No Country for Old Men: Book vs. Movie
Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2007 film No Country for Old Men is adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 book of the same name. Both follow a Texas man who takes money from a failed drug deal, the killer pursuing him, and the sheriff following their trail.
From Books Adapted
What changed from the book
Bell has much more room to speak in the book
The Coen brothers adapt the novel’s complete main story, while cutting much of Sheriff Bell’s first-person account. In the book, his reflections open the chapters and sit alongside the pursuit of Llewelyn Moss. They give him space to talk about his career, his fears and the country he thinks he is losing.
The movie keeps some of that voice in its opening narration and conversations. Many exchanges elsewhere also come directly from McCarthy’s dialogue. The reduction is chiefly in how much time Bell has to reflect between events, rather than a wholesale replacement of the book’s spoken language.
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Carla Jean refuses the coin toss in the movie
In the novel, Carla Jean eventually calls Chigurh’s coin toss and loses. He then shoots her. The movie keeps her refusal: she tells him that the responsibility belongs to him, not the coin.
It also leaves the killing offscreen. After their conversation, Chigurh comes out of the house and checks his boots. The book states what he does; the movie ends their encounter before the act. Carla Jean’s final response to his rules changes, even though the movie does not show her escaping him.
About the book and the movie
- Author
- Cormac McCarthy
- Year
- 2005
- Pages
- 304Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 7 hr 29 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- Tom Stechschulte
Llewelyn Moss finds a fortune among the bodies left by a drug deal and takes it home. As a killer tracks him across Texas, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell struggles with the violence of the case and his own doubts about remaining a lawman.
- Director
- Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
- Writer
- Cormac McCarthy, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
- Year
- 2007
- Runtime
- 2 hr 2 minWatch on Amazon
- Cast
- Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson
- Genre
- action, Adventure, contemporary Western, Crime, crime drama, crime thriller, Drama, gangster, Mystery, neo-noir, psychological drama, psychological thriller, Suspense, Thriller, Western
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
After pocketing cash from a desert crime scene, Llewelyn Moss goes on the run from hitman Anton Chigurh. Sheriff Bell tries to reach him before Chigurh does, piecing together a trail of killings along the border.
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