By Cassidy Haines, Magazine Editor
On Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 5 p.m. in Breidenbaugh Hall’s Joseph Theater, the English Department welcomed Allen H. Redmon, Ph.D, to deliver a talk titled “No Country for Old Myths: Lamentations for the 21st Century in Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers,” attended by a mixture of students and faculty.
Redmon is a professor of English and Film Studies at Texas A&M University in Central Texas, where he also supports the film studies minor and other interdisciplinary programs and serves as the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In his own research, he is interested in combining the study of cinematography with philosophy, religious studies and trauma studies. He has written two books, Rewatching on the Point of the Cinematic Index and Constructing the Coens: From Blood Simple to Inside Llewyn Davis, published in 2022 and 2015 respectively, and the latter work helped inspire his lecture.
After being introduced by Gettysburg Professor of English and Communications Studies Dr. Jack Ryan, Redmon began his talk by thanking the audience as well as Dr. Ryan for their time and expressing his appreciation for our campus. He told listeners about having changed his major three times during college and later changing his field of study during graduate school, which he connected to the many interests and projects he explores in his current research and career.
Redmon explained the main context of his speech by introducing the audience to Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel “No Country for Old Men,” as well as the 2007 film adaptation of the same name directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. He described “a particular kind of violence” that related films exhibit, such as “Fargo” and “Burn After Reading,” also directed by the Coens, and drew the audience’s attention towards the more explicit violence shown throughout all three movies.
“Adaptation studies does two things our society needs today: one, it allows us to expand [a story…], and two, in relation to the first, it invites us to come in contact with each other and our stories,” explained Redmon. “In the Coen brothers films, the violence […] is like the snow on the ground: you don’t commit to it, it just is.”
Following the display of a few clips from “No Country for Old Men,” Redmon discussed the differences between the events in the film and in the novel, from dialogue to character development. He stressed these changes in representation, but weighed the necessity of these edits as he explained the relationship between an adaptation and an audience.
As Redmon referenced the film, he also addressed the “uncertainty” of moments in the adaptation through subtle visual hints, and opined that this uncertainty is what draws people together. He said, “Too much certainty robs us of our humanity, it robs us of our thinking and ability to connect with each other, it leaves us isolated and polarized.”
Redmon expressed that the Coen brothers “appear to care deeply about the stories they’ve brought to the screen […] it seemed to me they were inviting their audience to their own form of adaptation,” and he added that the film’s “multi-layering [is] meant to draw audiences into discussion, most importantly with each other.”
To wrap up his discussion, Redmon focused on the concept of “lamentation,” which he described in this context as an “acknowledgement of what is wrong with the world, but that still has hope”. In particular, using two clips, he noted the way an opening monologue scene uses the film’s visual elements to move from darkness to light, despite the barren landscapes shown. In the second clip, he showed us the final scene of the film, where a character explains his hopes and dreams to another person in a surprising change of heart. He concluded by accepting audience questions and discussion points.
