution.

I find it an overall meandering bore, with sadly excellent performances by great actors wasted (I was cheering that Tommy Lee Jones was in this movie, as he is under-rated & under-appreciated).

I also thought that while Javier’s character was great as well, the cracker-barrel philosophical, seemingly cold-blooded villain is becoming an annoying stereotype that is no longer worth using any further if it’s going to be xeroxed for poorly made turkeys.

Overall, given the Cohen brother’s past work (Specifically the excellent, slightly unknown Barton Fink, the sorely under-appreciated Hudsucker Proxy, and the new classics of Raising Arizona & The Big Lebowski), they could’ve done a whole lot better. If they were looking to experiment, which, again given their past work, I would see as a thinly-veiled excuse for making a terrible movie, then they failed.

If I manage to stomach watching it again, however, I would be up to the task of looking at it closer for certain themes & concepts, despite it’s flawed machinery.

Sorry for the scathing review, I realize this isn’t “Mises @ The Movies”, but I wasn’t specific enough in my previous objections, lol.

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I have seen both films and I have read some stuff by Cormac McCarthy before.

I have to say my take on “There Will Be Blood” is similar to the critiques people have here about “No Country for Old Men”. Daniel Day Lewis is an amazing actor and this movie only further solidified that point to me but the point of the movie was made a half hour into that three hour film. After that everything just dragged on with amazing directing, cinematography, score, and acting but a largely redundant plot. I did find the near absolute freedom for industry and contract to be something to long for and it did keep me in tune with what was going on at the parts I found to be more dry. However I am curious didn’t he at the end say he engaged in slant drilling? I am pretty sure that is a potential violation of property rights. Overall I found him to be the classic villian in socialist propaganda, a capitalist who never even follows the morality of his own “evil” system.

As far as “No country for Old Men” many of the themes that Cormac McCarthy touches upon in his books are heavily influenced by the Book of Job which is all about saying “Hey shit happens”. He himself himself might be agnostic or atheist (though I may be wrong) but that does not stop him from using universal ideas that can be found from various sources. Overall I found the movie to be very entertaining since I thought Javier Bardem was creepy. I also enjoyed the fact that the ending was pretty close to the book. Javier Bardem’s character eventually ends up in the same position as the people he has hunted but no one else in the story is aware of that. Tommy Lee Jones talking about his dream and seeing his father “Carry the fire” is a phrase that comes up repeatedly in McCarthy’s books. It essentially means persevere. Things can suck sometimes but you must keep going and find comfort in the little things to fuel you. As far as the possible libertarianism in the movie I think it is far more pro individual freedom for reasons already stated such as gun rights, crossing the border and the power that making drugs illegal gives to people like Sigur and the Mexican and Texan mafia.

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Yes, he did engage in slant drilling (“DRAAAAINAGE!”) As I understand it, Rothbard argued that a proper techinal unit for oil should be an entire field since this would prevent wasteful consumption as well as the scenario that allows private ownership of the resource but not private ownership in capitalization of the resource.

Thats why I did say largely demonstrates libertarian principles. Daniel Plainview is certainly not an innocent man, he should be charged with various crimes by the end of the movie, this is undeniable, but I was not simply referring specifically to him, but more to the general society and way in which the economy was functioning. At least on the screen, not historically at that time. Im not claiming to be a historian.

On a third note, I dont buy that it is socialist and only socialist to think a man can be corrupted by his own greed and pursuit of money. I am a market anarchist and I did not for a second doubt that Plainview was being corrupted by his lust for the dollar. I thought There Will Be Blood did a very good job of authentically portraying this, moreso than many other movies.

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I agree with that comment. I just cannot help but think about the fact that the book was written by Upton Sinclair but you are right greed and immorality most certainly comes up in the nature of man and the movie does do a good job of showing that.

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The movie was only loosely based on Sinclair’s novel. The novel, as I understand it (though I haven’t read it), is mostly about the antagonistic relationship between the father and the son. The boy has many explcit sympathies for the oil workers and for socialist ideals, and he argues with his father about this throughout the book. In this way, I think the book is much more obviously a critique of capitalism, of course offering socialism as an alternative. That’s no surprise coming from sinclair, but the movie doesn’t retain nearly such a polemical tone. (I know I didn’t read the book, but I did read The Jungle, and I have an idea of Sinclair’s rediculous depictions of the market.)

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I came away from NCFOM thinking that it is basically an Old Right film. The implications are that a greedy, coarse society is defenseless against monsters. Anton Chigur is Chesterton’s madman: a ruthlessly efficient killer with nothing left but reason. And when you stop hearing “sir” and “ma’am,” the end is nigh.

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I don’t know too much about Upton Sinclair but he was socialist, or at least anti capitalist/ pro labor. TWBB was based on his book OIL, although I’ve never read it, I 'd guess it was about greed and social impacts of capitalism and exploitation of labor.

His book The Jungle was about the poor working conditions in the meat factory, not the quality of food. Sounds socialist to me.

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i actually started googling for responses to NCFOM which brought me to this thread, and i feel compelled to add my 2 cents. I was appalled by the movie for the same reason as posted by nitroadict, but even more so for reasons not posted here yet. I feel that the coen brothers would have been better served to have called the movie “You have no hope”, because that seemed to be the essential message.

I felt that the most gripping performance in the movie was josh brolin’s and yet he has received almost no mention anywhere that i could see, and i wonder if this is by design, or maybe we have just all forgotten what men used to be, and so the majority of us cannot relate. I could though, i saw much of myself in the character, and we were encouraged to believe that he was resourceful, wiley and extremely good at staying alive when needed. Despite this however, he strolls down the street with a beer in his hand, with no apparent concern for his wellbeing, shortly before being killed whilst we, the audience were not watching. wtf? Why tell a story in this way and use such an obvious plot device that flies in the face of the reality the story has already given us to work with? I understand that people will respond by saying that it is faithful to the novel, and i feel i must address that, but i dont really know how to having not read it. All i can say is that i have heard that the movie is extremely faithfull to the novel, so please bear with me if i overstep the bounds in the next paragraph.

Firstly, it seems to me that the novel is taken out of context here. When it was written western culture was in a state of false security, and perhaps the novel was attempting to open the complacent eyes of its readers to the very real danger that existed and still exists in our society. Having not read it i can only really speculate, but i am prepared to forgive it on the basis that it was written in a different time, and its message may well have been very different.

It is not 1980 anymore though, and men like llewellyn moss when brought into sharp relief by celluloid are suddenly as rare as hens teeth, and upon watching the first half an hour of this movie that was exactly what i thought, only to find that he was a doomed man from the word go? Why, what possible motive was there for making this novel into a movie, when we live in a political climate so vastly removed from the one in which it was originally penned? My belief is that this novel was chosen very deliberately, and that there was a very specific purpose to its release in this era. That message is quite simple, whoever you are, wherever you are from, if you are not part of the filthy, powerful moneyed world, then you have no right to expect anything good will ever happen to you. That if you find 2 million dollars you should give it straight back because you are now in over your head, and that trying in any way to go against the system will result in your untimely demise. Even more cleverly, they use an archtypal character that so few of us can actually relate to anymore, and have him respond in every way to the bullying and threatening behaviour of his antagonists in exactly the way a man should; and then kill him anticlimactically anyway.

This movie is an exercise in futility, and it seems to want its audience to walk away from the movie with that futility weighing heavily upon them, at the same time as it discredits the behaviour that actually might bring about a change to current circumstances. Utterly despicable imo, and not to mention that it is all done by way of completely unbelievable plot devices that only seem believable in the context of such brilliant acting and filmmaking.

i struggle to believe that this went unnoticed, but this is the first thread i have found that even comes close to touching on these issues. There is a clear design and motive behind the choosing of this story as the coen brothers coup de gras, and i find myself much less a fan than i previously was.

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No it isn’t. The Coen brothers harp repeatedly on what is needed: a non-materialistic culture where the border is guarded by beefy rednecks and everybody says “sir” and “ma’am.” This is not something a materialistic, social democratic culture wants to hear.

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i’m sorry but i simply cannot agree with you, certainly not based on the evidence of NCFOM. Besides, our culture needs a whole lot more than a border guarded by rednecks who have manners :). I wouldn’t mind arguing that a well made movie with an ending that makes sense and leaves you feeling triumphant as opposed to defeated would be a good start. I think the coens have made it perfectly clear with this movie what side of the fence they’re on.

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Sure, because they left out the part where Josh Brolin strips off his shirt to reveal his spandex Superman uniform and decapitates the evil criminal mastermind (played by Tom Berenger, with his hair dyed blonde and sporting a vaguely German accent) by the sheer force of expanding air generated from his flexed biceps.

NCFOM is a movie with an astounding moral sense that takes a hard look at an amoral society. It is a flat-out kick in the teeth to the progressivist meme that dominates the US, so naturally lots of people hate it.