Working Titles: No Country For Old Men

Working Titles takes a closer look at specific films with a denim and workwear aesthetic with the goal of examining the material’s shifting cultural image.

The angel of death wears a trucker jacket and the worst Beatle mop you’ve ever seen. That’s Anton Chigurh, cinema’s most systematic cold-hearted killer since The Terminator. Anton is the antagonist in the Coen brother’s crime thriller No Country for Old Men (2007), which they adapted from the Cormac McCarthy book of the same name.

The film follows Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a south Texas shit-kicker who stumbles across two million dollars in the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong on the Mexican border. But that much cash can’t disappear without someone taking notice and soon hired killer Anton (Javier Bardem) is on the hunt, with lawman Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) following a few steps behind.

Anton is ruthless, efficient, and insane but the he does follow a moral code. In his own twisted perspective, he sees himself as the arbiter of others decisions, sent to dish out the consequences of their own greed and incompetence. In some cases, leaving the fate of his victims to a simple coin toss.

“What’s the most you’ve ever lost in a coin toss?”

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The movie takes place in 1980, which in Texas was the era of shoulder pads and polyester cowboys–see Woody Harrelson’s character, Carson Wells.

But Anton is much more subdued. He wears the same outfit through pretty much the entire movie–a dark denim trucker jacket, work shirt, black pants, cowboy boots, and a ranger-style leather belt. No hat. He’s anonymous, but where every other character is in washed out khaki and denim, his inky dark color palette makes him stand out like a black hole in every frame.

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