Religion and atheism in last year’s top films
The best films of 2007 are There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. In my opinion they both have one thing in common: they are about religion.
Chigurh, the relentless murderer in No Country for Old Men is an atheist. This is made clear in the book, but only hinted at in the film. He feels no remorse. He is an extremist.
You see, this is what unites the extremists of every creed. Most of us, the majority of every culture and subculture, we get our values from the moral zeitgeist of the day and then ascribe them to the teachings of whatever idea we happen to be aligned with. Extremists, on the other hand, don’t get their values from the zeitgeist, from the society. They get them from the actual ideology they subscribe to.
The Bible and the Koran both tell you to kill the unbelievers and the adulterers and the homosexuals and whoever the writers hated back in those days. Likewise, atheism says that there is no god. If there is no god, there is no afterlife, no judgment after death. No need to follow any morals. Consider this in combination with an understanding of evolution and natural selection and, if you’re anti-social enough to be an extremist, you’ll end up with a set of values much like those of Anton Chigurh. Hopefully you’ll have a better haircut, though.
No Country for Old Men is, thematically, a film about the inevitable coming of atheism. It’s an anti-atheist film that idealizes the old times through sheriff Bell’s monologues. It is a film about the clash of the old and the worst of the new.
The coin toss which decides a man’s life conveys Chigurh’s understanding of the cruel, random world we live in. He has equipped himself to survive better than most other people. That, he knows, is his only real defense in the world as he sees it.
There Will Be Blood has been criticized for not having anything to say. The character of Daniel Plainview is a relentless, unchanging man and rather one-dimensional. When the film first came out, critics hated it. They missed the point.
It’s not about Daniel Plainview. It’s about religion. It’s about Plainview versus Eli Sunday. Deep down inside they are the same greedy, bitter person. Where they differ is in their methods.
Plainview is mostly honest about his motivations. He wants money and power and the best way he knows to get them is drilling for oil. Eli wants the same thing, but he does it through deception and through fooling people who trust him to bring the word of god. The film is a constant struggle between these two people. Two identical personalities differing only in their methods.
Critics claim that there’s no growth in this film. They couldn’t be more wrong. The conflict between Eli and Plainview clearly grows throughout the film, with new sides of it and themselves revealed all the time.
When Plainview makes his “I see the worst in people” speech, he’s not just making a cool speech. We’re also getting an insight into Eli’s character and their conflict.
In the film’s climax Eli reveals himself to be a fraud. The whole god thing has been a means to an end all along. Just like Plainview “embraced” god in Eli’s church so does Eli “embrace” Plainview’s god in Plainview’s church. Plainview finally sees Eli for who he really his — Plainview’s mirror image — and kills Eli, essentially condemning himself both directly (jail) and indirectly by killing someone who’s just like himself.
There Will Be Blood is an anti-religion film. It’s not so much about the ruthless character of Daniel Plainview. He exists to help us understand the priest’s facade and to expose the hypocrisy and greed in religion.
Good break down of a movie and character from a religious standpoint. I can see and appreciate your views of these two movies. It’s amazing (and wonderful) how two people can see different things. I guess that’s what life is all about - that and acceptance. Thanks for your comment on my blog. J/W
Thanks for the blog-article, I was searching for a meaning in No Country for Old Men but I couldn’t find it. Perhaps it doesn’t appear so obviously in the film as it does in the book (I haven’t read it)?
“No need to follow any morals.” — this should read “No need to follow any morals just to get on the good side in the afterlife.”
“Consider this in combination with an understanding of evolution and natural selection and, if you’re anti-social enough to be an extremist, you’ll end up with a set of values much like those of Anton Chigurh.” — except that there’s something lacking here. Nothing he does is to the advantage of his genes, as far as is clear in the movie (iirc). Possibly my understanding of evolution and natural selection isn’t good enough, or there’s more information in the book, but as it is I don’t see it.
What he does is to his own survival. That would be step one in securing the survival of his genes.
Well, yes. But it’s only a meaningful if he also does step two, which would be getting offspring.
Interesting take… Definitely worth considering.
You said, “No Country for Old Men is, thematically, a film about the inevitable coming of atheism.”
Are you saying that the film conveys the inevitable coming of atheism because at every juncture, Chigurh wins? And this winning after winning means that atheism is inevitable? Just for this movie?
Or, is the INEVITABLE coming of atheism simply your overall opinion of the direction the world is moving?
I only ask because I get the idea that underneath your review, you’re telling me that ATHEISM IS COMING. LOL.
Cool if you believe it…
The beauty of the writing however is that I see it more as simple GOOD v. EVIL. I guess if I was more religious or more atheist, I might see it more as a religious film or theme…
In other words, that it can be a cold hard fact that evil triumphs over good especially, when the purveyor of that evil believes in his evil more than the purveyor of the good believes in his good.
Almost like running a race… May the best man win and that is usually the man that is BEST at what he’s all about.
As for BLOOD, I agree with you a lot more about the religious aspect since of course they brought that right in and shoved it in our faces.
To me however, I thought the final scene quintessentially achieved the exact same thing as NO COUNTRY. Plainview was much better at not believing in God than Eli was believing in God.
Again, the best man won.
In fact, I drew the conclusion that Plainview probably would not go to jail based on how he’s managed to evade jail all through the film and now of course, he’s more powerful than ever.
Finally, Plainview shoves Eli’s God right back down his throat to prove once and for all that there is no God watching over Eli.
The ultimate proof that there is no God… At least in Plainview’s eyes.
Good review!
Unk
It’s not just that he wins. It’s how he wins. Three examples:
1. Coin toss. The notion that the coin had traveled to that spot just like the guy whose life it would represent. His speech clearly conveys the point of view that life is a series of random events. Which is a more modern, more atheistic view than fate or some notion of good vs evil. Even Chighurh’s own life is a series of random events: take, for one, the car crash at the end.
2. Whenever Chigurh gets injured, he uses scientific medicine to heal himself. Meanwhile the best that Moss can do is pick shirt bits out of his shotgun wound. Moss doesn’t have as much skill in this and later he resigns himself into the hands of a higher power: the hospital. Having given away control of his own destiny… he is caught.
3. “What good is the rule you followed if it brought you here?” Religion is a set of rules to be followed to the death. A set of dogmas. Atheism/science adapt themselves to evidence and situation filtered through self-interest.
Nah, I don’t think it’s inevitable. Even if the world does move in that direction quite a ways, it will surely rebound soon enough.
I don’t think it’s really good vs evil. It’s more like traditional man (and Bell’s monologues would suggest that Moss belongs in the Old World) vs a new kind of man. One who’s armed with gadgets (tracking device) and knowledge (medical) and understanding (of random events, rules) and one who doesn’t need any help from outside or above.
I can understand how both movies could be interpreted as “the best man wins”, and that’s what happens indeed, but I’d like to think that there’s more to them than that, just purely thematically. Because you can’t stop there. You gotta answer some questions.
Like what does it mean to be better? Does the film’s definition of “better” align with any philosophy expressed in the film? What is it that makes him better? Is the concept of “who’s better” evoked at the showdown? (Moss’ death is essentially random, it even happens off-screen!) Is there something to his worldview that gives him an edge over the competition? (Chigurh has medical skills, doesn’t bother with the kind of rules that could put him at foolish risk, unlike other people.) Are similar tactics being used by both sides? (Yes: Plainview and Eli. Definitely not the case in No Country.) What is the dynamic between the two sides? (No Country’s “old world chased by new world” vs Blood’s “fairly equal sides going at one another in similar ways”.)
“The best man wins” is an explanation that explains both films, but doesn’t really explain much else.
Here’s an analogy from science. Suppose that you’ve got some experimental data that theories don’t fit. Let’s say you have five measurements. “The best man wins” would be like a theory that fits these five measurements, but does not make any significant testable predictions.
Meanwhile another theory might fit the five data points that you have and also make some predictions. You can then go out, look for more data, and see if it fits the predictions. The theory might be wrong in the grand scheme of things, but it explains more than a theory that doesn’t make as many predictions that come true.
Like if you found a way to explain Terminator 2 not in terms of “good vs evil” but in terms of some obscure sub-theory of the feminist movement expressed in a 1984 magazine article, then it would be a better theory. The theory, as a framework of ideas and relationships, would be more detailed and hence more useful for understanding the film and, if necessary, for making a similar film.
It’s like if you were looking at a small house and being asked: “How did they build it?” You might answer: “They used ladders.” That kind of knowledge would be hard to use to build a house of your own. But if as a reply you drew a set of blueprints for what you think the scaffolding looked like during construction, then even if the original scaffolding was of a completely different color, used 4 pieces of wood for every walkway instead of 2, and had a different steel framework to hold it up, that blueprint would be more useful in building a house of your own than just the knowledge that you might need a ladder.
I’d also like to point out the obvious: you’ve got years of experience writing movies that actually get made. Meanwhile, I’m a random git whose experience pales in comparison. I am certain that the ideas I have about these films and films in general are wrong.
But that’s how I like to learn. I take an idea and use it and defend it until I find some shortcoming. I then try to fix the parts that don’t work or I find a better idea. It’s a sort of stoic approach to learning. So far it’s worked quite well.
Elver,
Hey… I think your opinion is certainly as valid as mine and I partially agree with you…
My take on NO COUNTRY is that the modern world is evolving in such a way that there are more and more people like Chigurh and old school authority figures like Bell are just too old and tired to figure them out. They are just too Goddamn good at being bad and they’ve never seen anything like it before so it’s time to saddle up Amigo.
Unk
One last thing… About as close to a philosophy as I can stand…
We are simple flesh and blood. It’s EASIER to be BAD than it is to be good. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
Being bad can put you on the fast track to financial success whereas being good means you’ve got to earn it.
Being bad is like a snowball rolling down a hill… It keeps picking up everything in it’s path and devouring it while good takes a step back and lets everyone do their own thing — even the bad.
As a flesh and blood human being, you inevitably contain too many psychological flaws when it comes to being good. There’s so many temptations that slide in and out of your life on a daily basis that just being good in and of itself takes a gargantuan effort i.e., assuming that being good means not giving in to those temptations.
Bad has absolutely no worries about any of this. It’s SLEEK. It’s refined. It’s simply easier. You can get a lot of experience being bad in a much shorter amount of time and hence, learn a lot more about being bad than you can being good.
The good have too many other obstacles that test them day in and day out whereas the bad recognize no real obstacles.
I do think that religious and atheists absolutely do tend to think of a film like this with their own religious and non-religious symbolism.
But maybe… Just maybe… Writing it with this this symbolism IN MIND only serves to cater to those who would get the symbolism while writing it with only GOOD v. EVIL in mind allows more of an audience to create their own symbolism.
Just a thought…
Again, good review.
Unk
This is an interesting idea. If it’s doable, it would make the life of the screenwriter somewhat easier.
But doesn’t this create the kind of scripts where the writer expects you to use your “EX-RAY VISION” to find the meaning underneath without actually having put it there?
And if you don’t consciously put it in there when writing, then there will be other elements that seriously conflict whatever meaning the viewer/reader thinks he’s found.
For me, trying to understand a film is like trying to find all the pieces of a puzzle and putting them together without a reference picture. With the exception of a handful of surreal films it has never felt like getting access to writer/director-chosen crayons and drawing your own picture.
Regarding the philosophy. The majority of achievements today are linked to some kind of a social ladder. You really can’t go alone very well. If you’re bad when climbing some social ladder, you’ll never make it to any meaningful position. People on the lower rungs have friends on the higher ones and if these people get screwed in an obvious manner, they’re gonna warn those who are higher up.
Even the hidden social ladders, mafia and such, don’t reward those that are bad. You’d have to be good, but be good according to the definition of those higher up. In terms of D&D: you can be “lawful evil” or “lawful good”, but “chaotic evil” and “chaotic good” aren’t really doable nowadays.
The problem with being “lawful evil” is that you lose the advantage of being able to “level up” faster than everyone else.
I’m LOVING your point of view on this. It’s making me THINK about this stuff.