No Country for old men (The Coin Toss) – Semiology

Semiology is the study of signs. You may think of signs such as road signs, these tell us many thinks e.g. what speed you should be travelling, where you are, where you can park ect. You would be right in thinking this but semiology also looks at things in a scene that could represent something else. In “The Coin Toss” scene semiology has been considered very carefully, when analysing the scene you can see actually how much they have planned and used semiology. 

In the first second of the scene we can see a predominant sign with “Texaco” written on it. We can only assume this to be the name of the gas station, but the word “Texaco” is very close to the name Texas. Texas is partly known for criminal death sentences, this could indicate that something bad is about to happen. The sign also has a red border, which could represent blood and danger. When looking at other part of the scenery we can see many fences that may be trying to keep something in or out i.e. isolating somebody. To add to the possibility of something bad happening there are various dead trees that could represent death. Staying on the theme of death there is cloud cover in the background which may be coming towards the gas station that may mean darkness is coming.

When considering semiology in the scene the producers have done well in showing us what type of characters the characters are and what might happen too them. Both of the characters clothing represent what they’re like. The cashier is wearing light coloured clothing and I represented as being innocent, the light shinning through the two windows on him and smiley face stickers can further show this innocence. On the other hand the mysterious man is wearing dark clothing and in mainly in the shadows where the sun isn’t reaching, and may mean this character is a dark, evil character. Behind the cashier in the window there are various bits of looped ropes which look like nooses and with the mysterious man acting very hostile and asking the cashier strange questions it leaves the audience wondering if these noose like pieces of rope could symbolise the cashiers death. After the mysterious man has finished eating the sweets he puts the wrapper on the counter and it un-folds from it’s scrunched up state, this could symbolise that the mysterious man has the cashiers life in his hands and can let go of it and let it escape if he chooses and it could also mean that the scene is unfolding and we’re about to find out what is going on.

Body language and facial expressions can also be considered a sign when looking at semiology and is once again very well used in this scene. Straight away we can see that the cashier is looking down at a notepad when the mysterious man enters this shows the cashiers vulnerability and he could also be representing the audience. The mysterious man looks out of the window early on in the scene to see if anybody was around before he starts to interrogate the cashier, during the questioning of the cashier the mysterious man hardly breaks his stare at the cashier, where as the cashier is always looking around to try and escape the situation this shows that the cashier is uncomfortable and unnerved by the mysterious man. At one point in the scene the cashier looks the mysterious man up and down to try and work out what he is doing. The shape of a characters face could also symbolise what type of character they are as the mysterious man has a more harsh featured face which could indicate he’s more of an evil character whereas the cashier has a more rounded face which has more of a soft and less aggressive feel on the audience. 

  Tone of voice and words used can also be symbols. The mysterious man has a very deep voice giving the effect of power and dominance over the softer voiced more innocent cashier. Early on in the scene the cashier says “I seen you was from Dallas” after asking if there was a possibility of rain. Linking this speech back to the observation of cloud cover I the first second of the scene this could mean the mysterious man symbolises the rain/storm, with the storm being a bad thing. 

After look at how semiology is used in “The Coin Toss” scene I think that there is a lot for the audience to pick out for themselves as opposed to them being spoon fed all the information that I have found in this scene after looking in close detail.