“What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”
Contrary to most successful films made from books, much of this film’s action is taken word for word from Cormac McCarthy’s novel ‘No Country for Old Men’. The title comes from a poem by Yeats, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’. In the novel (not the movie) Sheriff Bell says of the dope-dealers, “Here a while back in San Antonio they shot and killed a federal judge”. A year before the novel was written, a Federal Judge in San Antonio, John Howland Wood, was shot by a Texas contract killer named Charles Harrelson. Coincidentally, Woody Harrelson, who plays Carson Wells in the movie, is his son. The credited editor for this film, Roderick Jaynes, is a pseudonym for Joel and Ethan Coen. They have co-edited all of their movies since Blood Simple (1984) and use the name because Guild membership rules don’t allow two co-credited editors on the same film. If Jaynes had won the Oscar, the award presenter and not the Coens would have been authorized by the Academy to accept the award on “his” behalf. The Academy won’t allow proxies to accept awards at the Academy Awards Show ever since Marlon Brando sent Sacheen Little Feather to pick up his Oscar when he won for The Godfather (1974). Javier Bardem, for his role as killer Anton Chigurh, is the first Spanish actor to win an Academy award. The weapon used by Bardem’s character is a captive bolt pistol, most widely used in the slaughter of beef cattle to stun the animals before they are butchered. Heath Ledger had discussed playing Llewelyn Moss, but withdrew to take some time off.
