9/23/16 - Andrew Dalmedo

Today in class, we continued to watch No Country for Old Men. We picked up at the, “Regal Hotel,” with Chigurh pulling into the parking lot on account for his now actively beeping tracker. He carefully drove by each and every single one of the apartments, his tracker continuing to beep quicker and quicker; that is, until he went past room 138. Indicating that the signal was getting weaker, the beeping slowed. Realizing this, Chigurh stopped his truck and put it into reverse, slowly rolling backwards. The beeping steadily got quicker, and it eventually reached it’s peak when Chigurh stopped outside room 138. As he stared out the car window into the darkened room, the scene ends with his car’s reflection in the room’s window remaining still outside of the room, as if he’s waiting for something.

This entire scene’s purpose is to create tension and suspense, as it’s leading up to the events that will play out later in the film. The pacing is slow enough to create a lot of tension, comparable to it being the “calm before the storm.” It creates suspense through Chigurh’s personality alone, his character being a clever combination of psychopathic and collected, as if it was just another “day at the office.” The drawn curtains over the room’s window alludes to something being extremely secretive which Chigurh visually picks up on (the viewer knows that the case full of money is in that room; in other words, it’s dramatic irony).