About four times a year or less, I read something on the internet that makes me clutch my fists, grind my teeth and wail to the heavens (or at least the ceiling) in envious frustration, “I wish I’d thought of that!” The latest bit of WWW news that inspires these cries of jealousy comes from Kim Morgan’s MSN blog . K. Bowen, a former film critic for Star Community Newspapers in Texas (and a former El Paso resident) reports via her own blog, Anti-dis-arts-and-Entertainmentism , some secret and interesting aspects of the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men. Not only is the substance of the movie (and more important the Cormac McCarthy novel from which it is derived) based on a true case, one that occurred around the time of the movie’s setting (1980), but Bowen goes into even more detail about certain casting coups. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem ), the film’s cattle-stun-gun-wielding killer, is apparently based on Jamiel “Jimmy” Chagra, part of a Lebanese family of gangsters based out of Mexico and the Southwest. In 1979, the Chagra family was linked to the assassination of a Texas district federal judge, John Wood.

Convicted of the murder was one Charles Harrelson, who died in prison and who had a sideline both hinting and denying that he was one of the JFK shooters in Dealey Plaza that November day in 1963 (an internet industry uses photographic evidence to try and prove that Harrelson was one of the three tramps). Harrelson also happens to be the father of Woody Harrelson, hemp activist and the actor who plays failed fixer Carson Wells in the film. Bowen writes that Harrelson has worked with the Coen Brothers before but I can’t find a previous common film in the IMDB. In any case, Bowen wonders out loud how much Harrelson and the Coens (who famously don’t do much research when they are writing scripts) knew about the Harrelson family connection while casting and making the film (both father and son deny that Harrelson had anything to do with the judge’s murder). My ire over the weblog entry is based on frustration that I hadn’t gotten there first (which I might have if I’d read Gary Cartwright’s book, Dirty Dealing, a true-crime book about the Chagra family, or done a tad bit internet research). In part I would’ve had to have been interested in Cormac McCarthy to have stumbled upon this news myself, and I’m not at all interested in McCarthy. But on a higher plane, I am touched with admiration. Isn’t this exactly the kind of research and revelation for which we turn to the Internet? Indeed, should journalists at every level, be it digital or print, aspire to unearth just these kinds of interesting and evocative connections? What’s embarrassing about the revelation, which has the potential for saying interesting things about the Coens’ working habits and Harrelson’s courage as an actor, is that the information was right there to be had with but a slight effort of will and research tenacity.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Reel Politique - Film columnist DK Holm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.