Death is everywhere when it comes to the movies. Whether it’s a minor character, the story’s main villain or even protagonist, or in the case of Guardians of the Galaxy, roughly 83,000 people, there are plenty of characters who don’t make it to the end credits.
Watching someone pass away, whether peacefully, violently, or somewhere in between, can be an incredibly powerful, emotional moment. Yes, some of these are nameless henchmen or background characters, but others have formed a genuine connection with the audience over their time on screen.
What can arguably be more devastating than anything however, when done well, is an off-screen death. Whether for shock value or in order to leave exact details up to the individual viewer, there is something about not seeing what happened that can make it so much harder to process.
Major characters have been killed off, gruesome demises have been hidden from the audience, and the sheer shock of seeing some of these characters alive one minute and dead the next has been almost too much to handle. Yes, seeing someone die on screen is difficult, but often not so hard as not seeing it.
The first of two Coen Brothers efforts on this list, No Country For Old Men is arguably their masterpiece. When you think of the film, your mind may immediately go to Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), one of the most menacing villains in cinematic history, or perhaps Sheriff Bell’s (Tommy Lee Jones) closing monologue, but what about Josh Brolin’s Llewelyn Moss?
After stumbling on what remained of a drug bust gone south, and a bag full of cash, Moss was inadvertently thrust into something of a game of cat and mouse with Chigurh hot on his heels.
Though it was these two men who dominated the film’s screen time, the story was always surrounding Tommy Lee Jones’ Sherriff Bell, the old man who was struggling to find his place in the country. This was a point that was part-way driven home by the manner of Moss’ death.
Josh Brolin’s character met his end very abruptly off-screen while the focus was on Chirgurh’s pursuit of him. This was a huge shock to the audience as the manner of his death all but confirmed that the protagonist of the story was never truly its subject, and such a moment changed everything.
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