Pascual Valdez
Dr Childs
English 1301
06 December 2012
For
The Love of Money
What would you do if you found a bag
full of hundred dollar bills filled to the top, would you keep it or leave it
where it is? Or would you feel morally obligated to return it into the proper
authorities. If you kept it would you put it to good use or abuse it and spend
it frivolously? As Peter Travers of Rolling stone magazine says “Moss takes the
cash and runs. Wouldn’t you? That question sets up the film’s moral dilemma and
puts us in Moss’ boots.” (par. 4) In the
film “No Country for Old Men” you see
various examples of what some people would do for money, some good and some
bad. They say that money is the root to all evil. Just like the O’Jays song
“For the love of money” says “For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight.”
Money can drive some people out of their minds and can fool people sometimes. The
outcome is certain that money can change people decisions in one way or another
it doesn’t matter if your good or bad person.
Llewellyn Moss is hunting for
antelope in the vast plains in West Texas when he is confronted with a life
altering choice of taking the bag of money with good intentions. “Moss finds the money, the means to his
retirement, next to the body of the “ultimo hombre” (who, incidentally, no one
else in the movie ever appears to find).” (McClure 48) Out of pure luck one day
while hunting he stumbles upon a chance that could ultimately change the faith
of his course of life forever. “When he opens the satchel and gets his first
look at the money- a considerable amount, even at a glance he remains largely
unaffected. “Yeah,” he grunts under his breath, thoughtfully affirming that the
money isn’t really too much of a surprise.” (Peebles 126) Confronted with the
decision to keep the money or leave it was a big turning point in the film. As Tammy
Spino says “Moss steals the money he looks around and sees death all around him.
Moss knows that this may also be his fate.” (Spino) By taking the money Moss
has to change his life style drastically by forcing him and his wife Carla Jean
to move putting their life in jeopardy. And now while on the run he has to be
on his toes. Everyone who comes in contact with Moss either dies or gets
injured. At the brink of death in Mexico Moss hands the mariachi players money
in exchange for them to take him to the hospital. “Although Llewellyn steps into
a cradle of violence in a bleak and indifferent landscape, he must confront
almost immediately an obligation to a transcendent set of moral values, based
not on an Enlightenment faith in reason but on a faith in the redemptive power of
Christ’s sacrifice.
(McFarland 169)
Forced with a life or death
situation there is no telling what one might do when confronted with this but
to offer money to buy your life and safety back. Carson Wells is the hired
contract killer to find and murderous Anton Chigurh for a nominal fee. When he
finds Moss he tries to make a deal with him, offering to keep him alive in
exchange for the 2 million dollars. As Carson Wells tells Moss “You can’t make
a deal with him, even if you gave him the money, he might kill you just because
you inconvenienced him. Indeed, he is a peculiar man, with principles that
transcend money or drugs or anything like that.” Knowing that he could really
care less about Moss he tells him what he wants to hear so he can take the 2
million dollars for himself. After Anton Chigurh finds him in the hotel he is
afraid of dying so, and his tone quickly changes in the face of death. With a shaky
voice he wants to buy his life with money so Chigurh won’t kill him, he even
offered to tell him where the satchel filled with the 2 million dollars is.
Even though Anton Chigurh is
contracted to locate the satchel full of 2 million dollars he goes to great
lengths to do so by exterminating any and everyone who gets in his way for his
pay. When he finds out that there were other people that were hired also to go
after the money he eliminates the competition. Because he believes himself to
be “the one right tool” he gets insulted that other people were employed to
retrieve the money he goes to the source and kills the main investor. With the
flip of a coin you get heads or tails a fifty fifty chance with one’s life is
put on the line. Even though having principles to get through life as
guidelines, people still make excepting for being currency motivated. Though he
is receiving a sum of money he kills his bosses for the money. At the hotel
while tracking the money he kills the Mexicans in there room.
Greed is such an ugly trait but goes
hand and hand with the envious sought after prize called money. To some people
it’s the one thing worth fighting and risking life and limb to obtain it with
any means necessary. But unfortunately with these risks comes a hefty price to
pay, for every action there’s a reaction. And the price and misfortune that was
paid was the death of Carla Jean, Llewellyn Moss’ wife. The selfish acts that
Moss took had a dire effect on the life of his wife in more ways that he could
ever imagine without him even knowing it. In the end what it came down to was
the final show down between Anton Chigurh and Carla Jean. Her faith was sealed
because of everyone’s selfish acts of greed. After losing her husband and
burying her mother she comes home and notices an open window in the house. It
was as if she knew what was in the room waiting for her. Boiling down to the last
conversation Anton says “your husband had the opportunity to save you.” Thus
proving, her husband’s selfish acts to keep the money. As Chigurh flips the
coin he says “this is the best I can do, call it” to her this was an inane
comment, how could a coin determine the outcome and fate of another human being
life is what she was getting at. Brandi Curl says in her bloog “Carla Jean refusing
to make the choice to play the game forced Chigurh to take reasonability for his
own actions. The choice not to play did cost her life but expose Chigurh as not
a prophet of fate but as a killer.” (Curl) To some people
it’s the one thing worth fighting for; the one thing worth dying for, but it
brings nothing but pain when they go in search of quick fortune and fame.
The group of boys walking on the
border bridge seemingly appear to be concerned about Moss’s injury until he
made he offered to purchase one of the boys jacket for $500 dollars, after
seeing the money there concerns turn into greed. It was evident greed set in
when Llewellyn told the other boy to give him the beer and the boy give a smirk
as says “how much?” After witnessing an almost a horrific and deadly accident
the younger boys at the end of the film seem willing to accept the money given
to then in exchange for their silence. The boys approached Anton in the street
to see if he was ok. Even through near death experiences the boys were willing
to remain silent for money and not tell the authorities. Weather its death, greed,
or simply reacting to the situation what some people do for money is impossible
to understand as Mary P. Nichols says “Human beings do not simply confront
death, they confront the incomprehensible, the unintelligible.” (Nichols 208)
Willing to kill for money is one of
the choices that cross the mind of some individuals. The Mexican drug dealers
will do anything for money so they are willing to kill anyone who stands in
their way to get their hands on the money. Doing whatever it takes to get the
money, whether it’s to kill or not to kill people such as innocent by standers.
“In the novel, the reader is told that one of the Mexicans grabs the girl by
the hair, points his gun at her head, and tells Llewellyn that he will kill her
if he does not lay his weapon down.” (McFarland 170) Using innocent by standers
is one leverage strategy that drug dealers use in order to get what there after
in this case the satchel of money. The only down fall of being a dealer is as
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell says “these boys died of natural causes, natural to the
line of work there in.”
Money, currency, cash, assets, funds
whatever you want to call it ultimately in the end it changes the outcome of
peoples perspectives and choices they make because of it. As they say “money is
the root of all evil,” it is evident that there is truth to that saying. Like
it or not what people do for money has an everlasting effect on their lives and
the ones around them.
Works
Cited
No
Country for Old Men. Dir. Ethan, Joel Coen. Perf. Tommy Lee
Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh
Bardem. Miramax/ Paramount Vintage, 2007. DVD.
McClure,
Christopher. No Country for Old Gods.
Perspectives on Political Science 39.1 (2010): n.
pag. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.
Peebles, Stacey.
“Hold Still: Models of Masculinity in the Coens’ No Country for Old Men.” No Country
for Old Men From Novel to Film. Ed. Lynnea Chapman King, Rick Wallach, Jim Welsh. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press,
2009. 124-138. Print.
McFarland,
Douglas. “No Country for Old Men as Moral Philosophy.” The Philosophy of The Coen Brothers. Ed. Mark T. Conard.
Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2009. 163-175. Print.
Travers, Peter.
“No Country for Old Men.” Rolling Stone.Com.
Reviews, 1 Nov. 2007. Web. 07 Dec.2012.
Spino, Tammy. “Fear
and Fate in No Country for Old Men.” Blooger. Blooger.com. 25 November 2012. Web. 8 December 2012.
Curl, Brandi. “Choice
and Consequence in No Country for Old Men.” Blooger. Blooger.com. 8 December. 2012. Web. 8 December 2012.
