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Callback/Homage to Raising Arizona in No Country for Old Men?

posted 15 years ago by briar_A
23 replies | jump to latest

This may be a stretch (and I apologize if someone else has already mentioned this), but I noticed a funny similarity between scenes in 'Raising' and 'No Country.'

In 'Raising,' there is a shot of Leonard Smalls(an unstoppable figure of doom, a manhunter almost supernatural in his ability to track down his prey) riding through the american desert toward his target. En route, he notices a small animal (a lizard) on the side of the road. Without stopping, he takes a shot at it with his gun and keeps on going. Total badass.

In 'No Country,' there is a shot of Anton Chigurh(an unstoppable figure of doom, a manhunter almost supernatural in his ability to track down his prey) riding through the american desert toward his target. En route, he notices a small animal (a bird) on the side of the road. Without stopping, he takes a shot at it with his gun and keeps on going. Total badass.

Maybe I'm a Coen brothers nut, but you can't help comparing the two. I hope it was intentional because that would be awesome...

[–] jennbeez1 15 years ago

Unfortunately, I've only seen No Country once (RA a zillion times) but this has to be intentional. I think the Coen bros. put these little things in on purpose to reward people who are really paying attention.

[–] MisterWhiplash 15 years ago

I'm sure it's not just a coincidence. Also take note how R.A. ends with the narration of the dream, just like Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff has at the end.

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[–] LukeNeumann 15 years ago

That, or Filmmakers tend to run out of new/fresh ideas and sometimes re hash old material in a different context (yes even the Coen brothers could be guilty)

[–] e25171971 13 years ago

I find it unlikely. Something that small, so inconsequential to furthering a thing, something no one but an avid fan would remember, and they think 'hey, we're out of material. Let's fill a few seconds of screen time by re-shooting the Biker of the Apocalypse scene'. I find that more improbable that the 'easter egg' idea.

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[–] Rick-34 14 years ago

Do you think Cormac McCarthy wrote No Country for Old Men with Raising Arizona in mind?

Seems unlikely to me.

(This point is regarding the ending, not the shooting of the critter at the side of the road, which was not in the book.)

[–] MisterWhiplash 14 years ago

I dunno about that (though McCarthy does admit to being a huge fan of Miller's Crossing), but I do think No Country and Arizona have interesting dramatic-comedic parallels, including the narration and the dream at the end of both films.

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[–] reservoir_cats_1989 14 years ago

I think you are right about both scenes being not a coincidence. I doubt it was made so due to directors' running out of material; they never seem to run out of it.

At the same time, I don't consider the scene as putting both characters into the same psychological profile.

Leonard is a bad-a*s, a very cartoonish character.
Anton on the other hand is clearly a psychopath.

One can feel sympathy for Leonard because of his difficult childhood and mannerisms (aside from hurting small animals).
However if someone feels sympathy for Anton - I doubt that very much - that feeling would be very unusual and bordering on being scary.

Actually Leonard, riding his chopper and leaving flames behind him, resembles a LOT the Ghost Rider, a movie also with Nicolas Cage. Perhaps the character of Leonard was based in part on Ghost Rider comic book; I know too little about Raising Arizona to claim this with any certainty.

[–] franzkabuki 14 years ago

"One can feel sympathy for Leonard because of his difficult childhood".

That´s a good one. Thanks for the laugh.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] Cinema_Urbanista 14 years ago

So how exactly does shooting a small animal on the side of the road (without stopping even) make one a "Total badass"? I always thought roasting ants with a magnifying glass was a better yardstick of one's machismo...

[–] briar_A 14 years ago

Great question! Allow me to qualify my original comment a little further. Assuming Leonard is not simply an extremely lucky marksmen (which I don't think the film was implying), it takes someone pretty handy with a firearm to pick off a lizard sitting on a rock from about 50 feet away while piloting a speeding motorcycle. If I saw someone make a shot like that, I think it would be appropriate to describe it as "badass."

However, the ability to snuff out innocent wildlife in this unique way is not the sole criterion for bad-assery, it is simply one way the film attempts to establish the character's overall "badass" behavioral make-up.

Of course, this is all subject to one's individual interpretation. Perhaps I should have explained this in my original post, but I felt it was not central the larger point/observation I was attempting to make in my comparison of the two films.

[–] emptyspaces153 9 years ago

Maybe this should be in the No Country forum, but that scene seemed very strange to me. Chigurh took pride in his principles, and doesnt seem like shooting a defenseless bird would be part of that character. the whole crux of NCFOM seems to be that when Chigurh goes against his principles, and kills for no reason at the end, he is taken out by the very nature he believes in. I guess in which case its more like predator and prey (like Fargo the series). I feel they go out of their way to show that Chigurh is not just into senseless violence for no reason.

[–] MikeO_64 8 years ago

doesnt seem like shooting a defenseless bird would be part of that character.

..So Carla Jean wasn't a defenseless 'bird'?

[–] Namelessman 14 years ago

In both films, Raising Arizona and No Country, there is a scene where the supposed "manhunter" is standing in the doorway of a room and his shadow is reflected on the wall opposite.

What do you call a coffin full of children? A school bus.

[–] Hit_Somebody 14 years ago

I noticed MANY simularities. and even more of the same shots. i totally think NCFOM is mesnt to be taken as a serious version of RA

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[–] RickDVD 14 years ago

The Coen's have been using callbacks for years. They also have been using O.P.E. P.O.E. which is the launch code from Dr. Strangelove in most if not all of their films, too.

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[–] rockduded 14 years ago

The scene with the bird was in the book, so the Coen's didn't come up with that scene. The two scenes are eerily similar though.

[–] Blitzerg 14 years ago

haha great post op, i know exactly what you mean! and the reason why i laugh is because the way you used "an unstoppable figure of doom, a manhunter almost supernatural in his ability to track down his prey" was like in Barton Fink when they're talking about the characters in the scripts for the movie he is going to write or whatever, all the main characters have the same description lol.

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[–] mpoconnor7 14 years ago

Another similarity is that both films had the protagonist being picked up by a guy in a pickup truck while being chased, and in both cases the ride turned out to be a pretty short trip.

[–] tommymax 13 years ago

Don't let the naysayers get you down. You are exactly correct. I made this very same point on the NCFOM board several years ago around the time NCFOM came out.

And as others here have noted, the Coen brothers are known for these sorts of nods to other films, including their own. I have absolutely no doubt that the scene in NCFOM was a nod to RA.

Quite simply, there's really no other reason for that scene. Does anybody seriously think that Chigurh needed that scene to reinforce the idea that he was a bad dude? It's just an obvious nod to the scene in RA and the Coens threw it in to see how many of us would get it. Or just because it's what they do and they don't really care if we get it or not.

Edit -

Hmmmm. I just noticed (after I posted) the post by rockduded which claims the scene with the bird was in the book. If that's true then I stand corrected. I'm not familiar with the book, so I don't know if it's true or not. But as he noted, (if that scene is in the book) the two scenes are eerily similar.

Could it then be that the Coens knew that scene from the book and put one like it in RA?

That's a possibility.