Call it!

Call it!

Another classic Cohen brother movie.  Another series of ‘wait what?’ moments.  In this movie, No Country for Old Men, the audience comes face to face with the brutal character Anton Chigurh, played by the Oscar Best Actor Award winner Javier Bardem.  This character embodies the belief determinism.  Continually he confronts victims and gives them the opportunity to live by calling whether or not the coin he flips is either heads or tails.  What this movie is good at doing is asking the question of whether or not we have free will or if everything is pre-determined. 

Chigurh’s encounter with the man who works at the gas station is a prime example for this determinism.  Chighurh confronts this seemingly unimportant gas station owner until he calls heads.  Fortunately for him, Chigurh flipped heads and left him to live.  When the man went to put the quarter in his pocket Chigurh refused to accept this action.  He said he should not put such an important quarter into his pocket and get it mixed in with all of the ordinary quarters.  This quarter was from 1958 and traveled 22 years to save this gas station owner’s life.  J.R. Lucas would find the discussion of this coin problematic and label it ‘historical determinism.’  It is easy to see what has happened and find all or most of the causes for an effect.  You could trace the history of that coin from hand to hand, pocket to pocket, and wallet to wallet.  You would be able to show how and why that coin ended up in the pocket of Chigurh at that particular moment.  Lucas says it is idiotic to consider that coin special.  One can see how even just one different action in the past could have altered the place of that particular coin at that time.  It is important to notice that even though Chigurh calls the coin special, he also says that even so it is just a coin.  Calling his deterministic view of the coin into question. 

When you think the movie is coming to a climax and a showdown between Llewelyn and Chigurh is about to happen, the Cohen brother’s leave you saying, ‘wait what?’  Llewelyn is going to go back into his motel room and is tempted by a woman in a pool.  She starts a conversation with him about drinking beer and then asks why he keeps looking out of the window.  This conversation leads him to say that he is looking to see what is coming, to which she quips but no one ever sees that.  He declines her invitation for beer and probably later sex, although it is important to notice that he could have said yes but because of his will he decided not to.  In the next scene we find out that Llewelyn is shot and killed by Mexican drug dealers.  Although the movie has been primarily following him, we only learn about it through the story of Sheriff Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones.  The Cohen brother’s wanted Llewelyn’s sudden death and conversation to stick in the mind of the viewer.  If he could have seen what was coming, then he would not have been at that motel or told his wife where he was going to be.  However, he did not and his death comes as a shock to the audience.  Lucas would agree with this interpretation that of course he did not see the ‘effects’ of his ‘causes’ ahead of time and therefore would have chosen otherwise.  So it should not be seen in the reverse that his death was pre-destined because he did not make the right choice. 

In another example of Chigurh’s deterministic beliefs, the already beaten down and woeful widow of Llewelyn Moss finds Chigurh sitting in her house after her mother’s funeral.  She knows he is there to kill her and tells him that he does not have to do it.  He responds by saying that everyone says that and that he had already given his word to her deceased husband that he would kill her.  He gives her the option of calling heads or tails, to which she refuses to respond to and accepts her ‘fate.’  David Hume’s Of Liberty and Necessity offers insight into this scene.  Chigurh seems to believe that he has no choice in the matter of killing Carla Jean, but Hume would argue that he has will power not to do so.  He is therefore faced with the choice of killing or not killing her.  To answer this question best, Sartre responds that as long as one considers the humanity of everyone in every action, the choice is up to you (of course this means that Sartre would be opposed to her killing).

At the end of the movie the Cohen brother’s of course give you another ‘Wait what?’ moment when Chigurh’s car is hit by another car.  Chigurh has the green light but is hit and badly injured by the accident.  After all of the choice and will that we have seen in this movie, one comes up against the question of free will or determinism once again.  This time the act seems pre-determined, because it is so random and yet somewhat redeeming.  Hume and I would argue that it is just a matter of conflicting wills.  Both decided to drive at the same time.  Chigurh followed the laws of the road and the other chose to run a red light, resulting in the accident.  In any case, the questions the accident posses about liberty and determinism are fitting for a movie rife with choice and maybe pre-determined effects.


This movie is amazing and extremely well done and acted.  I always enjoy a good bad guy so if you want to see Javier Bardem at his finest, check this movie out!