Welcome to “Scene of the Crime,” a recurring column in which we examine single memorable scenes from crime movies.
Scene: “The Coin Toss”
Film: No Country for Old Men
Of all the millions and millions and millions of individual scenes that all fit together to make the movies in the crime genre, perhaps my favorite—my single favorite—is the coin toss scene at the gas station in No Country for Old Men, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It’s so elegantly, brilliantly blocked and designed, and with a mise-en-scene so impeccably loaded with symbolic detail, that, when I taught university English courses, I’d show it to students to teach them close reading.
In this scene, we meet the film’s villain, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a sinister hitman who turns dangerous at the friendly chatter from a gas station clerk (Gene Jones). The clerk attempts to make conversation, asking about the weather where Chigurh came from. “I seen you was from Dallas,” he says, off-handedly, ringing him up.
But Chigurh reacts defensively, darkly, terrifying the clerk. Then Chigurh launches into his usual routine, insisting that this man play him in a coin toss.
Chigurh, a kind of angel of death, is a serial killer (recreationally, that is… in addition to being a professional hitman), who uses coin tosses to determine whom to kill. This way, he is a kind of vessel, a means for the universe’s ends. As Chigurh forces the clerk to play him in a coin toss, the scene builds to a terrifying climax.
But the mise-en-scene surrounding the clerk also foreshadows this dark interaction; underscoring the film’s themes of, say, predestination or fate. The tire chains behind him hang like nooses, suggesting his unknowing proximity to death.
Chigurh feels called to play the clerk in a coin toss after he learns that the man has “married into” the gas station he operates. Chigurh tells the man that he’s been at this gas station his whole life, and the man contradicts him, saying that he’s from another town, where he raised a family (in Temple, Texas… a sanctuary-sounding place, unlike the place he is now) and he and his wife inherited this gas station from her father and only moved here four years ago. “You married into it?” Chigurh balks.
This is the turning point, a signal for him that he has no choice but to play this man in a game of head’s or tails; this man has bucked his station in life, manipulated his existence, somehow, and Chigurh must test him, to see if the universe wants to balance out his circumstances.
Chigurh finishes eating the snack he has been munching on, and places the crumpled plastic wrapper on the counter. A close-up shot reveals how it writhes like an insect, once he lets go, an uncomfortable movement capturing the squirminess of this whole interaction.
“What’s the most you ever lost in a coin toss?” Chigurh asks him, flipping the coin. “Call it,” he says exasperatedly.
The clerk is confused about what exactly they’re betting on. “I didn’t put nuthin’ up,” he tells Chigurh.
“Yes you did,” Chigurh tells him. “You’ve been putting it up your whole life.”
The clerk calls heads, and [spoiler] he is correct.
“Well done,” says Chigurh quickly, blandly.
The clerk is stunned. The camera films Chigurh’s strange exit, but after he leaves, the camera captures a reverse-shot of the Clerk. This one’s a medium shot, not the close-ups of the previous few exchanges. Now, we can see that the register in front of the clerk reads .21 from the previous sale. “PAID OUT .21.”
“21” is the lucky number in another game of chance, Blackjack. The fact that it has been on the register all along perhaps clarifies that the Clerk was destined to win this game, all along.
