No Country II-3- Anton Chigurh.

Ophelia · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:59 am Post subject: No Country II-3- Anton Chigurh.

3- Anton Chigurh, an assassin and a sociopath.

1- Would you like to give examples of what you find most striking about Chigurth's behaviour?

2- What do we learn about him from Carson Wells ( a rival hitman and ex-partner of Chigurh who is also on the trail of the money) ?

3-
I'm going to quote from a review of the film written by Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Chicago Reader.

I'll try not to do this if I can avoid it, and leave discussion of the film to a thread after the discussion of the novel.

Note: "The Silence of the Lambs": Ted Tally's screenplay was based on Thomas Harris's 1988 best-selling novel of the same name.

stcamp · Almost a regular Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Posts: 26 Gender:

Hello,

Americans love violence. Americans are violent. Do we love sociopaths? Yes, I think so. The American movie sociopath is the post-modern American Sheriff of the movies of the old west. Post-modern in the sense that he reflects that there is no right or wrong. Just circumstance, timing, and skill.

I think it is tied to the unique American worldview that an apocalypse is a certainty. Maybe not the "Apocalypse." Rather civil unrest, envriomental failure, terrorist attack, etc. The sociopath is the boogie man in every Americans closet. He is not waiting for Mom to to turn off the lights, instead he is waiting for the power companies to fail. Then he will spring forth an every red blooded male will have to be as tough and as violent as one to survive.

Steve

Kenneth · Almost a regular Joined: 08 Jan 2008 Posts: 28 Gender:

With regard to the Jonathan Rosenbaum review, his assertion that 5 Academy Awards for "Silence of the Lambs" is tantamount to "waves of love" for Hannibal Lecter is laughable. This man sounds very angry. His connection between "Lecter-love" and the first Gulf War is absurd. America was not grappling with it's feelings over killing masses of people on a daily basis (if indeed we were). Where was this moron in 1992? I was loading UPS trucks with working class Americans of every possible stripe. Trust me-- there was no emotional grappling going on-- far from it! Lecter helped assuage our Gulf War guilt? There was and is no guilt. What an isolated idiot! We may be fascinated with serial killers. It may be unhealthy. But it ain't Gulf War guilt! A lobotomy would be too kind for this man.

I must confess, Steve, that I don't quite get your post. That America has a unique view of certain Apocalypse means what? The sociopath in the closet............ hmmmmmmmmm...... Post-modern absence of right and wrong......... I think you need to elaborate.

One of the things that distinguishes Anton Chigurh as a sociopath for me is the use of weaponry. McCarthy equips him with a cattlegun powered, I think, by an oxygen tank. Consequently his victims are reduced to the level of animals and dispatched like cattle in a slaughterhouse. Conversely his moral adversary, Sheriff Bell, elevates animals to the level of humans when he rescues a dead bird from being pulverized on the road and when he instructs his deputy to remove their horses from a horrendous crime scene-- "Let's take the horses out yonder a ways, Bell said. They don't need to see this."

The lines are clear in this profoundly American novel: right and wrong.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:11 am Post subject:

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:50 am Post subject:

Movie related (unless it is in the book too):

What are we to make of the ending, where Chigurh pays the kids for the shirt? And was he looking at those kids prior to the accident with an intent to kill them?) This is the same thing (buying a shirt) Moss did with the older American kids just before crossing the Border.

Different but same in character?
Weakness in Chigurh?

Ophelia · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject:

Mr P wrote:

Kenneth · Almost a regular Joined: 08 Jan 2008 Posts: 28 Gender:

Your comments, Mr. P, about coping with change are extremely relevant Not having read the book you may be interested in the opening lines which represent the beginning of an on-going diary of sheriff Bell. He talks about a killer he busted who was executed, a man with no remorse, ostensibly no soul: "I thought I'd never seen a person like that and it got me to wonderin if he was some new kind." Later Bell says, "But he wasn't nothin compared to what was comin down the pike.'

Yes, change in a big way. For Bell, Anton Chigurh becomes a "true and living prophet of destruction." He's a ghost , a spirit, Satan on earth. Is Chigurh a man? It's a question that rears its head throughout the book. For me, yes he is a man. Bell should know that this kind of evil is a walk in the park compared to what he himself helped eradicate in the 1940's.

The change of garb thing is very interesting. Moss and Chigurh do this while coping with terrible injuries. They are both extremely vulnerable at the time. But it must be said it enables both to survive.

Ophelia · Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:23 am Post subject:

After reading Kenneth's post I returned to the first chapter of the book.

The scene with the deputy page 5 to 7 is difficult to understand -- Chigurgh kills the deputy although he is handcuffed-- but then Chigurgh explains it in the end.

p 174, during the conversation with Wells,Chigurgh says:

"An hour later I was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy outside of Sonora Texas and I let him take me into town with handcuffs. I'm not sure why I did this but I think I wanted to see if I could extricate myself by an act of will. because I believe that one can. that such a thing is possible. But it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do."

Ophelia · Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:41 am Post subject:

Chigurgh: 5- Do you think he is invincible?

Chapter 5, Wells and "the man on the seventeenth floor" discuss Chigurh:

p140.
The man: I'd like to know your opinion of him. In general. The invincible Mr
Chigurgh.
Wells: Nobody's invincible.
Man: Somebody is.
Somewhere in the world is the most invincible man.
Wells: That's a belief you have or what?
Man: No. It's called statistics.
(...)
Wells: He's a psychotic killer but so what? There's plenty around.

Ophelia · Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:45 am Post subject:

6- Is Chigurh really different from other monstrous killers?

Sheriff Bells compares him to other killers he knows, but he doesn't mention Mafia men.
If you think of organized crime in Asia for example, they've had very efficient and totally ruthless hit men operating for centuries.

Can Chigurh be "more heartless" than them?

And if he was worse personally, could he be the harbinger of a new race of bad men, as the Sheriff seems to think? (I have a difficulty with this, I tend to think the human race has already produced every possible type of human monster).


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