‘No Country For Old Men’ explained: Does Anton Chigurh find the money?
The most impressive thing about the Coen brothers’ 2007 film No Country For Old Men is that it is arguably the best adaptation of a book that is artistically possible. Starring Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem, the Coens brought to life the dusty and dangerous plains of West Texas from Cormac McCarthy’s original novel.
After welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) finds a briefcase filled with $2million in the wreckage of a drug deal gone wrong in the desert, he decides to take the money for himself. This leads to a deadly manhunt led by the fearsome and nihilistic Anton Chigurh, played with the utmost intensity by Bardem.
Even as the narrative draws to a close, a question remains surrounding the fate of the money and whether Chigurh was able to fully retrieve it. However, the Coens opted to leave this strand of the story open-ended, which urges their audience to focus on the other questions of fate, morality, and human chaos that the film also poses.
After all, what’s interesting about Chigurh’s pursuit of the money is not whether he successfully gets a hold of it but its strange yet alluring symbolism. Often relying on the flip of a coin to determine the fate of those who stand before him and fuelled by his nihilistic approach to destiny, the money rather represents the kind of unpredictability of human life. Chigurh’s pursuit of it is analogous to the seemingly endless journey of life itself.
Does Anton Chigurh find the money?
Narratively, though, the briefcase of cash makes its way around West Texas, with Moss always on the run from Chigurh. Interestingly, it’s a group of Mexicans who kill Moss at the hotel he had planned to give to his wife, Carla Jean and from this point, the Coens leave the money’s fate ambiguous. This move creates an air of tension and has the audience continue to think about the film long after the credits have rolled.
Chigurh ends up at Moss’ house to offer Carla Jean a coin toss for her life. Known for checking his boots for blood after killing a victim, Chigurh does so after leaving Moss’, indicating that he added Carla Jean to his list of dead bodies, but the whereabouts of the cash remains a mystery. He is later injured in a car crash but manages to survive, offering a witness $100 for a clean shirt before leaving.
The $100 bill might indicate that Chigurh had indeed found the money, but there is no way of confirming this. The ambiguous ending to No Country For Old Men is representative of the mysterious forces of fate that surround our lives. Just as Moss never intended to find the money in the first place, Chigurh never wanted to get injured in the car crash at the movie’s conclusion.
The fate of the money remains elusive from certainty, which makes us question its alluring nature as well as the deep existential questions that the film offers up. With a mysterious narrative that continues beyond the credits, the Coens, in line with McCarthy’s original novel, ask us to what degree chaos and destiny rule our lives.
Where was No Country For Old Men filmed?
The Coen brothers opted to use various locations in New Mexico for No Country For Old Men, which resembled many of the Texan settings of Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Las Vegas, New Mexico, serves as the town of Sanderson, Texas, while Santa Fe provided many desert landscapes and downtown areas for the film.
The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge near Taos was used in the opening sequence, while the Coens also used the natural landscapes of the Eagle Nest Lake State Park to recreate the remote Texan desert. They also shot in Marfa, Texas, to capture a bit of Texan authenticity.
What is No Country For Old Men about?
No Country For Old Men, the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel by Joel and Ethan Coen, is a thriller that takes place in West Texas. Vietnam War veteran, welder and hunter Llewellyn Moss comes across a briefcase with $2million in the wreckage of a drug deal gone wrong in the middle of the desert.
After taking the money for himself, he is relentlessly pursued, particularly by a deadly and nihilistic hitman called Anton Chigurh, who sets after him, leaving a trail of destruction in his way. Also involved in the case is the ageing Sherriff Ed Tom Bell, an introspective man who laments the passing of the old days and the immoralism of the new.