I've spent probably too much time thinking on this, reading and watching videos, but boots actually help you understand the logic of the story -better put – the things are ambiguous are more concrete if you pay attention to the boots.
When Chigurh walks out of Carla Jean's house at the end and pauses to check his boots, most ov us read that as him checking for blood. And that's exactly what it is, but it's also the last mark of a motif the Coens used at least a few times before it.
The first is the deputy scuffing the floor of the sheriff's office with his boots as Chigurh strangles him. This is establishing the fact that your boots can leave evidence of a crime.
When Cigurh killed the Mexican hitmen in Moss’s motel room, he takes off his socks (I know not really boots but its the same principle) because -as its described in the script, they are “covered in gore.” In the script he even wipes the bottom of his feet clean.
After the big gunfight, Moss leaves bloody boot-prints across the Rio Grande bridge. That’s how Woody Harrelson’s character tracks him. They cut it out of the movie but in the script Moss notices what he’s doing. The Coens described it as “comic book clues.” And the thing about Woody’s character is that he tries to warn Moss but Moss is too arrogant. Moss thinks because he got rid of the transponder that they can’t track him. Woody is saying “you don’t understand” because Woody is a professional tracker and Moss is a welder (and a hunter and Vietnam vet- that’s how he actually survived the gunfight and injured Chigigh just like Chigurh injured him.
That spins right into Chigurh tending his injuries. He puts a plastic tarp on the carpet before he operates on himself because even his own blood can't be allowed to track out of the room.
Then, when Woody is killed, Chigurh lifts his boots onto the bed mid-phone-call when all the pooled blood starts moving for his boots.
So all of those instances tie into the reason why he checks his boots on Carla Jean's porch. It's not ambiguous – she is 100% dead and Chigurh is just making sure no blood from her house gets into his car.
EDIT: u/Accomplished_Key3556 brought up the sound design and reminded me of one other thing:
Listen to the kids' bikes when Chigurh walks out of Carla Jean's house — same sound from her mother's funeral as her casket is lowered into the ground. So Carla Jean's death is confirmed in the audio too.
EDIT 2: I found these links helpful- The Coens on Charlie Rose, especially, and the Criterion essay by Francine Prose:
by doubleohsoul
12 Comments
For sure a Coen motif here, but..
You’ve thought way too hard on this to leave out a big boot part – buying a new pair and commenting on the preferred brand lol
damn i never noticed the sock detail from the motel scene. makes total sense though when you think about how methodical chigurh is with everything else
that plastic tarp scene always stuck with me but never connected it to the other boot moments. the coens really don’t waste any details do they
The sound design in this movie is literally a masterclass tbh. the heavy squeaking of chigurh’s boots walking down those quiet motel hallways still gives me massive anxiety every single time i watch it.
The McCarthy novel spends considerable detail on the boots and footwear of the characters too, and the Coens’ film is a very close adaptation. The bad guys are nearly all wearing exotic leathers.
Moss uses his boot as a rest for his rifle when hunting. He also spots the “ultimo hombre” under the tree by his boots. “How are those Larry’s holding up?” Boots are the only of his clothes he takes back from the Mexican hospital
Doesn’t the dead cartel guy, El ultimo hombre, have a hole in one his boots. This is a fascinating observation. Lots of boots lol
Shoes are definitely used in Big Lebowski too as a motif for something (the guys who’s santizing them looks like Saddam Hussein and also has Saddam written on his shirt in the dance dream sequence, so the theory goes that they’re saying that Saddam was working for US, thus cleaning their shoes) but here it feels like quite a bit of a stretch actually in film analysis. What you are saying happens in almost every crime movie.
This is why I am tired of film analysis these days. People read too deep into things they think are there but there really aren’t. Plus big studios are deliberately putting metaphors and easter eggs cuz they themselves run youtube channels which later reveal ‘easter eggs you missed’. It’s no longer art for art’s sake. It’s now part of a business model.
That being said, for me the most interesting part about No Country is that when characters were sticking to their code for their lives, Anton couldn’t kill them. Like the lady who “can’t give out no information”. And later, the accountant kept correcting his words to match who he is and what’s happening in life in the present moment. When he’s asked who he is, he says “Nobody… Accounting..” when Anton kills his boss, he says “He feels… erm.. felt that..” so up till that point he is not killed because he keeps correcting his words to match reality, but when Chirgurh asks him the question “Do you see me?”.. the answer can go right or wrong both ways. That is an ABSOLUTELY brilliant point to cut that scene and leave it hanging.
There’s another boot moment in this film that has always stuck with me for some reason. When Moss is tracking the ultimo hombre and spots him lying under the tree, his boots are pointed straight up, kind of silhouetted against the landscape. Reminded me of the wicked witch’s feet sticking out from under the house in the Wizard of Oz. One of them looks like it has a hole through it, somehow damaged? I have no idea if there’s anything deeper to it, but for some reason it’s one of the more memorable shots in the film for me.
I always thought the movie should have been named Boots and Blood Trails.
if we’re tallying boot scenes moss had to remove his before jumping in the river 😄
Op what do you think boots represent?
isn’t this just a spin of the clearly AI post yesterday about the boots motif?