Flannery O’Connor and Fargo

A good friend of mine says the Coens hate humanity, and while I do think they often push their dark themes to the edge of watch-ability, I didn’t get this feeling from Fargo. As dark as this movie is, the film does not vindicate the villains. And while some say that Marge is the butt of the Coens’ joke, I disagree. I think they admire Marge. They poke fun at her, sure, but I think the film vindicates hers as the best path among the available options presented in the film. Naïve? Yes. Indifferent? No. Incompetent? Absolutely not.

But I do not agree with another friend who thinks that Marge is the film’s real hero, and that the Coens go so far as to put her and her husband forward as the antidote to the evil we have witnessed.  I give as evidence the curious sequence involving Marge’s old high school friend who makes a pass at her. This sequence seemed odd and out of place to me at first, but watching Marge’s handling of the situation speaks to a broader theme of the film: naïve optimism serves as an incubator for human evil. Marge refuses to acknowledge the obvious conclusion that this man is trying to have an affair with her. Though she has already witnessed a grisly murder scene, which would have caused the other Coen Sheriff (Bell from No Country) to sigh with resignation, she still cannot fathom that something as scandalous as adultery could be perpetrated by someone she knows personally. While she proves herself confident and skilled in dealing with the effects of evil, she is entirely ill-equipped to deal with the cause. “I just don’t understand it,” she says to Grimsrud after witnessing the fated wood-chipper incident.

It is this inability to acknowledge that such evil is closer than she thinks that makes it possible for such evil to flourish. So, for me, the film is very close in theme to Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” but in this story the protagonist does not realize her error. She trudges on believing in the inherent goodness of people, blithely hoping for a better tomorrow that will never come until “good” people like her are willing to “burn the cancer at the root” as the Greek tragedist had it. To summarize:

1. Human evil exists.
2. It’s closer to home than we think.
3. Ignoring its presence and proximity enables its growth.

If you made it this far, thanks. Next time I will give a few reasons why I think the Coens’ version of True Grit will improve upon the original.

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.”