No Country for Old Men: Encounter with Evil or the Spirit of the Depths?

Abstract

The Red Book depicts dynamic forces of the spirit of the times versus the spirit of the depths. The author employs this dynamism to amplify the film No Country for Old Men, a story showing dark forces irrupting into ordinary life. In the film's stark archetypal drama, the author traces both the positive and negative transformational impacts of these forces on two of the film's characters—conventional people who are forced to grapple with something that feels like it “puts their soul at hazard.” The use of cinematography to elaborate symbolic meaning is woven into the exploration of the film.

Keywords:

• archetypal shadow
• Ethan and Joel Coen
• dream
• drug war
• evil
• film
• finding God
• Grim Reaper
• hero
• Cormac McCarthy
• Mexican border
• murder
• No Country for Old Men
• old age
• “Sailing to Byzantium
• ” sheriff
• soul hazard
• West Texas
• Yeats

Notes

^1. Transformations and Symbols of the Libido (Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido) was written in 1911 and published in 1912. The English translation has the title Psychology of the Unconscious and was published in 1991 as supplementary volume B of the Collected Works (see Bibliography). In 1952, Jung rewrote it as Symbols of Transformation, CW 5.

^2. In citations from the screenplay, the relevant scene is included, as here, “Old Timers.”

References to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung are cited in the text as CW, volume number, and paragraph number. The Collected Works are published in English by Routledge (UK) and Princeton University Press (USA).