FARGO
A film review by John Schuurman
Copyright 1996 John Schuurman
Directed by Joel Coen; Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen
I've tried hard not to take it personally but I'm very unhappy with what the Coen brothers think of me. It's just not flattering -- not at all. And I don't think its only me. Believe it -- these two are misanthropes. Their new movie proves,(as if "Blood Simple," "Raising Arizona," "Miller's Crossing," and "Barton Fink" were not enough), that the Brothers Coen don't like anybody very much. They have employed their considerable powers of cinematic storytelling to say so.
That they possess genius can not be denied. This film will be studied in film arts classes for years. "Fargo" is a beauty. It is rich, rich -- and powerful too. Some of the images of the film continue to linger with me now a week removed from seeing it. But I have found little to cheer about here. I can urge no one to see it other than film scholars and those theologians who would like to see Romans 3:12-17 displayed on a big screen: "They have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves .... Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know."
Joel and Ethan Coen have given us a humanity bereft of any sign of a superior order. Their movie is a savage comedy about the darkness/stupidity within. You laugh and laugh at the dumb mid-westerners with their befuddled look at life, (no doubt by necessity because they are so numb with the cold of the frozen north). Or else you are chilled with terror at the evil of which they are capable. There is little difference between "good" guys and "bad" guys. Everybody is stupid or worse, rarely better.
Even seven-months-pregnant Police Chief Marge Gunderson, cheery and chirpy and the best of the lot, while smart enough to do respectable police work and get her man in the end, is more laughed at than loved. She captures the malevolent Grimsrud -- as lethal a character as we have seen in some time, (and boy is THAT saying something!) -- and while driving him to a lock up lectures him on niceness and on how money never really makes anybody happy.
Through the caustic hand of these film makers the moral universe of which Marge is a relic is rendered inane. She is the lone hint in this degrading film that there is perhaps some sort of moral presence somewhere but there is no cohesion to it and it comes off as cute home town nostalgia. "No kidding. There really are people who think like this too yet."
One more bizarre thing in an odd and troubling movie. At the opening credits we are told that the following is an entirely true story. It happened in Minnesota in 1987. "At the request of those living, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, it is told exactly as it occurred." But then at the very end of the credits at the conclusion we have the typical movie disclaimer, stating that the film is entirely fiction, that any resemblance to real people living or dead is wholly accidental. It is one last thumb in the eye for you from the Coen brothers.
John Schuurman for more reviews by John see http://www.mcs.com/~sjvogel/wcrc/movies.html
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