The Coens Part 1: Fargo and The One Shot Theme

I’m dedicating my film chatter this month to the Coens in honor of their upcoming True Grit remake, which hits theaters December 22. First off are some musings on Fargo, which will translate into two posts, a couple other snippets if I have time, and I’ll finish off with two posts detailing my opinion on the remake before and after I’ve seen it

I’m just a tad bit late with my Fargo review, having seen it only a few weeks back, and while I am sure that my observations will come as no surprise to Fargo aficionados, I thought it would be fun to jot down a few observations . So, if you have not seen this film, be warned that spoilers follow.

I love when filmmakers can encapsulate entire themes in one scene or, even better, one shot, and the Coens manage to succeed in both ways here. First, in the scene in which the teenage witnesses are chased down by the gunman  resulting in the car wreck, the Coens give us the shot of the young man leaving the car and running out into the middle of the enormous snow-covered clearing. He is gunned down. His girlfriend, trapped inside of the vehicle, is likewise executed. In this scene I think the Coens hand us the theme on a silver platter: there is no escape.

William H. Macy’s character is like the girl. He tries to deal with impending doom by remaining within society’s constructs and playing along, mistakenly assuming that in so  doing he will be able to have some control over the situation. I think the boy represents the kidnappers. They’ve shirked all of society’s protections and throw themselves into “freedom,” but one that, like the barren landscape beyond the road’s shoulder, offers no place to hide.

This theme is reinforced when the most frightening and sociopathic character in the film is reduced to throwing wood at a pregnant Police Chief and running helplessly onto the middle of a snow-covered clearing before being shot in the leg. This is followed by one wide cinematic shot in which the kidnapper is alone  in the middle of nowhere with Marge behind leveling her gun at him. This bleak picture hands us that theme: judgment is coming; you can’t run, or as Sheriff Bell’s friend Ellis says at the end of No Country For Old Men: “You can’t stop what’s coming.”