Film Analysis of A Serious Man & No Country for Old Men

The ambiguity of the universe is something all have struggled with, from scientist, to your everyday man, woman, or child, it’s something everyone has tried to grasp. However, scientist may have the upper hand through use of quantum mechanics; being the study of the behavior of matter, researchers in the field are able to examine states of subatomic particles, ultimately allowing incredibly accurate predictions towards the universe. Nonetheless, one may understand the origins of the cosmos, but fail to have insight into the unstable nature of one’s own life. This phenomenon of uncertainty in the field may be more easily exhibited through the thought experiment, Schrodinger’s Cat; a scenario depicting a hypothetical cat being placed into a box with a flask of poison and a radioactive source. If a Geiger counter detects a single atom of the decaying source a hammer is dropped, releasing the poison and killing the cat; the odds of this happening being 50:50. Until observed, this cat is both dead and alive, but once the box is opened, instantly the fate is decided and the cat enters a state of live or deceased.

Two icons in filmography, Joel and Ethan Coen, have largely referenced this uncertainty that plays a role in the lives of the masses. Ragesh Dipu of Bollywoodirect speaks of their style being… “personal in nature and often place society in a disdain position.” This is very important with regards to the approach of the Coens, as they break many Hollywood standards, digging deeper than possible with traditional cinematography. Two of the brothers’ works, A Serious Man and No Country for Old Men, are exceptional examples of this; showing the protagonist facing constant discouraging obstacles, while giving no answers as to why these things are happening, no answers as to what happens, and ambiguous endings; the uncertainty of their journeys being emphasized the entire time. The brothers, frequently utilizing Schrodinger’s Cat as a metaphor for the state of one’s life during the two films.

A Serious Man, a title following the story of Larry Gopnik, a physics professor (oddly enough focusing on the uncertainty principle) who faces many trials, appears to be a personification of this thought experiment. Gopnik himself representing the cat, both being dead and alive, but how could this be? Upon his introduction one can see him being examined in a doctor’s office, alluding to his diagnosis at the very end of the film; it is possible that throughout the film, Gopnik remaining in an unobserved state of the experiment, being placed in the box with his poison, and therefore being at this time both dead and alive. In the film’s “conclusion”, if one would refer to it as such, he receives a call from the doctor’s office. Now the box has been opened, and Gopnik’s state is determined, likely soon to face mortality.

Other than Gopnik himself there are few other possible examples of the thought experiment; at the opening of the title, a tale of a Yiddish parable is shown in which a husband and wife are surviving the cold of the night when a man arrives at their residence. The wife is clearly discomforted by the presence of the man, yet the two offer him in for soup as he helped the husband sometime earlier. Once the wife recognizes who this man is, at the same time he refuses the meal, causing her to adhere to the local suspicions of him being a “dybbuk” (a malicious spirit, being the dislocated soul of the dead with the goal of being helped). This is of course unknown; he could be either dead or alive until observed, yet how would one know? Simple, she stabs him in the chest with an icepick, the man undamaged, looks down momentarily at the wound. The wife states, “He is unharmed!” The Yiddish figure responded, “On the contrary, I don’t feel at all well.” It was not until observed that his state of being was known, for he existed as alive to the husband and dead to the wife.

The Coen brothers continue to introduce metaphors of Schrodinger’s cat in No Country for Old Men, a non-traditional western set near the US-Mexico boarder in the 1980s. The film alternates perspectives throughout, the focus of the metaphor being Anton Chigurh, a psychopath devoid of emotion he represents death, making all his victim. He works in an incredibly precise manner all while feeling utterly chaotic. Occasionally confronting victims with a game of sorts, a coin toss. Chigurh menacingly stares into their eyes, flips a coin, and in a crude voice persist, “… call it…” The face is unknown to both Chigurh and his victim, if they chose correctly, they live. It is in this coin toss that two references to the experiment are made, the coin itself, and the victim. The state of the coin is unknown, being both heads and tails until observed; in this same fashion the victim is both dead and alive until Chigurh removes his hand at which the face of the coin is determined as well as the fate of his victim.

Schrodinger’s cat is used as a simple interpretation of quantum mechanics, not meant to be taken literally, but to exhibit quantum superposition, something scientist attempt to use to make the most finite observations and predictions, however Davide Castelvecchi of Nature magazine contradicts, “ …equations cannot predict the exact outcome of a measurement — for example, of the position of an electron — only the probabilities that it can yield particular values…” Not even the most complicated of physics can completely predict the happenings of the universe; nothing is ever predictable. Sometimes scrutinizing the reasoning for life’s occurrences yields no answers, sometimes opening the box gives nothing. The universe is under no obligation to make sense, an idea the Coen brothers have attempted to enforce for years, and perhaps the only idea which truly makes sense…