Carla Jeans death

• Beginning with a LS at her mothers funeral, a critical audience could critique this being the only shot in the film where more than two women are seen together, and it still has a man in the presence.
• This scene provides a strong juxtaposition between the dominant but flawed male influence to the plot and the ability to use reason whist still being confronted by imminent danger (CJ)
• The audience can only watch as the good forces in the film continue to fall at the hands of evil.
• Haunting silence: 'removing the safety net of sound'
• There is an opposition to the deserted western landscape, symbolising a supposedly safe environment of suburban America, but Chigurhs presence connotes that the horrors of capitalism stretches beyond the west.
• OTS as CJ opens the door, the camera being positioned behind her positions the audience hiding from Chigurh /
• Chigurh is concealed by darkness despite the light coming from windows by either side of him, the low-key lighting, he is a representation of death.
• Cuts to Chigurh POV of CJ, 'i knew this wasn't done with, i ain't got the money', the money being on the forefront of her mind represents the crimogenic nature of capatalism
• Tightened MS on Chigurh, the silence of the atmosphere making his deep, husky 'i wouldn't worry about it' more shocking to the spectator.
• SRS between CJ (MCU in the light) + Chigurh ( MS shrouded in darkness)
• Once Chigurh appears on screen, revealed through the opening of the door, the active audience knows that her life is in danger.
• Chigurh fatalism through the coin toss
• Over the course of the film the details of the murders become less important. At the start we see the murders in gory detail, the killing, the blood and guts splattered across the room.

  By the end we don't even see the person killed, just a scene after the fact, away from the scene of the crime. Showing that the Coen's aren't making a comment on murder, it is about the capitalism.
• The final confrontation between Chigurh and CJ acts as an analogy for the dilemma of fatalism: either CJ must accept her fate and be killed,no of choice at all, or she must resign to the randomness of the coin toss, in which case she still has no control over her outcome.
• Carla Jean refuses to comply (good representation of women)
• his could be seen as an intellectual defeat for Chigurh
• Carla Jean chooses to die rather than play by Chigurh’s rules, demonstrating that she is free in ways that he is not.
• No previous victims stand up to Chigurh 'the coin don't have no say', unlike most noir films, NCFOM depicts women in a favourable light despite their limited screen time.
• CJ is portrayed as a voice of reasoning, she sees past his psychopathic tendencies and personifies him in a way that no one else does and insists that he in fact has a choice.  "You don't have to do this," she pleads.
• Carla's reasoning is a glimmer of light in a world engulfed by darkness.
• Carla forces a visibly frustrated Chigurh to question his convictions.
• His 'call it' becoming more aggressive, reflected in the tightening SRS into a CU where only the orange glow reveals his face against the darkness.
• This scene takes on a cyclical structure, the pleonastic sound of the coffin dropping into the ground mirrors the sound of the bicycles of the boys cycling past.
• In an ELS, centre framing CJ's yellow (happiness) house in the glow of sunlight (highlighting the illusionary nature of capitalism) Chigurhs exits, pausing to check his boots which an active spectator would have picked up now to be a symbol of a killing.
• Preferred reading: the Coen brothers respect her enough to not show her death.
• Oppositional reading: as a woman she is not valued enough in the plot for her death to be seen.
• Narrative ellipsis
• Chigurh checking his boots is an example of Stanton's 2+2 theory (spectatorship)
• Oppositional reading: CJ's death could be argued to have the biggest effect on the robotic Chigurh, he is shaken by it. When he killed people in the movie with the coin before, he'd justify it by saying that it was luck/chance/chaos that did it, because it depended on the flip, but she refused to play the game: showing it was his choice.