Why did Anton Chigurh answer the phone?

Why did Anton Chigurh answer the phone? - Pensive ethnic man listening to answer in paper cup phone

In this scene from No Country for Old Men, Carson Wells and Anton Chigurh converse in a hotel room. The phone rings about the time that Chigurh kills Wells.

Answering the phone is a high-risk activity that could implicate Chigurh in Wells' murder. The police could estimate the time of death. If the phone company kept call logs in 1979, the police could obtain those logs and learn the call occurred the same moment that Wells died.

A separate high-risk activity is talking to Llewellyn Moss, threatening his wife, and providing crucial details to Moss about possible next actions. When Llewellyn Moss hears Chigurh threaten his wife, he could decide to inform the police not only where Chigurh is at that moment but where Chigurh plans to go soon. (Clearly Chigurh deduced that Llewellyn Moss would not inform the police, and his gamble paid off, but still there was the risk of that.)

All in all, three actions of answering the phone, threatening to kill Moss' wife, and letting Moss know where Chigurh is going next are each very risky.

There is also a separate question of how Chigurh would know where to find Carla Jean Moss, but that can be asked in a different post.

One might think Chigurh answers the phone to obtain information, but he does not need to. He already knows that Llewellyn Moss is in the hospital across the street, that Carla Jean Moss is hiding somewhere, and that the money is not with Llewellyn Moss at that moment. He makes an offer to Moss: you hand over the money and your wife lives, but you will die anyway. If he anticipated that Moss was the person calling for Carson Wells, he has no need to convey that offer over the phone because he has sufficient knowledge of Moss's whereabouts to convey the offer through other means, means that are less risky.

Why did he answer the phone? Why did he engage in other high risk actions on the phone?

Answers from the book or the movie are acceptable.






Pictures about "Why did Anton Chigurh answer the phone?"

Why did Anton Chigurh answer the phone? - Happy young African American female wearing white coat having pleasant conversation via mobile phone and looking away contentedly while standing on sunny spring city street
Why did Anton Chigurh answer the phone? - Happy young African American male manager in formal suit with smartphone answering call with wireless earphones against modern buildings in business district
Why did Anton Chigurh answer the phone? - Thoughtful black businessman with laptop talking on smartphone in garden



Why did Anton Chigurh want the money?

Chigurh was called in by the (unseen) ringleader, after the drug deal went bad. His main assignment is to recover the money. A secondary assignment is to kill the guys who the ringleader had hired to set up the deal that went bad (apparently the ringleader doesn't tolerate screw-ups).

What is Anton Chigurh goal?

Chigurh is just violence. There's no empathy. There's no reason, there's no goal. There's nothing to him more than being that horrible fate in people's lives."

How was the money tracked in no country for old men?

Chigurh arrived at the motel afterwards and retrieved the money - which no one else had found) Sometime after Moss was killed and Carla Jean's mother died, Chigurh went to Carla Jean's mother's house (which would've been easy for him to find) and killed her. Thank you!

Did Anton get the money?

We watch as the money changes hands from the dead drug dealers to Llewelyn Moss, and then finally end up with Anton Chigurh, who takes it from Moss' hotel room after killing him.



Anton Chigurh Phone Call with Llewellyn - No Country for Old Men (2007) - Movie Clip HD Scene




Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Andrea Piacquadio, Uriel Mont, Ketut Subiyanto, Ketut Subiyanto