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DVD Features
- DVD Release Date: April 7, 2008
- Original Theatrical Release: November, 2007
- 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
- English and Spanish Language Tracks
- Subtitles: English and Spanish
- Suggested Retail Price: $32.99
- 3 discs. Disc 1 contains the movie and making of featurettes; Disc 2 contains a mock “making of” from Josh Brolin, and a collection of publicity interviews; Disc 3 contains a “digital copy” of the movie for playing on your computer or compatible mobile device.
The Movie
The Coen Brothers are well known for their brutal sense of humor and that is a legacy well-tested in No Country for Old Men. They aren’t outright trying for comedy but it is amazing how it creeps into one of the most disturbing movies recently produced. Winner of the Best Picture Academy Award for 2007 is one of those times where the Academy got it right and the film, I have no doubt, will come to be considered a classic.
Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a down-to-earth West Texan who stumbles onto a drug deal gone bad while out hunting in the scrublands. Finding $2.4 million in a satchel he decides nobody will miss it and he might as well keep the money and buy his wife (Kelly Macdonald) a better life. Of course things can’t be that easy and bad deeds produce more bad deeds and soon enough he finds himself in the crosshairs of a relentless—almost mechanical—killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, who also won an Academy Award).
No Country for Old Men works on several levels: Chigurh chasing Moss works on the surface level. It is full of suspense and plays out in ways you can’t possibly predict. It also works on a more sociological level in that unlike many movies in this general genre, the violence provides no release for the audience. This is not an action movie where killing people is entertainment and bonus points are awarded for how creatively it is done. Here instead, violence is evil and the question is how we respond to evil and how touching it changes us all. Finally, it works as literature. Based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, the Coen Brothers changed little from the book (they say in one of the extras that the act of adaptation was more one of excision than creation), and thus ambiguity is maintained in a way much more common to books than movie audiences generally accept. The way events unfold may be honest but it isn’t necessarily satisfying. I saw this movie in the theater in 2007, afterwards we found ourselves talking through some of the points with strangers sharing our elevator. Not because we were confused but simply to find validation that things meant what we thought. Watching it again for this review I find myself wanting to have those conversations all over again.
And that, for me, is a sign of a good movie.
The Goodies
Making of Documentaries
In addition to the actual movie, the first disc in the set contains three making of documentaries: “The Making of No Country for Old Men,” “Working with the Coens,” and “The Diary of a Country Sheriff.” Each is pretty standard in covering some aspect of the movie. The only truly interesting moment I found in any of them, was when “The Making of…” took a couple minutes in explaining how what to the watcher seems like a really simple shot was actually extremely difficult and technical in the execution. That’s the kind of thing served best by DVD extras, in my opinion and unfortunately that kind of insight isn’t readily available in this edition. It should also be noted, that these featurettes are also available in the standard edition DVD released in March 2008.
Josh Brolin’s Unauthorized Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
The first extra on Disc 2 is a “mockumentary” made by Josh Brolin in which the cast of the movie “reveal” what a horrible experience it was making No Country for Old Men and how horrible it is to work for the Coen Brothers. It has the feel of something made for the wrap party at the end of filming and as an inside joke I’m sure it just kills with the funny. To the uninvolved watcher, though, it is just kind of odd. I suppose it is an interesting piece of ephemera but I don’t think it imparts anything of interest about the movie or those involved.
Publicity Timeline
The rest of the stuff on Disc 2 are a series of press and publicity events, mostly from November 2007 and in support of the initial opening of the movie. Most of them involve Josh Brolin and/or Javier Bardem being interviewed but Kelly Macdonald and the Coen Brothers do appear in some as well. The value of the included items varies pretty widely and having them all in one sequence like this does demonstrate why doing movie promotion must be a special kind of hell for most actors and it is amazing that after a couple days they aren’t just recuded to saying “please, ask me something original…or at least something not quite so stupid.”
It really doesn’t help that the Coen Brothers are notoriously shy about promotion and many of their answers are some form of a shrug and a “we just did it that way” or “because that’s how it was in Cormac McCarthy’s book.” In a podcast hosted by Jeff Goldsmith of Creative Screenwriting Magazine this reaches almost comedic proportions as they provide almost no answers of valuable substance to his questions about the craft of screenwriting.
Another one, a 30-minute sitdown with David Poland interviewing Bardem and Brolin together has a bit more meat in it and Poland has enough skill as an interviewer (though it is a very informal method) that while the answers about the movies aren’t necessarily more substantive (and everything will be repeated several times in the other interviews), there is at least enough time for the actors to loosen up and kind of show what seems to be a more real personality.
Digital Copy
Disc 3 contains only another copy of the movie, intended for download onto an iTunes or PlayForSure compatible mobile device (it copies to your computer as well but you could play the regular DVD there anyway). To use this digital copy will require that your computer be conntected to internet to verify a code you’ll enter to unlock the copy protection on the file. Be very careful you don’t lose the code, though. It is found on a flimsy piece of paper in the DVD case that looks kind of like a bit of advertising if you aren’t paying attention. Also, the code can only be used once so make sure you use it for the person that should have control over the copying.
Audio, Video and Interface
No Country for Old Men is not a colorful movie but it is a vivid one and the transfer both for audio and video is top notch and will look great on your system (and if your system is beyond simple DVD then a Blu-Ray disc is available to you). The menu interface is extremely minimalist. Simple images, not animated except for fades from screen to screen. That simplicity matches the tone of the movie, and so is perfectly appropriate. The beauty of the stark West Texas landscape used for the menu screens should help put you in the mood for what’s to come.
The ony complaint would be that the music loops used for the menus is extremely short which quickly becomes irriating if you’ve left a menu up while you wander off to do something else for a while. Not that I do that, of course.
The Final Evaluation
With the basic DVD edition from last year still in print and easily available, it is hard to make a case for shelling out the extra money for this more expansive edition. Neither the Coen Brothers nor the ators involved seem to be the type that would go out of their way (or view it as fun) to put together a really insightful, energetic DVD package. The movie is the thing and you can get that for $10 less with the original DVD release. Take that disc, which also contains the three making of featurettes and then spend a little time with Google and you can pretty much recreate everything yourself. Most of the extras on Disc 2 are easily found online (here’s the David Poland interviewCharlie Rose episode) and if you don’t mind watching them on your computer instead of the TV then you’re all set. All that matters then is how important it is to have all these items on one disc that you can watch easily at some later date.
If you love the movie and that is at all important then go ahead and splurge for this edition. Otherwise, just get the original release. The key thing is that Old Country for Old Men is an instant classic and you owe it to yourself to see it one way or another.
