Call It: Thoughts on the Coin Toss Scene in No Country for Old Men

Anton Chigurh teaches a philosophical point to an elderly man 

who owns a gas station in No Country for Old Men (2007)

 

 

I. 

 

I'm not alone in admiring the 2007 film directed by the Coen brothers, No Country for Old Men, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel of the same title [1]. And I'm probably not the only one whose favourite scene in the movie is the one set in a gas station, involving a tossed coin ...

 

In this scene, fatalistic psychopath and assassin Anton Chigurh - played by everybody's favourite Spanish actor Javier Bardem - terrorises the elderly proprieter of the gas station, obliging him to stake his life on one toss of a coin: click here.     

 

 

II. 

 

There are many aspects we could comment on in this scene; Chigurh's contempt for the banal nature of small talk upon which human interaction is founded and, indeed, the small, pitiful nature of most lives, for example. Or how it is Bardem manages to convey such mocking malevolence and menace in his performance; is it the voice? is it the look on his face? is it the haircut? 

 

But it's what Chigurh says about the coin - a quarter, dated 1958 - that most interests. He says that it has been travelling through space and time for twenty-two years (the film is set in 1980), just to be flipped and slammed on a counter in order to determine what happens next. 

 

The coin exists, in other words, in all its here and nowness, in all it's thingness and dual nature (head or tails) and although of little monetary value, it's invested with the greatest weight at that moment.  

 

And that's fascinating when you think about it. But then, of course, the same is true of any other object; they all have an astonishing presence and some queer relation to us; our fate and theirs is inextricably linked [2].

 

And that's why we should treat all objects with a certain respect and never unthinkingly put a lucky quarter in our pocket, where it will become just another coin: which it is.    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] In fact, the movie was not only a huge commercial and critical success, but won numerous awards, including four Oscars, three BAFTAs, and two Golden Globes. It would surprise me if there's anyone who doesn't like this film. 

 

[2] Having said that, we need to be wary of slipping into a lazy relationism in which we view objects only in terms of their connections (particularly their connections to us) and forget about their radical non-connectedness (i.e., their withdrawn nature).  

  

 

Why the Case is Never Closed

Whilst it's true that an investigation can in some sense be resolved, a case - like Pandora's box - can never really be closed.

To understand why that's so, one needs to recall the etymology of the word case. It derives from the Latin casus, but that's a translation of the Greek term ptōsis, meaning fall.

Thus, case, in a sense, is another word for fate; that which befalls the individual; an innumerable series of events, some big some small, all of which are determined by other events (and not by any external agency).  

Of course, the word has taken on extended and transferred meanings over the years, but when I use it in the title of posts - as I often do - I'm not simply using it in a legal, medical, or psychoanalytic sense, but as something impersonal and fateful; something over which the individual has no control (the individual, of course, being an unfolding of events in the same way that the author is a complex effect and function of the text).     

On Stamina (as Ontological Destiny)

John Melhuish Strudwick: A Golden Thread (1885)

I.

An aged philosopher, said a young Nick Land, is either a monster of stamina or a charlatan. We can probably say the same of artists, rock stars, and maybe even monarchs.

For whilst I don't want to revive and reinforce the romantic ideal of living fast and dying young - as if a premature death confirms authenticity and proves the truth of one's message - there are perhaps certain individuals who are under a greater obligation to die at the right time than other (superfluous) men and women; i.e., not too late, but not too early either. 

However, it's not this Nietzschean idea I wish to discuss; nor do I wish to comment here on what makes monstrous, or write in defence of charlatanism. I want, rather, to say something on the concept of stamina ...

II.

It's unfortunate - and a little disappointing - that Land seems to rely upon the common understanding of the term stamina; i.e., synonymous merely with staying power, or the ability to maintain an activity or commitment regardless of circumstances (including fatigue and old age). That's the kind of error that the sort of people who think that a rock has the capacity to endure might make ...   

For stamina means more than merely having the energy and strength to keep going; it refers us rather to the essential elements of a thing; the vital structures or qualities of being. As the plural form of stamen, we might even define it as the thread (or filament) from which the individual (and their fate) is woven. 

Thus, philosophically speaking, all mortals have stamina (i.e., an ontological destiny) - even charlatans, those who burn out early, or those who regard death as a festival and voluntarily choose to squander their souls ...

See:

Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation, (Routledge, 1992). 

Nietzsche, 'Of Voluntary Death', Thus Spoke Zarathustra, (Penguin Books, 1969).