Finally saw No Country for Old Men. Certainly one of the finest secular martyrdoms I’ve ever seen there at the end. (Spoilers, I guess.) Playing along with the coin flip might save her life, but she refuses to play along, because playing along would mean living by means of a lie.
Not a grand, portentous sort of lie – like, say, sacrificing before a false god – but a small, essential lie: that fate (chance) trumps human choice in matters of good and evil, and so provides an excuse for the evil that men do. She won’t let him put the blame on the coin. “It’s just you.”
In a way, it’s almost like charity – like she’s trying to save him.
great movie based on a great book…McCarthy wrote it about 3 human conditions…
Good, Evil, and material greed.
What sets off the the violence is not the good guy or the bad guy but the man who takes what does not belong to him.
Hmm…..interesting.