Name
: Irwanto
ID.
Number : 1135030125
Class
: Literature – C
Formula
of John Coel’s No Country for Old Men:
Western Genre
Abstract:
This research describes about western formula of John Coel’s No Country for Old Men. A Literary
formula is a structure of narrative or dramatic conventions employed in a great
number of individual (Cawelti, 1976: 5). There are some formulas of western
such as the landscape as the main setting, the main character as a hero, and
always take in frontier. One of western movie is No Country for Old Men were directed by John Coel. In this analysis
The main theory is using Cawelti’s theory. In this research, the researcher is
using qualitative method.
1.
Introduction
In literary work, can
find something usual and it can be cognizant of the same genre in the
literature. It was called as Formula. A literary formula is a structure of
narrative or dramatic conventions employed in a great number of individual
(Cawelti, 1976: 5). There are two common usage of the term formula, are a
conventional way of treating some specific thing or person and the term of
formula refers to large plot types.
Western movie is the major defining genre of the American film industry, a
nostalgic eulogy to the early days of the expansive, untamed American frontier
(the borderline between civilization and the wilderness). They are one of the
oldest, most enduring and flexible genres and one of the most
characteristically American genres in their mythic origins.
One of the western movie was adapted from the novel of Cormac
McCarthy with the same title in 2007. The movie’s won four awards at the 80th Academy Awards – Best picture, best
director, best
supporting actor (Bardem) and best
adapted screenplay, allowing the Coen
brothers to join four previous directors honored three times for a single film. In addition, the film won three British Academy Film Awards
(BAFTA) including Best Director, and two Golden
Globes. The American Film Institute listed it as an AFI Movie of the Year, and the National Board of Review selected the film as the best of 2007.
In this essay, I consider the No Country for Old Men’s movie was
directed, written, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen is western movie. This
movie has own of formula. In this case, the analysis of the formula discourse
is the particularity which can be related with the movie of No Country for Old Men.
2.
Problem
Based
on the background, in this study we determined a formulation of the problem, as
follows:
How
are the western formulas in the John Coel’s No
Country for Old Men?
3. Theory
The western film genre often portrays the conquest
of the wilderness and the subordination of nature, in the name of civilization,
or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of
the frontier. Specific settings include lonely isolated forts, ranch houses,
the isolated homestead, the saloon, the jail, the livery stable, the small-town
main street, or small frontier towns that are forming at the edges of
civilization.
Western films have also been called the
horse opera, the oater (quickly-made, short western films which became as
commonplace as oats for horses), or the cowboy picture. The western film genre
has portrayed much about America's past, glorifying the past-fading values and
aspirations of the mythical by-gone age of the West. Over time, westerns have
been re-defined, re-invented and expanded, dismissed, re-discovered, and
spoofed.
The formula of western in this essay
refers to Cawelti. According to
Cawelti (193) there are some of western formulas are 1) the setting in landscape
or western, 2) the main character is hero, 3) there is frontier, 4) the end of
the story is hero’s gone. To analysis this essay, I probably using qualitative
research method.
According to Cawelti (1976: 193) “The element that
most clearly defines the western is the symbolic landscape in which it takes
place and the influence this landscape has on the character and actions of the
hero”. The other paragraph Cawelti said that “the symbolic landscape of the
western formula is a field of action that centers upon the point of encounter
between civilization and wilderness, East and West, settled society and lawless
openness.” Then, McVeigh (2007: 2) said that “Westerns take place in the American West, and are usually set between
the 1850s and 1900.”
The hero is a lawless man. Like the opinion of
Cawelti (1976: 193) that “The hero is a man of the wilderness who comes out of
the old lawless way of life to which he is deeply attached both by personal
inclination and by his relationship to male comrades who have shared that life
with him” The hero is a man of the
attached both by personal inclination and by his relationship to make comrades
who have shared that life with him.
The western hero finds
him self-placed between the old life and the new with the responsibility for
taking those actions that will bring about the final destruction of the old
life and the establishment of settled society
According to Cawelti (1976: 193) “The frontier
settlement or group is a point both in space and time.” Then, McVeigh (2007: 2)
said that “Westerns take place in the untamed frontier, an open landscape of
mountain ranges, rugged lands and vast plains. Settlers build isolated
homesteads or live in small towns.”
“The western hero finds himself placed between the
old life and the new with the responsibility for taking those actions that will
bring about the final destruction of the old life and the establishment of
settled society.” (Caweilti, 194).
4.
Synopsis
The film opens with a shot of desolate, wide-open
country in West Texas in June 1980. In a voice-over, the local sheriff, Sheriff
Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), tells of the changing times: in the old days, some
sheriffs never wore guns, as did his late father, who was the sheriff before
him; in the modern day and age.
Along a desert highway, Anton Chigurh (Javier
Bardem) is arrested by a deputy (Zach Hopkins). They return to the empty police
station, where the deputy calls Sheriff Bell. He tells the Sheriff about an odd
device in Chigurh's possession (a captive bolt pistol). The deputy has his
back to Chigurh, who sneaks up behind him and just as the deputy hangs up the
phone, uses the handcuff chain to garrote the deputy. After cleaning himself up
in the station bathroom, Chigurh steals a squad car and once on a desert
highway, uses the car's lights and siren to stop a random motorist (Chip Love)
driving a Ford sedan.
Elsewhere in the desert, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin)
is hunting pronghorns. Setting the sights of his hunting rifle on one, he
fires, scattering the animals. Mexican criminals and pit bulls lie dead on the
ground; only a mortally wounded driver remains alive. Moss tracks the only
criminal to have escaped the shootout to a tree where he finds the man has
died. He finds a large catalog case filled with two million dollars and a .45
caliber pistol. He takes the money and gun. He returns home where he hides the
submachine gun under his mobile home. His wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) is
irritated that he has been gone all day and he refuses to tell her where he
found the pistol and catalog case.
The next morning Moss purchases a tent for its
poles, duct tape, wire cutters, and a 12 gauge shotgun and ammo at a local
sporting goods store. He returns to the second hotel room, where he saws off
the shotgun barrel and stock. He returns to his first hotel and rents a second
room immediately behind his first room. It shares the HVAC duct with his first
room. In the second room, he uses the tent poles, duct tape, and coat hangers
to fashion a hook that he uses to retrieve the catalog case full of money from
the HVAC duct.
Chigurh is driving past the motel when the tracking
device goes off. He finds the motel, and by the frequency of its beeping he
deduces which room the signal is coming from, Moss's first room. Chigurh rents
a room and takes off his boots so he can quietly walk up to the room where the
signal is coming from. He uses his captive bolt pistol to break into the room.
In a border town, Moss rents a room in an older,
rundown multistory hotel. Unable to sleep, he is apparently trying to figure
out how Chigurh tracked him down to the previous motel. He searches the case
and finds the transponder that Chigurh has been using to find him. He hears
suspicious noises and calls the clerk who had checked him in at the front desk.
The clerk (Marc Miles) had told Moss he'd be on until the next morning at 10
a.m., but he doesn't answer. He sees the shadow of feet under his door, but
then the hall lights go dark. Chigurh shoots out the lock with the captive bolt
pistol, hitting Moss, who fires his shotgun into the door. Moss then drops the
case out the second story window and follows it. Chigurh shoots at him from the
window but misses. Moss is wounded in the side by the door lock.
Sheriff Bell is driving up to Moss's motel when he
hears automatic gunfire and sees a pickup truck speeding off. At the motel,
Sheriff Bell sees a large number of empty shell casings on the ground by the
pool, where a woman is floating dead. He then sees Llewelyn Moss dead in the
open doorway of his room. The money case is missing. All Sheriff Bell can do is
comfort Carla Jean when she arrives. Later that night, Sheriff Bell and the
local sheriff (Rodger Boyce) have coffee and bemoan the declining morals of
American society. Afterward, Sheriff Bell returns to the motel and nearly
misses being killed by Chigurh who had been searching the room for the money
case.
Chigurh flips a coin but Carla Jean refuses to play
his game. Carla Jean dismisses Chigurh's game, saying that he's the one who
decides on whether or not to kill her, not the coin. He is unmoved, however,
insisting on his lack of a free choice in the matter. During this exchange, we
see two boys ride past the house on bicycles. Chigurh leaves the house and
stops to check his boots, apparently for blood.
Driving off, Chigurh gets out of his car, his arm
bone protruding out of his elbow. The two neighborhood boys come up to him to
see if he's all right. Chigurh pays one of the kids for his shirt, which he
uses to make a sling for his arm, and he asks them to tell the authorities that
he had already left. Chigurh limps away down the street.
5. Discussion
In
this discussion, based on the statement of the problem, writer is focusing
analysis about formula in John Coel’s No
Country for Old Men. In this movie, we can find some of formulas, are:
The first formula is the setting of the film.
According to Cawelti (193) “The element that most clearly defines the western
is the symbolic landscape in which it takes place and the influence this
landscape has on the character and actions of the hero”.
Based on Cawelti, we can find some scene that shows
in the landscape. The landscape was appearing in the opening, when the Sherriff
Bell tells about himself. In the other scene, Moss is hunting pronghorn. There,
the setting is a field or wilderness with the some pronghorn and the other
animals. The action of the hero is happening in the landscape or west too. Moss
is run away because Chigurh want to catch him. Chigurh want to take off a bag
of money. Moss is running to river and Chigurh keep to catch him use a dog.
There, the setting is in the landscape, and look seems too wild.
The second formula is the main character is hero.
The hero is a lawless man. Like the opinion of Cawelti that “The hero is a man
of the wilderness who comes out of the old lawless way of life….” Here, the
main character is Chigurh. Actually, Chigurh is the hero, he want to take back
the money from Moss. According to Cawelti that the hero is lawless, and we can
know that Moss is lawless too. He’s ever got a problem with police or Sherriff
but he can run away with kill the Sherriff.
Frontier is the third formula in western film.
According to Cawelti “The frontier settlement or group is a point both in space
and time.” Based on the theory, we can find the scene about frontier. The scene
is when the finish battle between Moss and Chiguhr front of motel. Moss and
Chiguhr were got injury. Moss goes to the line between America and Mexico, its
frontier. The frontier name “United States Border Station – Mexico.” In the
frontier, Moss is throwing the bag to the underbrush. Then, a few a days later,
the Moss friend comes to the frontier to look for the bag.
The last formula is the end of story. “The western
hero finds himself placed between the old life and the new with the
responsibility for taking those actions that will bring about the final
destruction of the old life and the establishment of settled society.”
(Caweilti, 194). In the end of film, Moss was killed by Chigurh then Chigurh is
going to Carla (Moss’s wife) to make a little talk with her. After that,
Chigurh is driving his car and go away from Carla house. Some minutes later,
Chigurh get accident and he is got injured. The two neighborhood boys come up
to him to see if he's all right. Chigurh pays one of the kids for his shirt,
which he uses to make a sling for his arm, and he asks them to tell the
authorities that he had already left. Chigurh limps away down the street.
6. Conclusion
From the analysis above, we know that there are four
formulas of western in Coen’s No Country
for Old Men: the setting in the landscape, the main character is hero and
lawless, frontier, and the end of the story. The most significant formula in
the western is the setting of place. We can know it genre when see the place,
if the place in the west or landscape, we can make conclusion that’s western
genre.
7. Reference
Cawelti,
Jhon G. 1976. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance. United State: The University of
Chicago Press
McVeigh,
Stephen. 2007. The American Western.
Edinburg. Edinburg University Press
No Country for
Old Men’s Movie
No Country for
Old Men’ Synopsis available at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477348/synopsis accessed on May 9th 2016, 20:26
Wib
Western Film,
available at http://www.filmsite.org/westernfilms.html accessed on May 9th 2016, 17.13 Wib
No Country for
Old Men’s Review, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Country_for_Old_Men_(film) accessed on May 9th 2016, 16.46
Wib
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