Ever read something out of a movie no else got? A subtext or angle your friends couldn’t see? What was the flick and your theory? It could be anything. The supernatural. Some out there explanation. Anything you see you feel alone on?
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Pale Rider (1985). Beginning with the raid at the start, the prayer, and the biblical undertones throughout the movie, my understanding of “The Preacher” is he’s a spirit summoned by Megan Wheeler in the aftermath of the mayhem. Her dog’s death and burial prompts her to ask for help and the soul of a slain gunfighter is sent to answer her plea. The messenger aka Clint Eastwood rides in to protect Megan and her friends and as the story unfolds we learn further on his history and ties to Marshal Stockburn and his deputies. The Preacher’s one eye which Stockburn recalls and his wounds matching how Stockburn is shot later in the film support that “The Preacher” fell to Stockburn years earlier and he’s returned through Megan to settle the score. The disembodied voice shouting “Preacher”, Clint’s slight aloofness to the other characters, and his riding back up the mountain once the story is done alludes he is a ghost doing God’s will.
My friend of 25 years who is as much a fan of Eastwood as I am vehemently disagreed. The formula of the lone stranger riding in unexpectedly (aka High Plains Drifter) and his ties to the ultimate bad guy (see Drifter) were personal and fate not anything spiritual. He argued “Preacher” is his cover and Clint survived whatever happened and chanced into retribution and righting a wrong. The voice on the wind is either a miner or his conscience speaking not a spirit. The Preacher’s “disinterest” in those around him is the Eastwood persona much like him Blondie riding away in the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). “Preacher” is another form of the Clint anti-hero and his quirks fit that mold and nothing else.
I later found a recording of Eastwood settling the matter and I relayed it to my pal. The beauty of this is the possibilities one story communicates to a number of people. We are the sum of our experiences and certain tales speak to that and touch different things in different people.
Not a movie, but a TV show - The Incredible Hulk.
It’s my theory that Dr. Banner did not really want to be cured, and he used McGee’s pursuit as an excuse to never stay in one place long enough to find an answer.
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I don’t know if they’ve ever explored that but it’s easily the best theory.
Worth a rewatch with that in mind.
OK, this is what I believe to be the “truth” of the Coen’s No Country For Old Men. (I have not read the book and probably wouldn’t read another Cormac McCarthy book.)
The scene where Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is approaching the motel room where he believes Chigurh (Javier) is staying, he looks at the doorknob and in the brief, distorted reflection we see Chigurh but when Bell enters, he tells us Chigurh is not there.
I believe this is a lie. Chigurh is there and Bell is lying to us because in order to survive an encounter with Chigurh, one has to not see him. That’s also why he dwindles in the last 1/3rd of the movie, and the reason for the title. The guy we thought was our protagonist, the young Llewellyn (Josh Brolin), was just there to illustrate the fact that nobody survives against Chigurh.
Our real protagonist (Bell) loses in a much bigger way–by sacrificing his integrity to stay alive.
Also, the movie goes from a fun adventure/crime flick to a morose art piece which I think pissed a lot of people off, but is almost the ur-Coen statement: Not only do the characters not know what’s going in this movie, you the viewer don’t even know what kind of movie this is.
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Literate and plausible analysis of No Country (2007). The diminishment of Jones in the wake of that scene is palpable. Transitioning between Tommy looking and Javier staring symbolizes a shift. The funeral feel of those post-hotel Tommy sequences aligns with your theory. One of my friends espoused a separate notion around that exact moment. His deduction is Chigurh and Bell are competing halves of the same person and the reason they never exist in the space together is only one is dominant at one time even if one half is perpetually chasing the other until this instance of Bell investigating and finding nothing realizing the demon is inside which is why Bell wastes away into nothing experiencing that knowledge. Again this isn’t my theory though it courses in my head whenever I watch it now.
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My friend also observes Carla Jean Moss meeting with Chigurh near the end is particularly anguished and forlorn since she met Bell earlier in the film and her realization Bell is Chigurh is much of her breakdown in that scene. She falls apart in such a manner reflecting all her faith in humanity is broken paralleling her earlier scene wth Bell where she is positively impacted by Bell’s faith. The descent and despair of Bell after the hotel and Moss exchanges allude her disillusionment became Bell’s. Hence the title No Country For Old Men. To repeat, this is my pal’s read not mine.
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I may have mentioned this somewhere else on this forum, so I apologize if I’m repeating myself. One theory about Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is that the events shown are from Kirk’s time in the Nexus (as presented in Star Trek: Generations).
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Schroedinger’s serial killer.
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lol That was the theory Mad magazine went with, too. 
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I wasn’t so much pissed off as hopelessly bored. I quit about 1/3rd in. But Mr. Potroast really liked it.
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Correct. A paradox of simultaneous classification in one being dependent on an event in limbo.
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Oh, well, it radically changes 2/3rds iin, so you might find yourself liking it at the point where others were turned off!
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