Anton Chigurh

Anton Chigurh
Anton Chigurh by Cameron Stewart
First appearance	No Country For Old Men
Created by	Cormac McCarthy
Portrayed by	Javier Bardem
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Professional Hitman
Nationality	Unknown

Anton Chigurh is the main antagonist of the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country for Old Men and the film of the same name. He is portrayed by Javier Bardem in the film.

Character overview

Chigurh is a merciless hitman with no remorse or compassion for other human beings; he is described by one character in the novel as a "psychopathic killer." He nevertheless lives by a kind of moral code; in the novel and film, he kills people when his contract doesn't require it, simply because he feels they are "accountable."

He is in his 30s and has eyes as "blue as lapis ... Like wet stones." His main weapon of choice is a captive bolt pistol, which he uses either to kill his victims or to destroy cylinder locks on doors. He also wields a sound-suppressed Remington 11-87 semiautomatic shotgun and pistol (a TEC-9 in the film adaptation). Throughout both the novel and the film, Chigurh flips a coin to decide whether to kill prospective victims.

Creation

When Joel Coen and Ethan Coen approached Javier Bardem about playing Chigurh, he said "I don't drive, I speak bad English, and I hate violence." The Coens responded, "That's why we called you." Bardem said he took the role because his dream was to be in a Coen Brothers film.^[1]

The Coen brothers got the idea for Chigurh's hair from a book Tommy Lee Jones had. It featured a 1979 photo of a man sitting in the bar of a brothel with very similar haircut and clothes to what Chigurh ended up wearing in the movie. Oscar-winning hairstylist Paul LeBlanc designed the hairdo. The Coens instructed him to create a "strange and unsettling" hairstyle. LeBlanc based it on the mop tops of the British warriors in the medieval Crusades as well as the haircuts of the 1960s. Javier Bardem told LeBlanc every morning when he finished the hair that it helped him to get into character. Bardem famously feared he was "not going to get laid for three months" because of his haircut.^[2]

When writer Cormac McCarthy visited the set, the actors inquired about Chigurh's background and the symbolic signifigance of his name. McCarthy simply replied, "I just thought it was a cool name." ^[3]

Role in the plot

In 1980, Chigurh is hired to retrieve a satchel holding US$2.4 million in bills from the scene of a drug deal gone wrong. However, he discovers that a local welder named Llewelyn Moss, who chanced upon the money while sniping antelope, has taken it and left town. Chigurh tracks Moss down to a motel using a receiver that connects to a transponder hidden in the satchel of money. However, Moss unintentionally tricks Chigurh into believing he was in the room next to his when he hides the money in the ventilation system. That room was being occupied by a group of Mexican gangsters sent to ambush Moss. Chigurh brutally murders the Mexicans and searches for the money, but it is nowhere to be found.

Chigurh finds out about a bounty hunter named Carson Wells who, like Chigurh, has been hired to retrieve the money. Chigurh kills Wells, and then ruthlessly tracks Moss down. Mexicans arrive during the scene where Chigurh and Moss face off in the streets, all of whom Chigurh kills. Though this scene was cut and decreased to the point that only Moss and Chigurh fought.

Unfortunately, Moss was eventually killed by Mexican gangsters at another motel. Once again Moss hid the money in the vents, which was unseen by the Mexicans at the time of their ambush. Chigurh arrives at the scene of the crime after the police have left, retrieves the money from the vent and returns it to his employers.

Near the end of the book, Moss' grieving widow returns home to find Chigurh inside, waiting for her. After hearing her pleas for mercy, he partially relents by relying on his coin toss. She calls heads; it comes up tails, and he shoots and kills her. While driving away from her house some three blocks away, Chigurh is badly injured in a hit-and-run car accident, sustaining a compound fracture of his left ulna and coming away with a limp. At the collision scene, before the authorities arrive, he offers $100 to a teenager on a bicycle to give him his T-shirt, seeking to use it to bind up his wounds himself. Chigurh then flees the scene before the ambulance arrives.

Personality

The movie doesn't explain why Chigurh gets arrested at the beginning of the movie. In the book Chigurh tells Wells that he let himself get arrested for killing a man who had insulted him in a bar: "An hour later I was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy outside of Sonora Texas and I let him take me into town with handcuffs. I'm not sure why I did this but I think I wanted to see if I could extricate myself by an act of will. Because I believe that one can. That such a thing is possible. But it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do. Do you understand?"

Though seen as a ruthless, psychotic killing machine, oddly enough, Chigurh is described as having his own set of morals, however twisted they may be. Anton did not kill at random or without purpose.^[5] Anton sees himself as a hand of fate; an instrument who exacts what is supposed to happen upon those it is supposed to happen to. He gives every victim he faces a chance of mercy by making deals either personally, or by flipping coins to make decisions. He has a great deal of endurance, such as being capable of withstanding pain from multiple shotgun blasts or from a fractured arm. He also has a broad medical knowledge and can even take care of his own wounds. He also shows some level of intelligence as seen when he escapes a sheriff's precinct and steals medical supplies from a drug store filled with civilians and security. He also uses many improvised tools at his disposal, seen where he uses coins to open air vents and a sheriff's handcuffs as a garrote. His shotgun silencer is described in the book as being "custom made".

Anton Chigurh kills or tries to kill almost every person he speaks to during the film. The only people he spares are the gas station proprietor, the woman at the trailer park office, the woman at the motel front desk, and the two children at the end. It is unclear if he kills the man who is in the office when he executes The Businessman, or the man who stopped on the side of the road to give his engine a jump (while he does eventually take the man's truck, this does not necessarily mean he killed the man to get it; he may have traded his own truck or offered some other payment). He is unable to kill Moss, who instead is killed by the Mexicans. Although you do not see Chigurh kill Carla Jean, it is implied he does since he checks the soles of his boots – presumably for blood – after he exits through the front door.^[6]

Reception

Critics have praised Bardem's portrayal of Chigurh, which won him an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for his performance. Chigurh, as played by Bardem, has been added to numerous lists of greatest villains.

UGO.com ranked him in its list of top 11 "silver screen psychos", saying that "Chigurh is an assassin of little words and interesting choices of weaponry - is a man without a sense of humor. Others might say he's got a warped sense of principles. One thing that most can agree on, is Chigurh is one crazy S.O.B. - ruthlessly killing damn near anyone who sets eyes on him, let alone those who get in his way. And apparently, the only way you can survive a run in with the man is the 50-50 chance of a coin toss, but dear god, don't question his motives, it just seems to irritate him even moreso."^[7]

Empire.com ranked him #46 in their list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters Of All Time, praising the look on his face when he strangles a cop with his own handcuffs and that "when American novelist Cormac McCarthy wants to throw a dark character at you, it's a safe assumption that you're not going to be able to get them out of your head for a good, long while - if ever. One of his best is Chigurh, and between the Coens and Bardem, they never missed a beat in bringing this monster to the screen. With the kind of unholy relentlessness usually reserved for horror icons, the hired killer has an almost supernatural ability to track his prey, and is rather short in the mercy department, preferring to leave the tough decisions to a coin toss. And that bowl cut is utterly terrifying."^[8]

Other appearances

• Ike Barinholtz plays Anton Chigurh in the spoof movie Disaster Movie.
• Carlos Areces plays Anton Chigurh in the spoof movie Spanish Movie.
• Chigurh appeared in The Simpsons episode "Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh", in which he is a city inspector.
• He is transformed as an anthropomorphic rabbit in 30-Second Bunnies Theatre.

References

Further reading

• Doom, Ryan P. (2009). "The unrelenting country: No Country for Old Men (2007)". The Brothers Coen: Unique Characters of Violence. Praeger. pp. 149–162. ISBN 0-313-35599-1. 

External links

• Anton Chigurh at the Internet Movie Database
• Anton Chigurh.com