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I'm going to a screening of "No Country For Old Men" at the DGA (sorry DGA members only) Sunday Nov. 4th followed by q & A with Joel & Ethan. I'll report back if anything interesting arises...

So saw an amazing movie tonight with the Coens in attendance.

Afterwards the did a q& A with none other than famed editor Walter Murch.

Murch came out onto the stage and talked for a while about the conversations he's had with Roderick Jaynes and how by his estimation he must be about 113 years old.

Then he proceeded to explain how there have been great brother teams in history including the two founders of Rome, Lumiere Brothers followed by the Warner Brothers and The Zucker Brothers and now I would like to introduce THE COEN BROS.


****SPOLIER ALERT***Do Not Read if You have not seen the film*****

From what I remember Joel mentioned that the reason he and Ethan even wanted to make the book into the film was simply because they thought the way Moss's (Jogh Brolin's character) death was portrayed was so different.

Walter Murch concurred and said it reminded him in the same way that Hitchcock handled the Janet Leigh character in Psycho.

This film is less a film about plot and much more about ideas--a very existenialist film.

The Coen Bros. explained how they were very faithful to the book except for one or two scenes and they shot part of the movie near McCarthy's home. He came out to the set to visit, ironically on the day they were filming a scene that they had made up and not part of the book...

If I remember more I'll write again...

Please DO write more!

You're so lucky to have seen the movie already- let alone WITH a Coen Q&A!

I'm seeing it next Thursday here in the UK so I'm getting very, VERY excited now!

Torlporl: After you see the movie we should have a discussion about the endng. I would be very interested to hear what you think.. All I'll say is yeah, the film is dark, as dark as pitch at midnight and it's very good...

As for the Q & A:

Joel said that Scott Rudin was the one who sent them the "Galleys" (unpublished manuscript) of NCFOM a year before it was published.

They also said when filming the river scene with Moss being chased by the dog they really wanted the feeling that it would be seen as early morning and shot the scene over several dawns and dusks. They thought Roger D. would have to do some manipulation of the film because it was dark but they were amazed how great everything came out. They found that the ripples in the river changed constantly screwing up their continuity so they just edited the scenes where the river looked like it was going in the same direction even if it wasn't in reality.

Walter Murch mentioned they were the first directors to ever do a DI (Digital Intermediate) print-basically scan your finished film, tweak the color and then output it back to film--this was for Oh Brother... Ethan said yeah they were the first and it was a very painful process. The first time the film came out all wild colors of purple and what not... but now that process is industry standard practice.

Someone mentioned they didn't use Dennis Gassner as production designer and they said we used "Jess" on this one.

They said basically they do a draft of just storyboards (after the script is finished) with their storyboard artist and then when they meet with Roger Deakins or see some real location photos, they do a 2nd draft of the storyboards. Everyone on the crew gets a copy of the storyboards but they said they never refer to the storyboards once they are shooting and many times change it on the day. They said there was no hard or fast rules in terms of their process except for writing the script and doing extensive storyboards.

Ethan and Joel said they always have actors in mind when writing the script but when it came to this movie they didn't know about Javier's character because he is almost a ghost in the book in terms of description. They knew Javier Bardem was a great actor, they didn't know how he was going to play the character but they knew whatever he did it would be good--so they just went for it. Javier makes this movie.

The opening reminded me so much of Blood Simple it was funny... Still photos of Texas and the voice-over narration.

They said they shot in West Texas and down there the towns still look like they are caught in the 80's (when the film is supposedly set). They never specifically mention the time period but gave hints. One giveaway is when Javier goes into the store to do the coin toss, he says the year of the coin (I think 1955) and that it's been floating around for 25 years so that also tell you the year. Ethan and Joel said even some of the cars were of that time period so it wasn't hard to re-create. Ethan said the one goof-up was that there is a sign for free HBO at a hotel.

That's all I can remember for now...

Good stuff, moviemaker. Thanks!

Just remembered one last thing.

Joel Coen said, and I quote: "How we adapt a book is, one of us sits at the 'word processor' while the other one holds the spine of the book open."

I've read/heard before that it's Ethan that does most of the typing.

That 1 1/2 years as a statistical typist for Macys Department Store paid off no doubt.