'Fargo' & Luhr's article

After finishing watching ‘Fargo’ in Monday’s lesson, we read an article by William Luhr about it. To start with, the article summarises the film, telling the reader all about the obscure thriller setting and introducing a few of the characters. After talking about other thrillers and the genre of film noir, the article returns to talking about Fargo and gives a much more in depth analysis of the film, setting and characters. It shows how the Coen brothers tried to take a different approach to film noir by adding extremely unusual elements to this so-called ‘thriller’ film.

The setting, for start, is the total opposite of a film noir setting. With noir meaning black, it seems odd that the primary colour in ‘Fargo’ is white. The large amount of snow however creates, if anything, a more eerie atmosphere. It makes the misc-en-scène of each shot far more sinister and ominous as it creates a fog which nobody can quite see through until they are actually passing through it. This could be an indication of how each of the characters don’t really know what they are doing or where they are going throughout their story until the very end when the fog clears.

Carl (Steve Buscemi)

The article also makes a point of highlighting the Coen brothers’ use of grisly humour, which ultimately, makes the film overall very comical and the article tells of how ‘Fargo’ was put into a list of the top 100 film comedies by the American Institute in 2000. The article gives an example of this kind of humour by telling the reader about one of the characters (Carl, played by Steve Buscemi) who gets shot in the face at close range and yet still manages to chatter away aimlessly, cursing and getting ever more angry. Somehow, the Coen brothers have managed to take a film noir, make it predominantly white and include humour.

Marge (Frances McDormand)

Another way in which ‘Fargo’ challenges the thriller genre is highlighted on page five of the article. It tells the reader of Marge (Frances McDormand), a pregnant police sheriff who wears bulky and unstylish clothing who is presented as quite a comic character but in fact turns out to be the non-stereotypical heroine of the film.

However, while the Coen brothers have successfully managed to challenge the thriller genre, ‘Fargo’ also includes many clichéd ideals. One of these is the two ‘bad guys’. Carl (Buscemi) is small and funny looking, swears a lot and never shuts up. He likes to think that he is the brains behind everything although there are many moments in ‘Fargo’ where he acts stupidly. The other, Gaear (Peter Stormare), is tall, and often referred to as ‘the Marlboro man’ purely because he is always smoking. He is incredibly violent (he is the one to initiate the homicides) yet very quiet and mysterious. All in all, two very stereotypical villains. Another ideal stereotypical of many thrillers I’ve seen is that one villain kills off his partner. In the case of ‘Fargo’ this is done by Gaear killing off Carl by severing his neck with an axe and then putting his body in a wood chipper.

Gaear (Peter Stormare) with Carl in the wood chipper

I thought that overall, 'Fargo' was quite a good movie although I personally would not market it as a thriller film. The Coen brothers' use of grisly humour and other elements that challenge the thriller genre makes it unclear of what type of film it is meant to be. However, I believe that the Coen brothers have managed to establish an 'auteur' just like Alfred Hitchcock in which that have basically created their own genre of films. If you went to the cinema to see 'True Grit', you wouldn't say that you are going to see a western film, you would say that you are going to see a Coen brothers film. And i think that Joel and Ethan deserve a lot of credit and admiration for their work as they are always thinking outside the box and wondering how they can challenge typical genre ideals. For that, they are a credit to film history.

Joel & Ethan Coen