Blogging By Cinema-light: Don't Make a Scene: No Country for Old Men

The Story: Barry Corbin gets his "Ben Johnson moment."

I was working at the recording studio and it was a remote voice-over for a commercial and the guy who was doing it was Barry Corbin. I knew of him. Urban Cowboy. War Games. "Lonesome Dove". He was in town, working on the TV series "Northern Exposure", a job he did for many years. Great actor. Versatile. Could do comedy or drama and not miss a beat. I knew he'd done Shakespeare, too, so I was on my A-game.

The man in the waiting room reading the paper had extraordinary scuffed cowboy boots and a big stetson that mostly covered his face as he was reading. "Hey, Mr. Corbin. I'm your engineer. If you wanna get settled up there..."

"Yeeup...That's a good i-dee-a."

And I was...shocked. The Texas accent coming from the man was so pronounced, so thick, that it couldn't have been real. I'd seen him act in things when it wasn't even there. I thought for sure he was putting on airs.

Nope. I was wrong. Barry Corbin is that good that the voice will change, the drawl will turn to vapor with just a thought. The Texas is there, steeped in him. But, he's an actor. I watched him do a first read of "copy" that was "supposed" to be 30 seconds long and he did it in 45-50 seconds. Too long. And like all professionals worth their stick, he wanted to do it again...right now. Don't cut the words. Wanted to beat that clock. "Take 2" was 28 seconds. Not as nuanced, but flawless. Big smile on his face. Maybe because my jaw had dropped.

The session ended to everybody's satisfaction and he ambled out of "the booth" over to the "control room" where I was doing the routine post work. Took the chair, not the couch. And I asked him. Something that had been in my mind for awhile. As good as he was, why had he taken the role of the bumbling Deputy Roscoe Brown in "Lonesome Dove"—the comic relief, the "Andy Devine" role—in "Lonesome Dove." Seemed like a step down from what he could do, what he was capable of doing. "Oh. I'd've played anything...just to be part of 'that piece.'"

"That piece." The whole project. The story, winner of The Pulitzer. The respect that he had for it in that phrase. That left no more questions.

So, here he is, doing a scene that IS up to his talents. One that hits you, really hits you, while you're in a theater. Two men talking about Death, but not saying it. "Circling around it"—in a phrase that was edited out of the cut (The Coens have the great good sense not to spell out what they're doing). And of how dwelling on it, on something that comes to everybody, is a waste of life, a failing.

And Corbin makes it look easy, carrying the weight of that text, as the camera imperceptibly draws closer to him, giving it more heft—just as Bogdanovich's camera moved in on Ben Johnson in The Last Picture Show (McMurtry again)—not cutting away to the slow pull-in of Tommy Lee Jones that was (evidently) shot parallel to Corbin's shot. Stay where the magic is happening.

What's best for "the piece."

The Set-Up: A drug deal gone wrong. A lot of dead bodies. Missing money. But, the investigation by Sheriff Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) isn't just some post-mortem forensics. It's still going on out there. It hasn't ended. More death is happening. And Bell has just gotten a whiff that it might intersect with him. He goes out to visit his Uncle Ellis (Barry Corbin) for a visit.

Action.

EXT. WEST TEXAS CABIN - DAY

A CAT Licking itself on a plank floor, stiffened leg pointing out. It suddenly stops and looks up, ears perked. A frozen beat, and then it bolts. The camera booms up to frame the barren west Texas landscape outside the window of this isolated cabin. A pickup truck is approaching, trailing dust. The cat reenters frame outside, running across the rutted gravel in front of the house as the pickup slows.

INT. WEST TEXAS CABIN - KITCHEN - DAY

Ellis, an old man in a wheelchair, has one clouded eye.

ELLIS Min back!

Sheriff Bell enters.

BELL How'd you know I was here.

ELLIS Who else'd be in your truck.

BELL You heard it?

ELLIS How's that?

BELL You heard my --

BELL you havin' fun with me?

ELLIS What give you that idea.

ELLIS I seen one of the cats heard it.

BELL But -- how'd you know it was mine?

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ELLIS I deduced it. Once you walked in.

Sheriff Bell stares at him.

BELL How many a those things you got now?

ELLIS Cats?

ELLIS (I don't know) Several.

ELLIS Wal. Depends what you mean by got. Some are half-wild, and some are just outlaws.

BELL How you been, Ellis?

ELLIS You lookin' at it.

ELLIS I got to say you look older.

BELL I am older.

ELLIS Got a letter from your wife. She writes pretty regular, tells me the family news.

BELL Didn't know there was any.

ELLIS She just told me you was quittin'. ~~Sit down~~.

Sheriff Bell lifts an electric percolator off the counter.

BELL Want a cup?

ELLIS 'Preciate it.

BELL How fresh is this coffee?

ELLIS I generally...

ELLIS ...make a fresh pot ever week...

ELLIS ...even if there's some left over.

Sheriff Bell pours some.

BELL That man that shot you died in prison.

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ELLIS In Angola. Yeah.

BELL What would you a done if he'd been released?

ELLIS I don't know. Nothin'.

ELLIS Wouldn't be no point to it.

BELL I'm kindly surprised to hear you say that.

ELLIS Well, all the time you spend tryin' to get back what's been took from you there's more goin' out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.

He taps a cigarette ash into a mason jar lid on the table in front
of him.

ELLIS...Your granddad never asked me to sign on as deputy.

ELLIS...I done that my own self. Loretta says you're quittin'.

BELL Yes, you've circled round.
ELLIS How come're you doin that?

BELL I don't know.

BELL I feel overmatched.

A beat.

BELL...I always thought when I got older God would sort of
come into my life in some way.

BELL...He didn't.

BELL:I don't blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.

ELLIS You don't know what he thinks.

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A beat.

ELLIS I sent Uncle Mac's badge and his old thumbbuster to the Rangers. For their museum there.

ELLIS Your daddy ever tell you how Uncle Mac come to his reward?

Sheriff Bell shrugs.

ELLIS Shot down...

ELLIS ...on his own porch there in Hudspeth County.

ELLIS There was seven or eight of 'em come to the house. Wantin' this and wantin' that. Mac went back in and got his shotgun but they was way ahead of him.