Bell's lack of motivation

how do you think his lack of motivation in the film is conveyed to the viewer?

Well, most overtly through narration in the first minute of the movie. The Coens move up his reflections on the old timers and put it right at the start, to emphasize the influence of that ideal. While the adaptation brings the source of Bell’s shame to the present, he still suffers from the ethos that a man is personally and solely responsible for outcomes.

The opening is where they set up the major question regarding Bell: he says it's his job to fight evil, but he vows not to fight this one because he's terrified of what it'll do to his soul. He's motivated to stay away, and motivated to confront. So there's the tension.

Adding that backstory would have required adding more about his relationship with Loretta, because it's her level head, her love and faith in him, that keeps him from despair. That's a lot of real estate, and you'd have to compromise the thriller aspect to fit it all in, at least if you wanted a 2 hr. movie.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

I didn't see a lack of motivation at all in how he attempted to perform his duty as a LEO. He came across as somewhat melancholy, world-weary, true but not unmotivated. He went as far as to travel out of his jurisdiction in order save Moss and capture Chigurh.

Your examples of specifics appear as justifiable hesitancy to me. They do have a protocol and trained, instinctive behavior which they fall back on if they perceive danger.

To answer your question,yes, some reference to that backstory would have been beneficial to the viewer. It would have explained the self loathing he expressed to Ellis at the end when he lamented, " If I was God, I wouldn't have anything to do with me either. " When I first saw the movie, I was confused about where that was coming from.

This was a big part of his character but based on his opening talk I took it as him being close to retirement and not wanting to get dead. To me he was not a coward but a guy who over the course of his career witnessed an extreme change in the criminal element and criminal behavior and violence. He probably only signed up to be a small town Sheriff not expecting things to get so bad. I think the point of the story is he has aged out of his usefulness in that job which is something that happens to a lot of people as times change and especially at such a rapid pace.

I don't think it was a lack of motivation caused by something in his past. I think they were going for he is a 'real' person about to retire suddenly confronted with extraordinarily violent criminal activity beyond what he was willing (or able) to handle so close to retiring. It seemed like it just drained him and he was basically saying 'f*** this, I am out'.

This is actually one of the things I do not like about this movie. the entirety of his character being so realistic when contrasted with the totally unrealistic situation and 2 'main' character throws the pacing of the film off really bad and almost makes the 2 characters Moss and Anton seem comically unrealistic. Bell's character actually detracts and takes one out of the element of the unrealistic extraordinary situation of the cat and mouse game between the 2 other characters.

The film would be better without him if it was just a more straight up action thriller but then there wouldn't be any 'deeper' themes for a bunch of pretentious film school students to get all 'jizzed in their pants' about now would there.

Don't get me wrong it is a good movie, but they really toned up the pretentiousness of it