'Whenever they raise the postage, people need the little stamps'. This is a line from the last scene of Fargo, and I think it neatly sums up the theme of the movie. I haven't seen this film in a very long time, and perhaps was only ever in it for the jokes back then. Now, however, I am trying to see a bit more. I didn't find the beginning of the film as gripping as I used to. Only on the introduction of Marge Gunderson does the plot really start. I didn't know she'd won an Oscar for her performance. The music of Carter Burwell is also a great help here, and the photography of Roger Deakins. I'm not convinced it's a great film, though. It is a good one, but there is something hollow at its centre - like an empty show, with no real characters or emotions you can engage with. I was disconcerted.
By the way, are you as perturbed as me with the new-look IMDb?
4 comments:
The strangest thing is that they've moved the search up to the top. They used to have a search on the side only. Then they added the search on the top and seemingly nobody really noticed that it was there. I noticed, but never used it. I just carried on using the one on the side. Then on this redesign they've removed it and just left the one on the top. It gets me every time. I am constantly looking for it on the left and when it's not there it throws me.
Actually all of IMDB is weird isn't it...
So this is actually a reply to this post and also your comment at the end of your next one.
I think it is a great film. The pace of the beginning is necessary, I feel, so that the pace can accelerate and not become frenetic. The danger if they had started fast is that they would have neared goodfellas type pacing by the end and this would not suited the naturalism of the film. To allow them to build they needed the space at the beginning - I think.
Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko) fame said that you could only truly understand Fargo once you understood the role of Mike Yanagita. In fact he added the character of the Chinese girl in earmuffs as a nod to this Coen brothers character.
I think that Marge is really secure in her belief. I don't think there are a lot of crimes in Fargo and when there are crimes they are of the low level traffic office types of situations. Things that frankly happen because people are probably drunk. Bar brawls, speeding etc.
When she speaks to Mike she feels sad for Mike when he speaks of his wife's death. When she speaks to her friend and realises that he's lied to her she doesn't go back to Mike, the very next scene she goes to confront Jerry. Despite being a police officer she needs to be reminded that sometimes people lie. That sometimes when people are so invested in the lie you might not be able to tell immediately. So she goes back to check if Jerry was telling the truth when he said that there were no cars missing.
It's difficult because the people from Minnesota really do underplay everything, very little emotion is revealed. And so she can't really have a denouement in a showy tearful way. But it's fair to say that this has changed the way she feels about trusting people.
It is the balance between the way that this big series of murders, going on but what's important? Her life is carrying on and she's going to have a baby. But will the changes in her appreciation of others affect her much more over the course of her life even though everything seems the same at the end?
I think in part it is probably for the Coens a film which talks about how where they grew up even when really big things seem like they are happening nothing ever really changes.
"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don't you know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it."
Also just to really keep banginng on about it you can go here, but not for long: former.imdb.com
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