We excitedly countdown to the 72nd Festival de Cannes with a different prize winning film each day.
Fargo, 1996
Prix de la mise en scène – Joel Coen
Life has many different moments. We can be crying one second and laughing the next. Lots of films have attempted to portray life’s tonal differences, but most of them have failed for myriad reasons. The Coen Brothers‘ 1996 classic Fargo is one of the few that has been able to walk that tightrope and give us a wholly unique experience. It is precisely for that narrative high-wire act that I believe Joel Coen won the Prix de la mise en scene Award for Best Director at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.
Fargo tells the “true” story of Jerry Lundegaard – a man caught up between debt and his own ineptitude. As a later Coen Brothers’ character would say, this story is true in that it is a story. Despite the title card at the beginning of the film, this story is not a real-life tale, except for a few outlying plot details. The Coens set out to show that you can create a “true story” film without, in fact, having a true story to build it from. They did that and much more.
Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is a car salesman who must pay off debts he has amassed, and he concocts a two-bit scheme to accomplish this. Through his connection to Shep Proudfoot (Steve Reevis), Lundegaard obtains the services of Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare). He enlists them to kidnap his wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrud), so that his wealthy father-in-law, Wade (Harve Presnell), will be forced to pay a ransom. He will then split this with the criminals so that he can pay of his debts.
As one would imagine, things do not go quite according to plan.
I have not even mentioned the most famous character from this film yet. What struck me on this most recent rewatch is that this character – one of the most memorable ever to grace the screen – does not show up until a full 30 minutes into the film. What she does with her screen time for the rest of the film is pure cinematic history.
I am, of course, referring to pregnant Brainerd police chief, Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand).
She so dominates this film that it can be easy to forget how wonderful the rest of the cast is too. Would it be cinematic sacrilege to say that Macy gives just as a good a performance as Jerry as McDormand does as Marge? Maybe so, but I feel it nonetheless. And the rest of the cast puts in fine performances as well. With every homespun, Minnesotan accent-filled line of dialogue, we’re absolutely hooked.
One character who is massively underrated in the film is Norm Gunderson (played by the always wonderful (John Carroll Lynch). In Marge’s intro scene, it is Norm’s painting work that fills the screen as the camera pans to the couple in bed in the early morning hours when Marge gets a call about a triple homicide. Norm makes sure that Marge gets a good breakfast, and he even jumps her Prowler when it won’t start. They are the picture of Middle American domestic life. And into that life comes a gruesome murder tale.
But I cannot continue praising the rest of the cast without becoming another in the long line of viewers to praise McDormand’s performance as Marge. She rightfully won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, and it is a character that would most surely reach the highest levels of movie history. Yes, the character is incredibly well-written, but it would not have had the staying power in minds of moviegoers without McDormand’s peerless performance. She nails the accent, but it never reaches the point of caricature. She seems like a real person, just as the story seems real.
I believe it is in the domestic scenes between Norm and Marge that the magic of this film really comes to light. We remember the accents and the wood chipper, sure, but the most unique aspect of this film is its ability to mix the dark and the light. How can someone come home after seeing the things Marge Gunderson has seen? The answer comes in that very first scene, where Marge makes breakfast and she simply replies “Ah, Norm.” They’ve been through this before together, and they’ll make it through together again.
This film is the work of many incredible collaborators, of which Joel and Ethan Coen are surely chief among them. But I must mention two others specifically – Carter Burwell and Roger Deakins.
Burwell has long worked with the Coens, and this might be his crowning achievement. The theme song is legendary, and rightfully so. It just sounds like a homespun murder story (the film’s subtitle). There’s a Midwestern quality to it, but at the same time an eerie dread about it. The entire score is fantastic.
Then, of course, there is the greatest among Coen collaborators – legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins. His career contains some of the greatest shots ever committed to film, and here he puts in a few all-timers. There is the overhead shot as Jerry walks out to his car amid the snow-covered parking lot. There is the shot of Gaear, half his face obscured by his gun, as he looks at the police officer whose head he just blew open. And there are multiple shots of Jerry in his office, the window blinds serving as bars on a jail cell that is slowly closing in on him.
But possibly the most memorable aspect of this film is the dialogue and for that we have only Joel and Ethan Coen to thank. Of course the accents and the “You betchas” linger in your mind after the film is over. The humor of lines like “Well, that don’t sound like too good a deal for him, then.” is memorable as well. But I think I’m most thankful for the care this film takes in the domestic scenes between Marge and Norm. We really care for these characters because they care so much for one another. We get these little windows into their lives, and by the end of the film we know their story will continue.
To break rules of storytelling, one must know the rules inside and out. Yes, Fargo moves back and forth between different tones, but it succeeds because the storytelling is so pure. In lesser films, the shift from humor to horror pulls us out of the experience. Here, the tones are enmeshed within the rest of the story and it all feels of a piece.