The Coin Toss Scene From 'No Country for Old Men' Is a Master Class in Mise-en-Scène

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

This scene is from the Coen Brothers' film No Country for Old Men. It features Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a hitman who uses a coin toss to determine whether or not to kill people, and a gas station clerk (Gene Jones).

Chigurh enters the gas station and begins chatting with the clerk. He learns that the clerk is from another town and that he and his wife inherited the gas station from her father four years ago. This conversation triggers Chigurh's suspicion and he feels compelled to play the clerk in a coin toss.

Chigurh finishes eating a snack 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. Now, heads or tails?”

The clerk calls heads, and he is correct.

“Well done,” says Chigurh quickly, blandly.

Chigurh leaves the gas station and 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.