Fargo - "What's with You People?!"

Fargo is the second in a Coen trilogy that I don’t have much to say about, at first glance. With Hudsucker, the problem was I never fully connected with it but grew to appreciate it. With Fargo, I was at first a little disappointed (the Oscars and critical hype got to my twelve-year-old brain) but quickly came around to understanding it was one of their masterpieces. When dealing with such a film, I sometimes find it hard to come up with much to say beyond just gushing over shit I like in the movie, but with three viewings in the past week, I’ll roll the dice and see what happens.

As it turns out, the podcast that inspired this series provided my inspiration. In the Check Book newsletter for the Blank Check episode covering Fargo, they mention an interview the Coens did with Terry Gross for Fresh Air back in 2000. In it, Ethan commented on how he found Steve Buscemi’s character to be a protagonist of sorts as he was the only sane man in an insane world. Well, that’s all I needed to get a few paragraphs.

Steve Buscemi’s Carl is pretty much the only character lacking a unique accent. Stormare isn’t doing the Minnesota nice thing, but he’s not American, and he doesn’t talk much, anyway. In fact, Scotty probably talks the most normal out of all the locals, but I chalk that up to a child actor not being able to pull off some William H. Macy shit. This is why you can consider Carl the only “normal” character in the story. 

To be clear, Carl is a piece of shit, and aside from Jerry initiating the kidnapping, it could be argued that Carl is to blame for most of the tragedy. If he had simply put the temporary tags on, they wouldn’t have been stopped by the cop leading to the triple homicide, and if he wasn’t so insistent on getting laid, there wouldn’t be witnesses to tell the police about the “funny lookin’ fella.” Now, Gaear is still a stone cold psycho who was probably always going to kill Jean and Carl no matter what. But Carl’s bullshit caused a lot of unnecessary problems. 

That written, Carl (and even Gaear) does try to talk Jerry out of his plan because it makes no sense to them, and they think Jerry should just ask his father-in-law for me rather than go to all this trouble. It’s honestly one of the strangest scenes in the movie, but it gets forgotten since it’s the opener. The kidnappers try to talk themselves out of a job. But it’s probably more about them trying to understand the job.

But this isn’t about Carl being the hero or anything. It’s about him being a flummoxed outsider in the upper Midwest. As a Midwesterner (southern Indiana, to be specific), the “nice” reputation is a bit annoying. Sure, we don’t go around yelling all the time, and some of us hold doors open and say shit is fine even when it sucks, but trust me, there is no shortage of total pieces of shit in the Midwest, no matter how nice their manners are. Carl is annoyed by the folksiness he keeps encountering, and I get it. 

We all know deep down that the Midwest “niceness” is all an act, for the most part. You might think it would be pleasant to be around nice people, but after a while, you just feel like everyone is lying to you by being nice. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. Anyway, I can see why Carl, clearly not a Midwesterner, reacts to the niceness with animosity. 

Carl openly despises Jerry from the start, not just because of his cowardly kidnapping plot, but because of how he talks. This is most evident when Carl mockingly repeats Jerry’s “What do you mean?” later in the movie. Then there’s the parking attendant, aka “king clip-on tie,” that Carl eviscerates simply for following the $4 minimum policy of the parking lot. Yeah, the charge is annoying, but I think it’s the attendant’s smile that truly sets Carl off. 

It’s not just the Midwestern culture bothering Carl; he’s also teamed up with a near mute murderer in Gaear, a man who will partake of the local talent, but seems much more interested in pancakes and soap operas…and unguent. This psycho is an enigma that must’ve been a nightmare to share a car with. We only get little humorous glimpses culminating in Carl laughingly vowing “two can play at that game,” but imagine an hours-long drive with Gaear. 

Because of all these annoying indignities, Carl is already on edge, but his interaction with Shep sends him into a frenzy. So when Wade shows up instead of Jerry, he finally verbalizes what’s been bothering him: “What’s with you people?! You fucking imbeciles!” Carl just wanted to do a job and maybe enjoy himself a bit, but every element conspires against him. It’s not just the locals, but their seemingly insane behavior was definitely a factor in his final breakdown. Nice Midwesterners didn’t kill Carl, but their politeness didn’t do him any favors, either.

Random Thoughts

You can tell when Stan asks how Scotty is doing it's the first time Jerry has even considered how this whole scheme would affect his son. What a piece of shit.

Checking IMDb, I can't believe I'm just finding out that Scotty also played Track Suit Kid in Go.

“I'm not going to debate you, Jerry.”

Jerry is short for Jerome (based on the phone call with the loan dude who needs the VINs). As the son of a Jerry short for Gerald, that surprised me. 

The parking lot attendant scene might be my favorite Buscemi moment. “Big fuckin’ man, huh?”

I can think of no better actor than Buscemi to play a guy who is “funny lookin’ in a general kind of way.”

First time I'm picking up on the No Country similarities. Marge is basically Ed Tom at the end, not understanding the world, though she handles it better. And Ed Tom pretty much describes the entire set up of Fargo as a “true story” when Carla Jean asks if a story he told her was true: “[I]t's certainly true that it is a story.”

This is one of those DVDs with a “trivia track,” which is essentially Pop Up Video for movies. It's funny because it gives specific trivia for the movie but also general nuggets like, “In 1987, 74 police officers were murdered in the United States.”

And Arby's trivia, dispelling the rumor that Arby's stands for RB as in roast beef, when it actually stands for Raffel Brothers, the founders.

And this meta trivia question: “Frances McDormand is married to what famous director of quirky independent films?”

In the Charlie Rose interview included in the DVD, he asks McDormand if she was a fan of their work before she married Joel. She points out she was in their first fucking movie. Charlie Rose was such a fuckhead.

Deakins drops a Barton Fink nugget during his commentary about an unused scene in which John Goodman kills the elevator operator and we see the severed head roll out into the corridor. Where the fuck was that in the deleted scenes on the DVD?

“Ya got Arby's all over me!”

Stormare shows more of a reaction to the pregnancy reveal on the Bruce Campbell soap opera he's watching than the sight of Buscemi with a facial gunshot wound. 

The Hudsucker Proxy - "You Know, for Kids!"

This is the beginning of an unofficial trilogy of Coen Brothers movies for me: the “I don’t know have much to say about this” trilogy. This triumvirate is what has kept me from writing about their work extensively in the past, but now I’ve started it, and my tens of readers would have my head if I stopped now.

With Fargo and The Big Lebowski, I don’t know what I’ll be able to add to those as they are now unimpeachable classics that I simply enjoy. But since I love those two movies, I’ll at least be able to gush over them for a thousand words or so. The Hudsucker Proxy on the other hand…

Look, I like this movie, but it took time. When I first watched it (I’m not sure the exact year, but I was probably in high school), I reacted as many critics and audiences did upon its original release: what the fuck is this screwball comedy shit? Why is Jennifer Jason Leigh talking like that? Why does this look like a Tim Burton movie? Etc.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the style and performances of the film, and I find most of it genuinely funny. Jennifer Jason Leigh is now the standout, in my opinion, and I wish there were more scenes with her and Bruce Campbell. The general chaos of the Hudsucker Company is funny, as well, with the mailroom being the standout sequence for me (“And they dock ya!”). In other words, this is a lot of zany fun. But it’s still nowhere near my favorite films from the Coens, and I’m trying to figure out why.

As I look ahead to future Coen films I’m going to cover, I realized that I’m split on their comedies. To be fair, all their movies are comedic, but only seven (in my estimation) are straight up comedies: Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, Burn After Reading, and Hail, Caesar! Of those, I love Arizona and Lebowski; I like Hudsucker and Ladykillers; and I’m generally indifferent about the rest, though I’m hoping they all grow on me with the upcoming rewatches. 

It’s strange, but when these filmmakers that I find hilarious make predominantly comedic films, they more often than not leave me underwhelmed. Perhaps I can only take so much style and quirkiness. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t I hate Raising Arizona? But comedy is the most subjective type of film, so it’s hard to explain. Obviously, I jive with their comedic sensibilities, but I suppose at times it can be too much of a good thing.

In the case of Hudsucker, I think it’s just that this movie is a lot to deal with. That’s part of the point of the film as Tim Robbins serves as a cipher for the audience as he’s thrown into this chaotic business world of the fast-talking screwball era. The question becomes: is all this chaos funny or just annoying? For me, at least for the first couple of viewings, it was definitely annoying. But as I’ve rewatched it over the years (going in prepared for the zaniness helps), I’ve found it increasingly funny.

I prefer the darker comedic moments of the Coens (and there are a few of those in Hudsucker, most notably the immediate reaction to Hudsucker’s suicide), and this film goes for a slightly sillier tone, earning them their only PG rating. It made me wonder during this rewatch if the oft-repeated line “You know, for kids!” was aimed at the audience, as well. Raising Arizona is the closest they’ve ever come to making a live-action cartoon, but it’s still a little too dark to be considered a kids’ movie. And Hudsucker certainly isn’t a straight up kids’ movie, but it’s the closest they’ve ever come to making one, for sure. 

Hudsucker is a film that my children (they weren’t in the room for my rewatches, so I didn’t get a chance to test this theory) might enjoy without understanding most of the plot. The fast talking and general loudness of the film is as stimulating as any other kids’ movie these days, though the production value and filmmaking is light years beyond most kids’ fodder. 

Because of all this, The Hudsucker Proxy is one of those movies I appreciate more than enjoy. But I still plan on watching it again when I go on a Coen run, and next time I’ll make sure my kids watch at least a little bit of it. Because, you know, it might be more for them than me.

Weapons - "... And They Never Came Back."

SPOILERS

It seems like (financially and/or critically) successful “elevated” horror movies face a bit more scrutiny from audiences. For instance, the latest Final Destination (Bloodlines) seems to be accepted as a good, gory time, and most people enjoy it without digging into the weeds of the logic of the film (for the record, I enjoyed it with my brain off like most viewers). But when something like Weapons comes out, you get countless YouTube analysis videos and Reddit threads. Many of these are effusive or just a little clickbaity (“Weapons Ending Explained!”), but others are more along the lines of “Did I watch the same movie as everyone else? Because that was garbage.” 

First off, Weapons and other horror movies getting this treatment because they are “elevated” is bullshit. Yes, there are different types of horror films, but that doesn’t mean some are immune to criticism while others need to be picked apart. Yes, a film like Weapons lends itself to analysis more than a slasher sequel does, but that doesn’t mean it can’t just be a good time, too. 

Personally, I loved Weapons, and I thought it was a fun movie. Sure, there were traditionally creepy moments (Julia Garner getting her hair cut while sleeping in her car comes to mind), but a lot of it was darkly funny (young Han Solo getting his face peeled) or regular funny (seventeen screaming children bursting through multiple houses like an army of Kool-Aid men). It kept me absolutely engaged throughout, and I found the multiple POVs interesting and often humorous, especially when they got shorter and borderline redundant. 

Whenever I love a movie, I immediately start checking out the negative reactions (I don’t read full reviews until I write my own piece, but I’ll read blurbs and short Letterboxd entries). I do this because I like to see what didn’t work for others but also because, and this says more about me than it does any movie I’m writing about, if I love a movie I think there must be something wrong with it. Secretly, this movie I love must suck, so I’m going to find out why. That’s just a bit of impostor syndrome shit that happens to me as a sorta critic, but it usually wears off. If it doesn’t wear off, then I start to consider that I might be wrong about a movie, but if it does wear off, I embrace my love of the film.

All my stupid insecurities out of the way, I realized that Weapons worked for me because it wasn’t trying to be elevated. An elevated film would probably never reveal what happened to the children, and the point of them being missing would be the community's reaction to the situation. Vigilantism would pop up, marriages would fall apart, the true “Weapons” would be revealed, blah blah blah. (For the record, there’s nothing wrong with that premise, as a movie like Prisoners kind of does that, and I love that movie.) There are beginnings of that in Weapons with the community’s reaction to Garner and Josh Brolin’s character. We get scenes of Garner being frightened at home, and we see Brolin as a broken man, ignoring his wife and work in his grief. But before the film can devolve into full on misery, it’s revealed that some witchcraft shit is going on, and a goofy old lady is behind it all.

At first, I was kind of disappointed in that reveal. It’s just a witch wanting to live longer? Beyond the witch stuff, I was disappointed that the missing children were found at all. But looking back at writer/director Zack Cregger’s previous film (Barbarian, which I also loved), it turns out he’s a dude that likes to tell you most of the story. As someone used to things not being spelled out in critically acclaimed horror films, I realized it was refreshing to be given so many answers, and from multiple viewpoints.

The reveal makes Weapons a less scary film (aside from a few moments, I didn’t find it all that scary in a traditional way), but it’s a more entertaining one, for sure. The scariest, or at least most disturbing element, is Alex having to live and take care of his zombified parents and the effect zombification has on them and the children. The darkest aspect of the film is the line, “every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs, and into the dark, and they never came back.” While watching it, the reveal of the children in the basement made me think that line was bullshit. But when it’s later revealed that they are still at least partially zombified, I realized they didn’t truly come back, making that line much more disturbing. 

So how the fuck can I say this is funny? One minute I’m laughing at the sight of the children storming through houses and ripping Gladys apart, and then I’m hit with the reveal of their mental state afterwards. That juxtaposition shouldn’t work, or at least I should consider the death of Gladys as unintentional comedy. But I don’t buy that the laughs in this movie are unintentional. First off, the junkie dude (James, but I’m going to keep calling him “junkie dude”) part of the movie is a comedy, through and through, and so is young Han Solo’s POV. So the humor is there. With that possibility gone, all I can chalk it up to is this is a true dark comedy. 

A dark comedy about missing children might seem insensitive, but I think that says more about our society than any possible interpretations of this movie. I enjoyed this movie almost completely on the surface level, but others have wanted to dig deeper (you know, because of the elevation of it all). I’ve seen that it’s a commentary on gun violence, because of the focus on the empty classroom and the giant gun Brolin sees in a dream. Cregger denies any intention there, but that doesn’t matter because once a movie is made the interpretation is up to the viewer, not the filmmaker. I saw the giant gun as a metaphor for the children becoming the titular weapons, but that’s just me. As for the empty classroom part of it, that’s America for you. We just assume a film about kids missing from a classroom is about gun violence because we’re so fucking used to school shootings. Unfortunately, large groups of children being killed are a “normal” part of American life. That’s why you can make a dark comedy about it; it’s commonplace. Once again, that says a lot more about us as a society than this film does. 

None of this is to say negative reactions to this film are “wrong” or “missed the point.” Unless you flat out misheard a line or didn’t notice something onscreen, your opinion is valid. I’m not writing this to try to convince anyone who hated it to love it; I just wanted to work through why I loved it. 

Random Thoughts

The seven hot dogs stuff is great, and I love that it’s been revealed to be a tribute to Trevor Moore (Cregger’s castmate from The Whitest Kids U’Know who died in 2021).

The only thing I thought was silly about the hot dog reaction online was that some people were wondering who was getting four hot dogs to the other’s three, but I think it’s pretty fucking obvious that Wong planned on eating all seven, and his husband seemed fine with it.

Toby Huss was great in this. He’s perfect for someone who’s meant to be a little funny, but can look downright dangerous (that look he gives Han Solo, knowing Solo cheated on his daughter) when necessary.

Han Solo was great as Cregger’s tribute (ripoff?) of John C. Reilly’s cop from Magnolia. Cregger has acknowledged the connections to Magnolia, but it still feels a little too obvious. Oh well, I still enjoyed it, and he really wasn’t like Reilly’s character aside from not being a great cop and having a mustache. He’s pretty much a complete scumbag, whereas Reilly seems like a well-intentioned guy.

I’m a soup guy, and this movie proves it. I should be grossed out by the end of this (I’m kind of surprised Campbell’s signed off on this product placement), but it just made me want to eat soup. 

Speaking of the soup…so Alex had to feed everyone, but what about the end result of eating? Was he putting diapers on everyone, even his parents? Or were they all just shitting and pissing themselves for days? Either scenario is possibly the most disturbing part of the movie. Honestly, the lack of acknowledgement of these zombies needing to use the bathroom is the weakest element of the film. Just show one of them going to the bathroom at some point or have Gladys acknowledge it in some way. Am I the only one hung up on this?

It definitely seems like the cops should have done the legwork Brolin did on the route the kids’ took, but if they have a bunch of young Han Solo dirtbags working there, I can see how it slipped through the cracks. 

And with Ring cameras factoring into the plot, it seems kind of fucked up that the children didn’t show up on any other Ring cameras after they left, making it easier to show that they went to Alex’s house. 

But then again, his house was searched. So I guess that explains it. This wasn’t a story told from the detectives’ point of view, so that’s why I can write off stuff like this. 

It’s plenty disturbing as is, but I think all those fork stabs to the face would have bloodied up Alex’s parents more than it did. 

Alex’s story is the true horror element of the film. The idea of having to go through that at that age is so disturbing. 

As a parent, I’m glad this wasn’t focused too much on parents being miserable about missing children because I’ve written about too many movies from the perspective of a parent (I’m trying to lay off that angle).

Barton Fink - "I'll Show You the Life of the Mind!"

Barton Fink is a challenging movie in general, but in particular to me in the Coen filmography. Their previous film, Miller’s Crossing, is one of my favorites because it can be analyzed or simply enjoyed. Barton Fink, on the other hand, has to be analyzed. Once you get to the flaming hallway, there’s no way you can say, “I enjoy Barton Fink because I can just turn my brain off and enjoy it.” And that’s fine, but it also makes it one of their least rewatchable movies for me. 

I know Barton Fink is great, but I just don’t enjoy it all that much. Perhaps that’s the point, but I’ve always found the Coen Brothers to be particularly adept at showing awful things while injecting humor into it. There’s a little bit of humor in Fink (the aggressive detectives come to mind as well as Michael Lerner’s insane studio exec), but nowhere near as much as in A Serious Man, another film largely about suffering, but much funnier.

Of course, humor is subjective, so others may find this perfectly enjoyable on a surface level. But I feel the need to develop a theory each time I watch it. I usually land in the “John Goodman is the devil” territory, but I’ve always found that a bit too simplistic and obvious, what with the flames and the Hitler line. Also, the guys on Blank Check with Griffin and David made me feel like a basic bitch for having this theory on their episode about the film. So this time I wanted to hammer down a slightly more specific theory.

The Hotel Earle as a metaphor for hell is obvious, but that doesn’t make it wrong. But I don’t find it to mean literal hell for Barton, and I don’t find it to be purgatory, either. Instead, I see it as a hell of the mind. Dante’s famous line from Paradise Lost encapsulates my thoughts on this film: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” 

I think that Barton Fink has created this hell of the mind due to his writer’s block and insecurities as a writer and champion of the “common man.” In this self-made hell, the common man, Charlie Meadows, comes across as a jovial friend, but underneath that façade is suffering and violence. Barton, despite his constant claims otherwise, doesn’t know anything about the common man and finds him inferior and an object of pity. Because of this, his subconscious has created Charlie to show how little he truly knows, or perhaps fears he doesn’t know.

This common man that Barton thinks he is championing lives in a hell Barton cannot understand. As Charlie tells him, “”You’re just a tourist with a typewriter.” Barton is no savior for the common man; he’s just using them as exploitation in his writing. This conflict slowly builds up over the course of the film until the true Charlie is unleashed with his fiery vengeance, shouting, “I’ll show you the life of the mind!” It’s a taunting callback to Barton’s earlier tone-deaf complaint about the suffering he withstands exploring the life of the mind. 

It takes multiple murders and literal hellfire for Barton to finally understand that he actually doesn’t understand anything. This revelation isn’t glorious; it’s more simple acceptance. Now that he knows that he’s a bit of a fraud and is trapped in a contract with the studio, he can try to find some kind of peace within the misery, as exemplified in the final shot in which he is now in the picture that previously represented serenity. So he’s not the voice of the people he thought he was and working for the pictures was an artistic mistake (though not a financial one), but he’s no longer in a hell of the mind.

In that way, I don’t find Barton Fink to be about writer’s block (even though it was famously written while the Coens faced writer’s block while writing Miller’s Crossing). It’s about finding peace as an artist in the face of capitalism. Barton taking the job in Hollywood in the first place is accepting defeat, but it took the manic episode in the hotel to come to terms with it. And in the end, he gets to experience a little bit of the life of a common man by doing a job he hates and simply existing, though he’s certainly making a lot more money than the common man. 

In the end, he isn’t in heaven or hell; he’s just a working writer. And perhaps his work won’t ever be important (or even produced, if Michael Lerner can help it), but he’ll get by. It’s a fairly dark message about the creative process in an industry driven by money, but it’s true. You’re not going to change the world by writing wrestling pictures, and no one wants you to, anyway. So pull your head out of your ass and do your job. 

That’s not to say this film is about how Hollywood is completely devoid of creativity and humanity. It’s just that you shouldn’t expect to change the world, and instead you have to navigate it properly and fight the battles you can win. For a movie that is largely surreal, the message (at least for me) is one of reality: you can make life hell for yourself by fighting against its very nature, or you can accept defeat and just get by, and perhaps find a piece of heaven every now and then, even if you find it while holding a box with a severed head inside. Those wacky Coens…

Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes

I’m sorry for using “common man” so many times, but so does Fink, so it couldn’t be helped.

By no means do I find my interpretation legitimate or definitive. It’s just how I felt with this recent rewatch. In that way, I’ve learned to enjoy this movie a bit more, but it’s still a bit of work, and my favorite Coen movies can be enjoyed through interpretation or on the surface.

There’s a lot of anti-Semitism and World War II stuff in the film. As far as the inclusion of that stuff in the hotel, I chalk it up to Barton’s subconscious fears. That also explains why the detectives (one Italian named and one German named) are so aggressive. These are base fears manifesting themselves in these characters in the life of the mind.

“Chet!”

On the elevator trip when Barton first arrives, the word “six” is spoken three times. Get it? Get it?!

“A day or a lifetime!”

Getting some strong Lynch vibes. I was not as well-versed the last time I watched this. The sound design, set decoration, the framing, etc. All of it is very Lynchian.

“Sex? He's a man! We wrestled!”

“You're a sick fuck, Fink.”

“You read the Bible, Pete?”

“The Holy Bible?”

“Do you see what happens, Barton Fink, when you won't shut up about the common man?!”