Bell arriving and Consistency of character

The Coen brothers subvert the expectations of the viewer by avoiding the confrontation between Bell and Chigurh. This is done to maintain the way Bell has been portrayed throughout the film (the tired and worried sheriff). This is done through two elements of film form: camera angles and performance. First of all, at the beginning of the scene, we are given a shot reverse shot of Bell's point of view and a close up of him in his car. This is mainly done to align us with Bell as a person: showing us the world through his eyes. Furthermore, the close up of him in the car is done to highlight his emotion and body language. The close up clearly shows that he is afraid and hesitant of going in their because he feels he will be killed just like Moss. This is evident as his body language shows that he waited a moment before getting out of the car, almost as if he thought of driving away, conforming with his archetype of not doing anything. However this trait of Bell is transgressed when does end up leaving the car and approaches the door.

We are then given another shot reverse shot of Bell walking to the room and room getting closer to him. This is edited quite quickly with sharp cuts, creating a sense of panic: representing that Bell is panicking. Then when Bell gets to the door we are given another shot reverse shot: this time of the broken door handle and Bell's face. The close up of the door handle is to highlight the damage to it and how it is done in the way Chigurh breaks into building, telling the audience he is there. This emphasises the danger that Bell could be in and, by proxy, makes us feel as worried as Bell, aligning us with him once more. The fear that Bell has is displayed with a close up of him looking down at the broken handle: he knows that Chigurh is in there. More specifically he gulps when he sees this. This is typically associated when someone is scared or threatened. This could be symbolic of how Bell is afraid of Chigurh but also how he is scared of the new wave the criminals that Chigurh represents: scared of how they operate and scared of not being able to stop them, which we learn as the film goes on, he doesn't.

It then cuts to Chigurh hiding behind a door in a room with his weapon. The audience is tricked into believing that Chigurh is the room and Bell is on the other side, because of the hole in door being the same that Bell sees. It however cuts back to a close up of Bell looking down at the hole and him gulping, once again signifying his fear. I think the Coen brothers are saying that Chigurh wasn't there at the same time as Bell and it was just a manifestation of his fear of him. Throughout the scene Bell is seen to be scared constantly: the hesitation before he got out car, the gulps, the quick cuts between him and the building are done to symbolise his fear of Chigurh and the "new" crime. 

Another shot in this scene that is symbolic is a close up Bell pulling out his gun and the camera focuses on the gun. This makes sense within the context of the scene because Bell wants to be protected. However the deeper meaning is that Bell is putting on the bravado of the maverick hero now that Moss is dead: the gun being an avatar of this. It also may represent that Bell is too scared to fight his battles head on and that he has to hide behind this archetype. This is reversed however in the following two shots. When Bell opens the door, it is framed to have in the back of the shot and the interior is at the foreground. This mainly shows that Chigurh isn't in the room, giving my theory more evidence and that maybe what Bell is fearing isn't tangible. But also it represents how the world that he lives in, being overrun by the "new" crime makes him feel small and out of his depth, maintaining the idea that he is inactive and has no real impact on the world around him. This is culminated by the following shot of a panning shot around the room with Bell's shadow being in the center of the shot. This is symbolic of how the things that Bell is really scared are intangible like shadows or maybe it a reflection of Bell's character: how he is "a shadow" of  his old self and how he used to be: a failure compared to he used to be.