Joy in the Struggle: The Gleaners and I

If the ultimate purpose of directors is to guide the tone of a film, then Agnes Verda is the most successful of all directors.  Even in the darkest of her films, she finds a way to infuse a lighthearted joy, allowing us to smile in surprising moments in her protagonist’s struggles.  This is a collection of real people, including the director herself, gathering up the discarded elements of our society and find it useful and even necessary.  We see a number of people on the edge of survival, and yet they matter-of-factly, even happily, pursue their lives, whether chosen or not.  

In the struggle there is joy, there is joy in the struggle. We might feel defeated, but we still must struggle, not just for ourselves, but for those around us.  And in that struggle, we need to laugh and make light of ourselves.  We need to feel the joy of love.  And in the midst of our joy, we need to recognize that it is also hard work, to keep afloat in a world with so much opposition, with so much difficulty.  Along with the joy, we can feel a pride in the work of love and compassion we participate in. 

Also watch: In America, 7^th Heaven, Tideland

Keep reading our blog series, The Way Forward

Cycles Return: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

Despite the title, this film is not about a year, but about a lifetime that takes place at a hermitage on a beautiful tiny island/dock in the middle of a lake.  A young boy is raised by a monk and goes through struggles, rebellion, despair, and eventually returns to take the place of the monk.  The protagonist must make changes in his own attitudes and how he sees the world in order to fit where he belonged in the first place.  

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring reminds us that no matter what struggle or difficulty we find ourselves in, no matter how the world seems to encroach on our freedoms and our abilities to do what we must, in the end, our lives are a cycle, the world is a part of a larger cycle, and all things come back to where they should me, if we would but endure.  At times, being who we should be then patiently enduring in that being is the best we can do, and we can watch the world return to where it should be.

Also watch: Wild Strawberries, Ikiru, Temple Grandin, Boyhood

Keep reading other posts in the series: The Way Forward

Simple Joys: The Scent of Green Papaya

A deceptively simple film, we see a girl growing into herself through cooking, serving and dreaming. Although she is in a Vietnam of conflict, she is a servant with no way out, she is hopeless and helpless, yet the film doesn’t look at that reality.  It focuses on her joy in life, in food, in relationships.  And that joy is infectious.  

Not all of us can see the joy in life, especially in a time of conflict.  I know I can’t, not always.  But we should allow those who can find joy in simple things to inspire us, and we shouldn’t ever dampen what they understand: that God has given us the simple things to enjoy and we should let that happiness pierce through the skin of darkness that seems to surround us.

We need to experience the sensuousness of texture, the delight of a quiet conversation, the sacred presence of a good meal. The refreshing bath of a beautiful film. No matter what hell goes around us, we can still take time for joy.

Also watch: Bright Star, Life in a Day, Alamar, Babette's Feast

Read more of this blog series, The Way Forward

Arrival: Communication and Truth

Chatter, beautiful noise, static, prattle, nonsensical, overwhelming talk.  It is Starbucks music to my soul, easily ignored until I despise it, ready to attack. It is my fear and focus of my anger, and yet, and yet, it is the core of love.

Arrival begins near the end of Close Encounter.  After the Up-like prologue (another few minutes and I'd have been bawling), the aliens have arrived and the government was communicating with them.  But they are at an impasse, so they gather Louise Banks and Ian Donnelly to find out what is really going on-- are the aliens attacking, are they wanting to help?  The pair immediately are allowed on one of the ships. Ian looks at the landscape scientifically, overjoyed with new discoveries, but scared out of his wits internally.  Louise is a linguist, and she clearly is frightened, but the enormity of the puzzle captivates her.  How will she learn to speak to these octopii who don't share even the fundamentals of human language?  Stakes raise, there is betrayal and power trips and so much more, getting to the core of human nature.

I was captivated. The aliens were simply not alien enough for me, and the communication happened too quickly, even under such enormous time pressures.  But so much of it is wonderful.  First of all, thank you, thank you, that the central event doesn't take place in New York or San Francisco, but the middle of nowhere in Montana.  Similar to Close Encounters' Wyoming, perhaps, but good enough for me.  The script lays out both the political puzzle and the intellectual exercise with increasing drama on both sides, increasing the tension and curiosity.  The score is easily the best one this year, both appropriate and innovative (I'm listening to it again right now).  The acting was fine, perhaps Whittiker was distracting occasionally, and the effects were thankfully subdued so as not to distract.  Frankly, this tops my list for this year.

***

Would that I had time to explain the themes of the film, so rich, full of the back and forth of seeking that which is most important.

There are, in this human world, two themes that push and pull us.  Language v. Science, Communication v. Truth.
Communication opens doors; to truth before communication is to close doors
Communication empathizes; truth assumes
Communication is human; truth is nature
Communication leads to mercy; truth is without compromise

Truth does not give any space for the human, for the person, the individual doesn’t matter

Communication is the necessary white around the yoke of truth, it comes before, it comes after, it cushions, it comforts, it is the home of truth.

Truth, without that cushion, is a hard, bare stone.  Impossible to swallow.


Fear does not close communication, but allowing fear to rule closes all paths to truth.

Find Family Where You Can: You Can't Take It With You

This early Frank Capra film gives us what we see often in later film: A group of rag-tag misfits who stick together although the odds are against them.  Some of them are related, some are not, but the point is that they are family because each of them have a unique vision of life and they are all encourage to pursue that vision. Each have a skill that they practice and they are given that chance to promote their own personal growth, despite the way they look.    

We are encouraged to find families, not necessarily connected through flesh and blood, of people that will support us being who we are, and will find ways to help us use our skills, even if they are rare.

Also Watch: Notting Hill, Delicatessen, Another Year, the Toy Story films

Read more of this blog series, The Way Forward

Look for Friendship with Enemies: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Powell and Pressburger are at their best when they claim to be giving you one genre, in this case a war film, but end up giving you something much better and surprising. This film depicts the friendship between a British General and a German officer through the wars of the first half of the 20^th century.  Their relationship began as a rivalry between enemies, and then grew to grudging respect and then complete admiration, despite being on different sides and having wildly different opinions.  

Even so, we must realize that our allies and supporters might not come from people on “our” side.  Sometimes people who disagree strongly are still the human connection we need to keep going in life.

Also watch: How to Train Your Dragon, Catch Me If You Can, District 9, Joyeux Noel, The Son

Read more of The Way Forward

Movies Illuminate the Way Forward (Introduction)

Crossroads

Many of us are living in anger right now.  Anger at the “other side” who is trying to take our world from us.  Anger at ourselves for not doing enough.   Anger at people who are stupid, just so stupid, because they can’t see what is real.  Many of us live with just a spark of hope, or with despair because we don’t know what the future holds.

I’m here to tell you that movies can help.

Cast Away

Well, frankly, any complex text might be able to help us.  There is truth in every section of the library, in every art, and there is lie.  We need to seek it out, to find what is true for us.  But I believe that movies, yes, even movies, can guide us to hope in a world of anger and despair.  They can give us a path forward. 

Movies, for the most part, are stories.  Sometimes stories with a moral, sometimes just stories to entertain us.  But within all of these stories is a piece of our own humanity.  And it is that humanity that gives us the way forward.  Over the next number of posts today I will be presenting a set of movies that I believe give us a way forward in an uncertain world. 

Click on this link to read the full set: The Way Forward

My Own Private Idaho

The Tribe: Seeing the World through Deaf Eyes

Do you hear that sound? That is what nothing sounds like. The funny thing about nothing is that, on this planet, it does not exist. Even the deaf hear, through their fingertips.

I spent about ten years in the deaf world. I was professionally an interpreter for the hearing impaired for that time. I attended their churches, went to their parties, attended their classes, visited deaf professors, went to their concerts (yes, they have concerts) and hung out with students. And in all that time there is one word that I would never describe the deaf world, which is silent. Every conversation is punctuated with guttural and popping sounds. Their lives are filled with loud music, because some hard of hearing folks can hear it, barely, and others can feel it. There are hearing aids making loud pitched noises that the owner is unaware of. There is always banging and loud pounding to get people's attention and because no one is going to complain about the noise.

So the idea that The Tribe is mostly silent is the opposite of what I expected. These deaf people are more like very active ghosts than real deaf folks, more reminiscent of the shadows in Vampyr I just saw. And I think it goes along with the point. At first, the decision to not translate the sign language I thought was to make a film directed toward the deaf. But I know ASL, and while the folks in the deaf school used a variant of ASL, it was mostly unknown to me. Only the deaf from the region of Europe they are in could make it all out. I got enough clues to know that most of the dialogue is conversation about what is just about to happen, so no one is missing more than nuances. And deaf folks couldn't get it anyway. Sometimes conversations are filmed from their backs, so no one could read the signs. It's all artfully done, but communication isn't the point.

In fact, it is the opposite of the point. What we have here is a form of Meek's Cutoff, where the hearing audience can understand for a couple hours what it is like to be deaf. There is a whole society around you and you can only make out clues as to what is going on, because no one is including you. And if you are not specifically thought of and spoken directly to, then events and motivations and intents are mysterious, until they are done and you had no idea what was happening. Even then, you might wonder, "why are they doing this" and only have clues as to the answer.

The deaf person's most common question to a hearing person is, "What did they say?", which is the very question the hearing person asks again and again in this movie, but knowing that they aren't going to get an answer, they just remain silent, mystified, and mostly bored until something exciting, which one could never anticipate, happened. It is a full turning of the tables.

But most hearing people wouldn't understand. They would just say, "That film was just annoying." Right on. You got it.

Still, it is a slow gangster flick. I agree with the point, and I get it. That doesn't mean I was entertained as much as I was enlightened.

Vampyr (1932)

Delayed until her servant’s due was paid in full, her death was feared lest damnation be her fate.

“Doctor, please, grant me release from this destiny!” fell on closed ears for his lust was for blood.

Shades, broken from the stranglehold of life, sought her release,

For only those completely freed

May unencumbered seek the unchaining of another.

A cinematic feast, Dreyer does it again, having the eye and the power to create genius scenes. The story as a whole might be weak and slow, but there are individual sights and scenes to keep one enthralled. The biggest weakness of the film are the long stretches of text... I didn't know I was going to be reading a book! But there are more than enough visual joys to make up for it.

Primer for Activists: John Carpenter's They Live

I wear my sunglasses at night.

This movie was made for activists, presenting the ideas of an extreme activist. I'm a moderate activist, myself, but I've spoken to the extreme folks and I get it. Here's the basic viewpoint: The United States is falling into poverty because of leaders who are taking resources and using them for nefarious purposes. They are paying off people who might whistleblow and so keeping them quiet. Meanwhile, your average person is on the edge of being homeless, pushed around by those in power, numbed by television and other forms of mass media which convince us all to consume and obey the powers.

Of course, since They Live is a science fiction story, the leaders are alien businessmen and you need a pair of special glasses to see what's really going on.

In one sense, They Live is a spoof of this viewpoint, and a comedy. Two guys spend almost ten minutes in a fistfight, trying to get one to put on a pair of sunglasses, after which they are the best of friends, walking around with bruises and puffy faces. I'm still laughing at the ridiculous of that scene.

On the other hand, the insidiousness of the paranoid scenario is scary, because it is partly true, and we know it. All I have to do is mention Dick Cheney or Edward Snowden and we know that there's something to it. That same fight scene touches something deep, because the man who won't put on the glasses knows that this new knowledge of the world will change him, place him and his family in danger, and so he desperately is resisting that insight. He has too much at stake.

But the knowledge is there, in the real world, and sometimes we can't avoid it. We will often stumble upon it, pursuing our own interests. I am involved in homelessness and I know that there are blocks to certain kinds of homeless folks ever succeeding to fit into society, even though they are doing nothing wrong. I also know that others are being paid hundred thousands of dollars a year to shuffle homeless people from one street corner to another, and to make it look as if they are really accomplishing something. I personally know pastors and churches who are professional level societies, who talk about justice and peace, but won't do anything about the beggars around their corner.

But I also know that this is nothing new. The issues of homelessness and of white trash are older than the discovery of America. I wish that we could blame our callousness and ignorance on aliens or the Illuminati coming to take our resources. But more often than not it is bureaucracy that stands in the way of relief. I wish that we couldn't see the messages, "Sex is success" or "conform" without a pair of glasses on every magazine. But it is all human, all coming out of our everyday natures. It is all easy to see, if we would but look. The ignorance is within ourselves, because, like Frank, we'd rather be secure than know. Because if we admitted that we really knew how evil our culture was, then we'd have to do something about it.

As far as the film itself, it is really well done, balancing the two sides of hinting at paranoid reality and laughing at the same point of view. There is but one problem: the lead actor. Roddy Piper as the lens through which we see this world is a very poor choice. He can't even rummage through a box of glasses believably, let alone give us a believable line reading. Never have I missed Kurt Russel more.

Oldkid

Oldkid was trapped in a blue event horizon accident, in which his body aged, but his mind remained youthful.  Some would say childish.  When he returned to earth, eons later, he was forced to return to elementary school, although in an aged body.

In order to enhance his education, he dived into film, attempting to understand the world better.  This was at the recommendation of his good friend, Gir, who was pretty odd looking, but he always made Oldkid laugh. Gir's good friend Zim wasn't really on the list of people Oldkid associated with. He was too screamy.

Oldkid first dived into the world of Miyazaki, which caused his multiple experiments to learn how to fly.  It wasn't until years later, when he watched The Wind Rises that he realized he could just board a plane.

Oldkid never had kids, but he learned about children through In America, The Selfish Giant and Tideland, and he decided childhood was hard and he's glad that he skipped it.

He sailed on the ocean with Russel Crowe, he walked through the door with Jim Carrey, He swam across the pool with Juliette Binoche.  He had a vision of pigs with Amy Seimetz.  He sang on the boat with Barbara Streisand.

But he wanted more.  He needed more.  More life, more experiences.

Oldkid couldn't stop now.

Paprika

When I first saw Paprika, I immediately placed it in my top 100.  It has many elements that I dearly love.  A surrealism that reflects its dream-like narrative that leads to many surprising moments, especially in the introductory section.  A double character whose real life persona is melancholic but smart, and her dream counterpart who is cheery and cheeky.  Then there is the foundational dream, supposedly created from an egotistical maniac, which is used to invade other’s dream-states and trap them in it.  All of this is simple genius and still deeply impresses me.

But in my re-watch, I realize that there is a bit too much time spent on simple nonsense, the placement of words together that is not supposed to make any sense, and of repeated images that are there simply to startle.  The central dream sequence begins as nonsense, but as it becomes more elaborate, the combination of seemingly random details become a unique art form, powerful and hypnotic. 

I’ve been reflecting on my long-held love of Alice in Wonderland.  I deeply appreciate Martin Gardener’s notes in The Annotated Alice, for it takes a book of nonsense, and claims that there is meaning and intent behind the crazy images.  It is a fine attempt, but in the end, even should many of the claims be true, isn’t it still a collection of nonsense?  Does it really have any meaning as a whole?

Paprika certainly has a meaning, the narrative of mutual appreciation, even love; the rejection of fantasy for the sake of power; the discovery of oneself in the subconscious.  But these meanings seem shallow compared to the surreal and nonsense that Paprika presents.  Like Alice, it works as an act of imagination.  But as a work that provides meaning to our everyday lives, less so.

Midnight Special

If an event or unique feature of reality is discovered, the pundits come and point their fingers at it, declaring its hidden reality.

The government looks at it through the eyes of fear, wondering if it might undermine the status quo.

Religion looks at it through patriarchal eyes, trying to fit it into religion’s vortex of power, and its apocalyptic narrative of salvation.

But suppose the feature was a little boy, born of normal parents.  How would they see this event? The idea is presented in a complex way by The Exorcist or We Need to Talk about Kevin.  Here, it is presented in a simpler, Spielbergian format.  The parents are full of love for the boy and just wants what is best for him, which means they must run from the government and religion who has their own assumptions at the forefront, even if that means the boy’s welfare is secondary.

I think that the area that most commentators have trouble with Midnight Special is the use of religion, which is something Spielberg rarely commented on.  They are uncomfortable with the realistic touches, but never really grasping what the religion was up to.  The government was almost a cliché, but the religious aspect was confusing.

I think this is because the Jeff Nichols is very familiar with religion, as are most citizens of the South.  The background and assumptions of the actions of religion are easy to understand, and the director felt that he had given enough hints for a person familiar with the world to understand.

I think, however, that religion, especially American religion, really is a mystery for most watchers of the film.  The boy of the light, of the dreams, is a text, much like the Bible.  The text is simple description, but religion comes to interpret the text in a way that makes sense with their patriarchy, with a pure way of life.  The text contains misleading statements, to distract from the core, the significant information, but religion must receive it all as God-breathed, as if all had equal weight.

The boy is also an experience, bringing comfort to many, even an obsession to experience it again.  Religion, again, must interpret and control the experience, giving it to those who are worthy and withholding it from those who are not.  Religion is about the divide between the pure and the impure by whatever measure their traditional culture is comfortable using.

In the end, the film is right.  Religion is a manner of looking at a unique reality, but it never grasps the core.  The core is love, which is benefiting the welfare of the other.  In this case, the other is the boy himself.  The parents alone, with a couple helpers, have that love.  And love is dangerous, for it disrupts the status quo.  Religion and government must, in the end, oppose love when love disrupts.  Religion and government are about retaining the knowledge and way of life that they appreciate and understand.  Love lets the new reality settle in, because people are at stake. 

Knight of Cups

Love is the answer
All you need is Love
What the world needs now is Love, sweet Love
Give me Love, give me Love, give me peace on earth

After Badlands, Terrance Malick has become less and less interested in narrative.  His plots are not so much stories as outlines on which to hang prayers, quotes, silent conversations and aphorisms.  They are not stories so much as meditations on themes found in stories, while the events fade more and more into the background.  To watch a Malick film is not to wonder what will happen next, but to learn about reality.  For this reason, there is a divide between watchers of his films—those who grow to hate them because of their apathy about narrative and those who desire them because they teach us how to live.

On the surface, Knight of Cups is about Christopher Bale, a successful man in Hollywood, watching him grasp and fail at relationship after relationship.  Looks of love, lust, anger, doubt and disdain pass over the faces of the characters, while their silent questions and longings we hear over the meditative soundtrack.  

In a sense, this is a gentle sermon on vice.  How one should not live a life.  Sermons on vice are the most difficult to sell in this day and age.  No one wants to be told what not to do.  They want to know about possibilities, about freedom.  Malick asserts that true freedom can only be held in true love, but there are many distractions in the world that keep us from truly understanding love.

Love/Grace is the answer, what creates the world, what grows the new into peace.

Why, when there are so many pursuing love that things get so screwed up?  Many who proclaim Love and live Love are as depressed, as despondent, as desperate as anyone else.  How can this be?  If Love is the answer, shouldn’t it be the answer for everyone?

The problem is that those looking for Love seek love instead.  The seeker of Love heads into the world

People forget that they are looking for pure love, and get distracted by the many things that look and feel similar to love, but isn’t.  Lust, jealousy, control, wielding power, promiscuity, fantasy, adultery—all of these look like love from a certain viewpoint, but all fall short of what love is really about.  It is about seeing, really seeing the person in front of you and providing them with a human connection.

Just knowing that isn’t enough, however.  We have to go through a certain path to achieve Love.  We must rid ourselves of distractions, of the many voices and mini-dramas of our lives, and simply, quietly, silently find Love within ourselves.  This is the beginning of our life of Love.

Knight of Cups is a difficult film.  It is difficult to see pieces of narrative without a cohesive whole.  It is difficult to see visions, no matter how beautiful, without a real resolution, without a real conclusion.  This is a film about the life of the soul, which is difficult to see, so Malick made it difficult to watch.  We are to feel, to listen.  For a film so busy with fleeting images, chopped conversations and with quotes from Augustine, Pilgrim’s Progress and more, it is difficult for it to lead us to its ultimate goal: get away from all this and be silent.  It means to make us uncomfortable with the busyness of the world, and to seek a pure Love. 

Titus: Brutal Shakespeare

This is my second Shakespeare adaptation of 1999, yet the two films couldn't be more different.  Not just because one is a comedy and this is a tragedy, but the approach to filming Shakespeare is different.  In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the whole of the film could be on a stage, and the focus in on performances.  In Titus, the idea is to take some of the strange notions of the film and to turn it into a surrealist cinematic revenge fantasy.

First, the text.  This might be the most brutal of Shakespeare's plays.  There is murderous justice, amputations,rape, false accusations, and so much more violence that is difficult to describe. It might be torture porn for the late 16th century.  It's intention is to shock, to stir in us a lust for revenge, to see the final actions of the play to be just.  In the end, however, it is just a opportunity to speak of the futility of revenge, and the horrible nature of those who take part in it.  Since this is an early Shakespeare play, we might not be surprised to find the characters two-dimensional and myopic but given the nature of revenge theatre, this is not a bad thing.  There is no Hamlet or Macbeth here, debating the nature of their actions and their consequences, no self-doubt.  Every actor is completely convinced in their paths, even if the full sum of their lives be evil.

The play was dismissed and rejected by critics for centuries, but this movie gives it a rightful place in entertainment history.  It is a surreal deconstruction of violence in any age-  whether personal or national.  Soldiers in a mass-dance celebrating their bloody victory; a world of blues and blacks and greys; a woman with sticks poking out of her arm stumps; fascists scream in ancient Rome, flags flying; a boy's fantasy of war with action figures and ketchup become real.  This is a real work of imagination, a Lynchian nightmare drenched in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. 

This sounds like a horrible experience, but there is one release-- the gore takes place off screen.  This film doesn't revel in blood and guts.  The target of the horror is not the churning stomach, but the churning heart.  We wince at the actions not because they show too much violence, but because of the depth of evil and depravity that occur.  Anthony Hopkins turns from a noble Odin figure to Hannibal Lecture in this film.  Titus feigns insanity, but the insanity that truly captures his heart is one of bloody vengeance, and every horror unfolds to another more horrible.

Not for the faint of heart, yet it is a powerful adaptation of a lesser play by the Bard.

O.J.: Made in America

I'm just the opposite of a sports fan, but I'm starting to really dig the ESPN 30 for 30 docs.  I finished Fantastic Lies last month, and it showed how sports can be intimately intertwined with racial politics and the justice system.  Now, with O.J., we have the magnum opus of such docs.

I am a serious Black Lives Matter supporter.  Not so much that I go to protests (I limit my public activism), but I am a staunch defender of the movement and I have seen the stats that support most of what they say.  There is certainly racial injustice against African Americans.  Mind you, the same exists for Native Americans and Muslims and there is severe classism against the homeless.  But civil rights for African Americans is far from over.  The videos are just the dramatic moments.  The reality is a huge percentage of the black male population in prison.

Never have I seen a better cultural analysis of the very things BLM exposes, and the consequences of that exposure, than this O.J. documentary.  Part of its power is the leisure with which it could easily explain the huge context in which O.J.'s famous trial was placed, going back to the Los Angeles of the 40s.  By the time the doc was half over (about three hours) I was thinking, "Is all this really necessary?"  The short answer is: Yes.  Absolutely.  This story has to be told in this length, now, today, in 2016.  And it needs to be seen by everyone.

I am white, was raised white, accepted white religion, and never thought about my whiteness until I went to India, but still didn't take it very seriously until a few years ago, especially as my poor but white children went to schools that were predominately African American.  When the OJ trial occurred, I was one of most whites who were mystified at the verdict of the trial.  The answer seemed obvious.  But  this film explains that there is more than one answer, more than one verdict.  There is the verdict of this one man in this one circumstance.  There is the verdict of the black community who needed justification more than justice.  And there is the verdict of the jury who had been isolated for 2/3 of a year for a mostly unpaid job they never applied for.

But there is also the context of celebrity, the context of a people pleaser, who was just doing what he could to be loved, but who was self-centered enough to be unable to see when his superficial care wasn't enough for the people who loved him.  This film is seven and a half hours long, and it is almost as complex and insightful as The Human Condition at 9 hours.  Perhaps OJ's themes aren't as widespread, being a distinctly American story, but it is powerful.  It's problems are the limitations of documentary work-- having to deal with previous filmed footage, of mixed quality.  It may not look great, but it is better than any of Ken Burns' works, for you can't read this story in history books.  It is the story we are still living out.

Today a number of police officers were shot and three killed in Baltimore because a lone Marine felt that no one was listening to the plight of the African American community.  That the protests and videos simply aren't working.  And while he was horribly, evilly wrong to think that shooting officers solves the problems, this documentary shows that he was right about one thing-- no one ever listens.

 The oppression doesn't change.

Roger Deakins: Master Cinematographer

From 1984

From The Assassination of Jessie James

From Doubt

From The Secret Garden

From Barton Fink

From Fargo

From Revolutionary Road

From Sicario

From No Country for Old Men

From The Man Who Wasn't There

From The Assassination of Jessie James