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| quote: | Originally posted by LeopoldStotch
i just saw the film. i loved it.
wasn't really a big fan of The Big Lebowski.
a fan of Fargo. I am sure a lot of Northerners in the MN, ND, SD, and such would be upset with the film a bit, because it makes a clear generalization against small towners and their accents.
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just want to hear what happened to you guys. what was everyones ending reactions to the end of the movie? were they still for about 20 seconds, and left silently? or one big full complaint saying the ending sucked? |
I liked it a lot. You have to realize that the heart of the movie is deeper than the action you see on screen. If you're expecting a popcorn flick, you're going to be disappointed. I wasn't. Here's my interpretation, that I posted on another site.
And yes...spoiler warning!!!
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Llewelyn Moss - Free Will
Llewelyn is the embodiement of free will. Throughout the movie we are constantly seeing both the choices he makes and the results of those choices. He lets us know that he believes the future is uncertain (from talks with Woody Harrelson's character as well as with Anton and others) and the choices he makes will determine the outcome and that alone. There is no "fate" to Llewelyn and the future is a blank slate, dependent only on his actions.
One conflict we see with free will via Moss is regret/consciousness. There are a number of occassions where we see him not sleeping at night due to emotion/anxiety over his decisions or situation. The most obvious occurs when he feels guilty for not giving the dying Mexican man in the truck water. He returns to the desert to clear his conscious and ends up getting himself into more trouble. Again, the consequences of his own free choices are seen.
In the end, Moss ultimately dies as a result of his own choices, and the irony is he ended up dead, exactly as "fate" predicted from the beginning.
Anton Chigurh - Fate
Anton is the embodiement of fate, in opposition to Llewelyn. He sees life as well as his actions as being merely the result of chance or rules that are unchangeable. The most obvious way in which we see this relates to the coin. He uses the coin twice to make life and death decisions. He even states that "I got here by chance, just like the coin did," when he's talking to the man who owns the gas station. In the same scene he even talks about how the man was "married into" being at the gas station, again a situation we are to see as being out of the man's control (he didn't get to be at the gas station by direct choice, but as a side-effect of marriage, a seemingly unrelated event).
The absurdity/conflict we see with Anton is when he is presented with a chance to "avoid fate," ala changing or breaking the rules. We see this when he confronts Llewelyn's wife. It is obviously insane to think that he must kill Moss's wife, simply because of a "deal" made before Moss's death. As his wife says "you don't have to do this," but to Anton that idea doesn't make sense, and he again turns to the coin to decide the fate of the wife.
The irony in Anton's case is not in having to face choice, but the effect of "fate" on his own life. We see this with the car accident at the end. Anton goes through a green light, and is hit by a car running a red light. We see this as an incidence of pure chance, of an event that takes place completely out of his control yet impacts his life profoundly. There is a moment of realization as he sits on the sidewalk contemplating the conversation with Moss's wife as well as the accident that there are events in life that "break the rules," (someone running a red light, which could be percieved as a man making a free choice to break a rule, just as easily as the accident being "fate," or that he really doesn't "have to do this" as Moss's wife said).
The Sheriff - The Conflict between Fate and Free Will
The Sheriff is perhaps the most important character in the movie as he is the "real world" fight between fate and free will. The stories he tells each have something to do with his struggle in deciding if the world around him, as well as himself, are a result of choices or of a predetermined path. His struggle is by far the most complex and I won't try to touch on many of the points. You'd have to see the movie a few times before you could really get a good handle on all the ideas his character puts forth.
In the end, via the recounting of his dreams, he realizes that life is a combination of both choice and fate. His second dream lets us know that we may have some things that are out of our control (his father symbolizing family, even genetics -- something we are born into and we don't have a choice over) and free will (the path to the fire his father made -- he makes the decision when, if and how he will get there).
As I said, this is a very deep character and movie in general, and there are many neuances that will be missed the first time through, even if you're looking for them. Hopefully be reading this a few people who hated the movie because they took it for face value, realize the reason many people enjoyed the movie was because of the symbolism and ideas is puts forth. |
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