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ENGL 219 Film Analysis #2: Camera as Stalker
To stalk, from Old English bestealcian, comes from the same etymological
family as stelan: to steal. The theme of taking what is not yours resonates in both
Herzog’s Nosferatu and No Country for Old Men. Both movies invoke the feeling of
hunting for prey, in some way catching that prey. But both films show a predator
consumed, either by the prey or by a superior hunter. If we are to draw parallels
between the two movies, the framework must be as such: Jonathan and Llewelyn
seemingly as the original hunters, both for money. Lucy and Ed Tom, both as prey to
their respective set of moral ideology. And Dracula and Chigurh, as the ultimate
superior prey – as top of the food chain. What this analysis will aim to achieve is a
comprehensive look at the human condition as savage, as consumed by desire, and
even fantastical (Dracula) or psychotic, amoral, inhumane (Chigurh) characters,
seemingly removed from the human condition, remain a mimesis of humanity in its
most distilled form. The camera allows us eventually to experience these asocial
characters, coupled with their interaction with normal individuals. We can see how
this interplay brings out the human in the nonhuman, and vice versa.
As soon as Jonathan is told that his endeavor will make him richer, there is no
deterrent to his completing this task. Nature stands in his way, and he is shot from
below to accentuate the wilderness he faces while climbing up to Dracula’s mansion.
The gypsies warn him, while sitting around the fire – a place where folklore and truth
meet – of the horrors that await him if he is to proceed. But Jonathan is not interested
in Dracula. To him Dracula is a contract with commission for Jonathan. To him, the
signed piece of paper is the same as the briefcase full of money that Llewelyn finds.
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Jonathan does not see the danger, but we do. We see the disconcerted looks on the
gypsies’ faces when the camera pans to show all of their faces at the inn, at the
moment he mentions Dracula’s name. The diegetic breaking of cutlery gives us this
feeling of unease as it breaks the normal, the everyday, to introduce the horrors of the
impending danger. Llewelyn, a slightly different predator, stumbles upon his true
desire with the briefcase. Simply put, if he did not desire the money, he would not
have taken it, much less endured being hunted over and over again. Even though a
practiced war veteran, and a man who has seen the horrors of the world, he cannot
help but show his pride when he tells his wife that she is retired now, a promise made
too soon. Therein lies the fault of the stalker: his being consumed by the object of his
desire so much that if he has it in his hands it will be there forever. But this is proven
to be wrong, and Llewelyn is so trivialized in his endeavors that we do not see him
being killed, we do not see the hunter turned hunted and killed. We are simply shown
the end product of such desire, such hardheaded and blinded desire being put down
like a dog. Both Llewelyn and Jonathan are reduced to creatures of primal and basic
desires, and are shown to us to be linear in both their motives and actions.
Lucy is the good wife. She is constantly presented to us in angelic and pure
white colors. The first scene she appears she is almost given a halo of white color. Ed
Tom’s halo is his badge. And both are consumed towards the end of the films. Both
are consumed by what are the ultimate predators. Dracula consumes Lucy, willingly,
in the hopes of breaking his curse. She welcomes Dracula and even holds him down
so she can bide some time till sunrise. Ultimately her plan does not work, because her
focus on upholding the good leaves her blind to the downfall of her husband. Her
unconscious plays out in two scenes of the film, where we see her calling for her
husband, sleepwalking with her hands stretched out. She does not know, but we do,
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that ultimately she is calling for Dracula. But she believes that she only wants to save
her husband. She only wants to save her marriage. And she becomes prey partly due
to the fact that she is a woman, and acts as such. The gender roles are strictly defined
with Herzog, and she is always shot in a vulnerable position, always weak, always
unheard. During the mass funeral march, the camera tracks her as she hopelessly
pleads with all passersby, and then she is shot from a high angle in a long shot to
show her loss and helplessness during the town’s pre-death festivities. Ed Tom opens
the film with a monologue on how the times have changed, and how much he
romanticizes the past. But at the end Ed Tom’s character dies, not literally but he
gives up his whole identity in the face of a character (Chigurh) that simply does not fit
his moral framework. That is why he cannot catch him, because he does not
understand him. In the shot that echoes Chigurh sitting down in front of the television,
Ed Tom does the same, but finds that he cannot get into the killer’s mindset. This
relates back to his opening monologue, and his lines throughout the film where he
always either doesn’t know or doesn’t understand. Ed Tom’s identity is broken down,
and he is left emasculated and jobless, simply because his worldview does not fit the
world. And though his father offers him the key out, namely that the world does not
wait for you, he still does not accept that God has not come into his life though he did
all the right things.
If Dracula is the embodiment of elite decadence, then his character lives on
even after he perishes. Dracula consumes Jonathan, but Jonathan becomes Dracula.
That is why Dracula remains the penultimate predator in Nosferatu. As we see
Jonathan ride off into the horizon, he is the only character that moves on, whereas all
the rest of the characters remain situated in their tragedies. Chigurh is the same. He is
the only character to have kept walking after all that has happened. If we are to look at
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both films in a purely factual manner, it is only the pure characters that survive. By
pure I mean characters that look at the world as it is. All other characters are
reactionary, but Dracula and Chigurh are the only two characters that act. A life spent
in reaction is a life spent in vain. You never actually do anything. You are stuck in a
constant battle to stem the tide of insurmountable coincidences that happen everyday
regardless of our situation and feelings. We react because we believe our reaction will
make a change greater than the action we have been exposed to, which is probably a
reaction to something before it as well. But we almost never do enact that change.
And why is that? It is because an action and a reaction are the exact same thing.
Dracula’s face, in his mansion, is shot in a sea of black, as if he is surrounded by
nothingness, and as if we cannot identify with this nothingness. But this nothingness
signifies the ontological void that every individual experiences in moments of great
clarity. This void is the result of an unconscious battle in every encounter between
individuals. We need to take life, because we don’t want to be alone in the void. Self-
destruction is heightened sense of misguided survival instinct. What the camera
allows us to do is sit in front to see what will be when there is nothing else but naked
souls, stripped and bare and aflame with all the emotion and sickness and insanity that
burst out from the gutters of social streets. Chigurh is so easily identified with in the
scene with the Texaco cashier. Nobody talks like Chigurh does, especially not with a
cashier, because an interaction with a cashier is a purely economic one. There is no
social interaction, because we believe there is no need for it. But interaction is based
solely on social interaction. Chigurh gives us, through his seemingly asocial character,
a sense of what it would be like to have a real conversation. But he is constantly shut
down, and rejected by the cashier. This builds his frustration to the point of wanting to
kill the man.
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What the camera has done in both films is show how one true character is the
one that survives. Dracula and Chigurh survive, and that is because they remain true.
They do not adopt an arbitrary framework; they accept the bases of their desires.
Their desires do not consume them, because they are aware of them. This is why the
camera is such a powerful tool, as sad as it may sound, because we’d rather live a
pure and true life vicariously through others, since doing it in reality is so much
harder. The only stalkers are the ones at the theaters. All that these characters portray
is an outlet, the hidden desire of one and all to live such a life. Perhaps not so
violently, but just as pure and true.
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What the camera has done in both films is show how one true character is the
one that survives. Dracula and Chigurh survive, and that is because they remain true.
They do not adopt an arbitrary framework; they accept the bases of their desires.
Their desires do not consume them, because they are aware of them. This is why the
camera is such a powerful tool, as sad as it may sound, because we’d rather live a
pure and true life vicariously through others, since doing it in reality is so much
harder. The only stalkers are the ones at the theaters. All that these characters portray
is an outlet, the hidden desire of one and all to live such a life. Perhaps not so
violently, but just as pure and true.
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