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Where Does No Country For Old Men Take Place

The film No Country for Old Men, released in 2007, was an adapted screenplay, originating from writer Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name that was published in 2005. Brothers and filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen were familiar with McCarthy’s work, and film producer Scott Rudin, who had already purchased the rights to the novel, gave them a copy. The Coen brothers, whose previous projects included Raising Arizona (1987) and Fargo (1996), adapted the novel for film (their first from someone else’s material) but did not actually meet with McCarthy until shooting had already begun.

The plot of the movie, set in the West Texas borderlands of 1980, follows the plight of area resident and Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss, who happened upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong and tried to escape with the drug money. Hitman Anton Chigurh is hired to recover the money taken by Moss, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell investigates both the initial crime scene and the subsequent crime spree that followed. The script closely followed McCarthy’s novel, and the main differences came from scenes being compressed. Actor Tommy Lee Jones, who grew up in San Saba, Texas, was the first choice for Sheriff Bell. Spanish actor Javier Bardem played the part of Chigurh. Josh Brolin portrayed Moss. The movie, rated R for violence, has been classified as a contemporary Western and crime thriller.

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Although No Country for Old Men is set in Texas, it was mostly filmed in the small town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Some scenes—such as the discovery of the drug deal aftermath—were filmed in Texas. Locales included Marfa and Big Bend National Park (the location of the film’s dog chase scene). No Country for Old Men was not the only film shooting in Marfa at the time—director Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed There Will Be Blood (2007) was also shooting in Marfa, and the town experienced an uptick in tourism to the region.

The film, with a budget of approximately $25 million, made more than $74 million in the domestic box office (into 2008) and more than $89 million in the international box office (through 2018). No Country for Old Men was marketed all over the United States and was considered a critically acclaimed film by many reviewers. Critic Royal Brown in Cineaste characterized the “unrelentingly bleak” piece as “brilliant” and “courageous.” A minority of reviewers criticized the film as having “numerous difficulties.” Critic Christopher Sharrett in Cineaste, for example, opined that the films of the Coen brothers “have contempt for their characters.”

No Country for Old Men premiered as an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and was released in the United States in November 2007. The film won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Javier Bardem was the first Spanish-born actor to receive the honor). The motion picture also won two Golden Globe Awards—Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay—and was selected as an American Film Institute Movie of the Year. Several experts in the film industry have judged No Country for Old Men as one of the best Texan films and have credited the Coen brothers as expanding opportunities for more independent filmmakers. The success of No Country for Old Men brought their work much more into the mainstream of the filmmaking industry.

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The film was also influential regarding changes in the Texas film industry. The Lone Star State had a significant history of movie making, but by the 1990s many films set in Texas were being filmed instead in other states because of incentive programs that paid studios to film in places like New Mexico. In response, the Texas legislature established the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program in 2005. Funding for the program began in 2007—too late to provide incentive for the production of No Country for Old Men, which was filmed in 2006. Although this incentive program later experienced budget cuts, the success and prominence of films such as No Country for Old Men affected Texas policymaking. The Texas state government supported the filming of No Country for Old Men and the Texas Film Commission has used the movie as a marketing point as does the town of Marfa.

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