Texas serves as the perfect setting for both versions (book and movie) of ‘No Country for Old Men’, in a way that it would be difficult to imagine it set anywhere else. This isolated stretch of land between West Texas and the Mexican border should be a quiet, undisturbed place as it is often times equal parts isolated and remote. It’s immediately clear that this is rough country, mostly accessible only by the likes of equally rough and emotionally unavailable men.
In the old days, a place like Texas was almost a myth or a place of legend, like El Dorado. It symbolized everything that the American Dream was built on: adventure, freedom, new fortunes, romance, spirit, and opportunity. Texas is woven into the heart of the Western genre for this very reason, but Texas isn’t like that anymore. West Texas in 1980 is a lawless place and time in Americana. Due to its proximity to the Mexican border. It’s no longer the Wild, Wild, West of old. Texas has become heavily 'civilized' now, with all the same trials and problems that come with any other modernizing state. Texas has its own unique problems in 1980 as well that most other states cannot sympathize with: it shares a border with a country that has increasingly violent cartel wars.
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Texas has changed and the world has moved on, birthing a new Texas from the backs of great wars, industrialization, and new world wealth. It’s become a place that Ed Tom and Llewelyn don't understand anymore. The fortune narrative in most Westerns essentially share Llewelyn’s arc, but with a modern twist. Llewelyn thinks he can just find this fortune and get away with it, like a prospector finding gold in a river. The prospector would have just owned his newfound gold, but that world and that Wild West are gone now. If there ever truly was wealth out there like that, it’s all gone now. Texas isn't the noble symbol of the wild, untamed countryside where people could just strike it rich with a little luck and elbow grease.
That all belongs to someone now, with the fortunes all spoken for. In the case of Llewelyn, his lucky stroke of fortune belongs to someone very dangerous, and he loses everything in his desperate chase to secure it. Texas has changed in the same way the 'West' and the world have. The Texas of the old generation is long gone, creating a realization that there’s no longer any country out here for these old men. The world around them is changing, forcing them to either adapt or leave it behind.
This creates a very specific air and set of circumstances that perfectly encapsulate the narratives of ‘No Country for Old Men’. Our characters on both sides of the law are discovering that the world is changing, for better or worse. They learn that their places within it don’t mean what they thought they did, and they certainly don’t mean what they used to. The stakes are higher, the fortunes have been long won, the good guys don’t always win, and all that western grit and adventure comes at a higher price than most are willing to pay.
References
- Coen, Joel and Ethan Coen, directors. No Country for Old Men. Miramax Films; Paramount Vantage, 2007.
- MacCarthy, Cormac. No Country for Old Men. Vintage Books, 2005.
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