Villian or monster.
Would you consider Anton to be a villian or a monster? You can say both if you please.
shareOkay... Both. 😁
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MovieChat Forums > No Country for Old Men (2007) Discussion > Villian or monster.
I think it's more accurate to say "neither."
From a story standpoint he'd be the antagonist, the one main stumbling block between the protagonist and his goal.
I believe the protagonist is the sheriff, not Llewellyn. His goal, at which he fails, is to stop evil from spreading. Anton is apparently unstoppable, at least by methods known to Llewellyn, Carson (Woody Harrelson), the US Mob and the cartel(s).
If you merely refer to his character, I'd just say he's "principled evil." He plays by rules, but no one else understands them. Some might call that "monstrous."
I would say the point you excellently make in a very condensed fashion qualifies Chigurh to be called a monster on several fronts. People who in no way have harmed him get killed with little to no remorse. The hotel clerk and passing driver near the end come to mind.
That he has an internal set on principles that he abides by rigorously makes him even more lethal, there is not stopping him while he lives, as is shown, and as you point out. He's like a actually successful version of the Arnie Terminator, a mechanism more than human being.
He might not be a villain as such, certainly not from his point of view, as he seems to consider the coin toss for example to give a fair chance in a world, as he seems to think, governed by coincidence and random action.
Now sure, many of those Chigurh speficially target are from the criminal underworld, and can be seen as deserving of punishment in a vigilante fashion or typically Hays Code Hollywood morality. And mr. Moss takes money he does not own, which would bring similar intervention from gangs who follow their own rules. Mrs. Moss is practically a bystander, though.
Chigurh does no respect even those who employ him, he plays by no-one elses rules but his. That makes him even more dangerous than a loyal hitman, as he seems to have no team to play for but himself. That makes him a narrative monster from both protagonist and antagonist points of view, an unpredictable and as such essentially unknowable and unquantifiable threat. All who get in his way, in any way, are expendable. That's true horror in my view.
[edited division into paragraphs and some spelling]
Well said, yourself!
shareclearly evil
shareI'd say both. Though a lot of villains could be called monsters. Like Hans Gruber in Die Hard is a monster for wanting to kill a bunch of people to steal bearer bonds. Colonel Stuart in Die Hard 2 is a monster for blowing up an airplane full of people. The Emperor in Return of the Jedi is a monster for wanting to kill all the rebels and for delighting in torturing Luke at the end. Gaear Grimsrud and Carl Showalter in Fargo are monsters for killing people. I could go on.
sharehe is the bold AND the beautiful
shareI’d say villain.
shareHe's a killer of mythology and convention.
Whether it's the Mexican/US drug Cartels, Sheriff Bell, or Llewelyn Moss and his family Anton's presence defies the narrative expectation of his goal in the story line.
As an audience we're in engaged in the cat and mouse of it all, but it's amazing how Anton's actions are not about whether he catches and succeeds but rather if he subdues and deflates his victim's spirits:
- Llewellyn and Carla Jean are both dead with no legacy to remember them
- Sheriff Bell feels like an abject failure of a man who will spend the rest of his days having a looped fever dream about being too late and messing things up for his father
Great post.
In the early sequences of the film, Anton (symbol of nature, of animal) confronts the deputy (symbol of law, of domestication). Following the strangulation of the deputy, the viewer sees cultured law become replaced by natural law (animal). Anton's control over the dead deputy's vehicle reifies this notion, as he is able to effortlessly steer 'law' any way he sees fit. What's more, is that Bell's ineffectiveness throughout the film evinces the dominion of entropy, as represented in Anton (prophet of destruction), and of domesticated law's attenuated state.
He's ac metaphor for the evil that is coming WWII m which Tommy Lee Jones and others keep referring to.
He's in human form but there is something inhuman about him. I say this because of his last scene with his compound fracture and he just walks away.