MARFA, Texas – A thousand feet above a wind-swept, drought-browned valley, a man steps out of a late-70s Ford Granada on a deserted two-lane road.

ERIC GAY/The Associated Press

The winding roads and seemingly limitless terrain of Marfa, Texas, became the backdrop for the film No Country for Old Men . For Chip Love, who had a small part in the movie, it's home.

He is confronted by a second man, who raises a pneumatic bolt gun to his forehead and deals a fatal blow.

Chip Love – or "Man in Ford," as the Oscar-nominated No Country For Old Men would come to credit him – collapses to his knees on the blacktop.

He gets up. He's shot again. And again. And again. Eight times altogether he rises and falls.

"It's not as easy as it looks," said Mr. Love, 50, a local rancher and bank manager. He laughs about his role as an early victim of a psychopathic killer.

On another day, just a few miles to the west of Mr. Love's "death," a crew of oilfield workers bounds down the stairs of a dusty depot, emptying a train pulled by an early 20th century steam locomotive. This is a scene from There Will Be Blood, another film up for multiple Academy Awards.

This is no mere coincidence.

When Hollywood needs Western desolation, it comes to Marfa, a town about three hours southeast of El Paso.

More than 50 years ago, famed filmmaker George Stevens also settled on this area for his epic Texas oil tale Giant.

The stark, gorgeous landscape outside the town shows up in the films, and it isn't just the wide-open desert horizon that directors take advantage of. They also hire the locals.

In the depot scene from Blood, filmed at the 59,000-acre MacGuire Ranch, it was lifelong rancher David Williams who led the group off the train. Not that he was scene-stealing.

"I wasn't trying to get in the movie or be a movie star," said Mr. Williams, 38.

When Mr. Williams first escorted location scouts here four years ago, the only structures were the long, unused railroad tracks that lead to Mexico and an old water tank that supplied steam engines of the past.

Houses, a block-long town, an oil well site and a church atop a hill were built later to represent Bakersfield, Calif., in 1910.

For his work making arrangements and shepherding the six months of filming, Mr. Williams also earned on-screen credit as an executive producer – heady stuff.

"They wanted the openness, they wanted clear view for miles, they wanted nothing obstructing the view," Mr. Williams recalled. "And that's what they found out here."

Marfa, population 2,100, was founded as a railroad stop in 1883. Now, the town with no movie theater is a big part of 16 nominations at this year's Academy Awards on Sunday – eight each for No Country and Blood.

Their friendship with No Country producers and directors Joel and Ethan Coen brought the brothers to Marfa for a look at the area.

"It is kind of the last frontier," Mr. Willaford said.

Maybe not for long. Marfa is becoming a micro version of art mecca Santa Fe, N.M. Blocks of the tiny downtown have been taken over by foundations established by artists.

The foundations have spurred other artists, like the Willafords, to work and establish galleries, taking advantage of the azure sky that glows pink and purple and golden at dawn and sunset and where the horizon is interrupted with the jagged Chinati Mountains.

"I can wake up one day and feel like I live in the coolest place in the world," said David Lanman, a carpenter who was mayor when the two movies were being filmed two years ago.

Mateo Quintana Jr., 70, born and raised in Marfa, looks through the window of his tiny barber shop and sees a city block taken over by one of the foundations.

"It's been good," he said. "They fixed up all the buildings."

"I think the town didn't mind us," said Daniel Lupi, one of the Blood producers. "We certainly spent a lot of money."

Adela Dominguez, 55, who works behind the counter at the El Cheapo Liquor Store, said she's never seen any movie people come in, but the booze that flowed regularly at the Paisano Hotel, which back in 1955 served as headquarters for the Giant cast, came from El Cheapo.

"It worked out good for everybody," Mr. Williams said.