Suspending Suspense

Remember in Mission Impossible when Ethan Hunt unscrews a lightbulb, breaks it, and spreads the pieces on the floor so that he'll hear whoever approaches his door? I thought of that after I read grubby's wonderful doubling reflection on No Country for Old Men. Is that what a review does? Does it spread glass on the floor in order to deprive the movie of its dramatic impact? Or does it spread glass to announce a limited guide to the movie - an indication of what it might be? He begins:

I’ve never been too worried about “spoilers.” I take it as a basic principle of narrative that when it’s done right, the advent of the action will be compelling even if you know what’s coming.

The interesting thing is that despite Hunt's (what are the odds?) tactic - breaking the lightbulb / "spoiling" the movie in the review - imagination is able to create a secondary kind of suspense, partly owing, no doubt, to the quality of the story or review. But there's something else as well. It's not a matter of whether the first Mission Impossible was a quality story, but a matter of what happened to Hunt when he did actually hear the glass crunching under someone's foot: something took him over, whether a dream or a madness, who knows. The person he saw was not the person that was actually there. An unusual kind of suspense was granted the viewer and it has everything to do with imagination. What happens to us when we read an insightful and thematic review? Have we been cut off from our chances of being surprised, or have we opened up an entire range of imaginative possibility that might otherwise have been closed? Or is it a way of practicing for inspiration?

No Country for Old Men especially makes you think about what's coming next. In some parts thats because you know what's coming - not only the "I think you do" part grubby mentions, but also, if only because you've seen so many Volkswagen commercials, the "random" car accident at the end. You could argue, as some have, that the whole movie revolves around what's coming, the ending - in an Apocalyptic sense as well. And about the comical inadequacy (and outrageous expense - the bottle of beer, the coat, the boy's shirt) of the provisions one has on the way. And it's interesting that Sheriff Bell's ultimate response to ultimatum ("You can't stop what's coming.") is the recollection of a dream in which all he knows is that his father will be there wherever it is that he ends up. As with Hunt, the evidence of the end cannot provide the comfort of knowing what that end is. With that a girl at the very small theater where I saw the movie shouted, "You've got to be (bleeping) kidding me!" Clearly she doesn't read the Grackle.

PS: I used to be a vehement apologist - I might still be - for The Village (without being much of a fan of Shyamalan's other movies). One of the better parts is when Ivy both realizes the presence of and fears "Those we don't speak of" even after she knows it is "farce." Even the audience, knowing the same thing, feels it. I could make a better argument for why that is in relation to the rest of the movie, but in general it has something to do with the apparent destruction of the limits of what is human - with the movement beyond what is known and into suspense.

Update: Sacramone at First Things and Thomas Sibbs at NRO aren't happy with the movie.