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DVD Verdict Review - Fargo: Special Edition
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Case Number 03349
Fargo: Special Edition
MGM // 1996 // 98 Minutes // Rated R
Reviewed by Judge Michael Rankins (Retired) // September 22nd, 2003
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Editor's Note
Our review of Fargo, published August 23rd,
2000, is also available.
The Charge
I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work,
there, Lou.—Marge Gunderson, Chief of Police, Brainerd, Minnesota
Opening Statement
Whoa, daddy.
Some films entertain us by poking fun at the familiar in the world around
us. Others enlighten by educating us about people, places, and things that were
previously unknown. And then there's Fargo, which does it everything
backward—it entertains us with the freakish, the regional, and the
unfamiliar, while it enlightens us about the all-too-familiar foibles of
humanity and Middle Americana that reside in each of us.
Too long relegated to a pair of substandard, featureless, now out-of-print
releases from PolyGram and MGM, Fargo at last receives its due in a fine
Special Edition DVD from Leo & Company.
Facts of the Case
And I guess that was your accomplice in the woodchipper.
The Judge presumes that by this late date, anyone who's even passably
interested in film (which likely includes you, dear Verdict reader) has either
seen Fargo or is at least nominally familiar with it. If this is not the
case with you, please read Chief Justice Mike Jackson's evaluation of the
earlier MGM release before proceeding further here. Although I'll tread
carefully around major spoilers, the uninitiated reader will be better served by
reviewing Chief Justice Jackson's comments before mine, which presuppose that
you already know the movie. Then come back, and we'll chat.
The Evidence
I'm a police officer from up Brainerd investigating some malfeasance, and
I was just wondering if you've had any new vehicles stolen off the lot in the
past couple of weeks? Specifically a tan Cutlass Ciera?
Marge Gunderson (Oscar-winning Frances McDormand), the
third-trimester-pregnant police chief of Brainerd, Minnesota, summarizes the
pivotal event in Fargo in a single run-on sentence: "Okay, so we got
a trooper, pulls someone over…we got a shooting…these folks drive
by…there's a high-speed pursuit…ends here…and then this
execution-type deal."
But if there was ever a film that proved film critic Roger Ebert's sagacious
maxim, "It's not so much what a movie is about, but how it is about
it," Fargo is that film. The core plot points of the movie have been
done innumerable times before—a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme gone horribly
wrong, cold-blooded killers on a murder spree, an implacable detective carefully
tracking criminals to bring them to justice—but it's how those
elements are woven together by sibling filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen that makes
Fargo one of the most unique creations in cinematic history. It is
testimony to the singular, nearly unclassifiable nature of the Coens' end
product that the American Film Institute lists Fargo as one of the 100
funniest American movies of all time (#93), even though it graphically depicts
several gruesome slayings, and contains as its single most memorable image the
leg of a murder victim being pulverized in a woodchipper.
The wonder of Fargo is the perceptiveness with which it observes its
milieu, a world that seems alien to those of us who have never spent time in the
Upper Midwest. For that, one can credit the fact that the Coen Brothers were
born and raised in Minnesota and are thus intimately acquainted with its people,
their subculture, the peculiarities of their snowbound existence, and the
rhythms of their Nordic-influenced speech patterns. But lest the viewer suppose
that all there is to the movie is fair-skinned folk of Scandinavian descent who
talk funny, it's important to grasp how the Coens use these people as exemplars
of the quiet desperation so common to modern industrial society.
Jerry Lundegaard, played with sputtering frustration by the marvelous
William H. Macy, is to a certain degree the prototypical contemporary American
male—trying furiously to marshal forces that are beyond his control,
making things worse with every ill-advised action, and too bullheaded to know
when to quit. Jerry is like a character in an old Warner Brothers cartoon who
casually flips a snowball down a mountain incline, only to realize that the
snowball is growing and plummeting faster second by second toward the peaceful
village below, and that he is powerless to halt the inevitable disaster his
stupidity has wrought. Macy's furtive glances (does he ever really make eye
contact with anyone?) and raw-nerve energy betray the fact that, given a life to
live, this guy could never have not screwed it up royally.
Counterbalancing Jerry is Marge Gunderson, who is everything Jerry is
not—intelligent, methodical, self-assured, and, most significantly,
content with things as they are. She is perfectly happy to be exactly what she
is: a small-town cop in the great northern wilderness, the wife of a loveable
lug (a warm, understated job by John Carroll Lynch) who fishes all day and
paints pictures of ducks for a living, blithely whiling away an existence
defined by dining at the local smorgasbord and jump-starting the car in the
morning. Unlike her former acquaintance Mike Yanagita (In Living Color's
Steve Park), who has apparently spent his entire adult life chasing pipe dreams,
Marge not only accepts her lot in life but wholeheartedly embraces it.
Indeed, it is Marge's awkward reunion with Mike that seals Jerry's fate. In
Mike, Marge sees Jerry Lundegaard, a man who longs to be anything other than
what he is, and willing to resort to any fabrication or quixotic gesture in an
attempt to break free the only way he knows how—with money. The lies Mike
tells Marge about his career and marriage remind her that people unable to
handle reality will try to alter it to suit themselves—exactly what Jerry
is doing. The clarity of this insight spurs the rest of Marge's investigation
which, having started slowly, accelerates from this point through the remainder
of the film.
And then there are Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi's best-ever performance)
and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), who though they function as independent
personages in the narrative, are in reality the yin and yang of
Jerry's addled psyche. Carl represents the part of Jerry that simply wants to
make a boatload of cash and enjoy its fruits, without really hurting anyone (it
is only when that desire is thwarted that Carl succumbs to his violent
impulses). Grimsrud is the inner force of nature that impels Jerry to action
beyond his limitations, the lust for self-satisfaction that takes what it wants,
when it wants, and brooks no opposition. (Grimsrud's famous demands for
"pancakes house" and "unguent" illustrate his complete
consumption with self.)
The script crafted by the Coens for these characters is almost without
fault. Fargo's pacing is languid yet compelling (Marge, ostensibly the
protagonist, doesn't even pop in until more than a half-hour into the story).
The dialogue, which one can't help repeating for days after seeing the film, is
as ear-perfect as anything David Mamet ever wrote, and is deftly delivered by
the outstanding cast. Even the minor characters sound and behave exactly as they
ought to—Jerry's winsomely shrill and frenetic wife, played by Minnesota
native Kristin Rudrüd (Pleasantville), and the two dim-bulb coed
hookers (Larissa Kokernot and Reba's Melissa Peterman) Marge interviews
after their liaison with Showalter and Grimsrud, never fail to draw chuckles
from me. If there is any complaint to be made about the film, it is with the
occasionally helter-skelter editing (accomplished by the Coens themselves, using
their "Roderick Jaynes" pseudonym) that leaves the viewer wondering at
times whether a key scene is missing. (And of course there isn't, because the
Coens storyboard and block their films meticulously before the cameras ever
roll.)
So you already know the film is first-rate. What about MGM's long-awaited
Special Edition DVD, you ask? Well…let's just say it's better than what
came before.
The new 1:85:1 anamorphic transfer (there's a pan-and-scan version on the
reverse) is an improvement over the earlier MGM rendition, which itself was a
quantum leap ahead of the truly awful display on the original PolyGram disc. The
new transfer has been struck from a clean, defect-free print (both the earlier
versions showed abundant film damage), and exhibits only minuscule amounts of
digital duress—mostly random overuse of edge enhancement, especially in
scenes with snowy backgrounds. Contrast is ever so slightly fuzzy in a handful
of places, but otherwise, this presentation of Fargo is as attractive as
the film has ever looked.
A similarly effective Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track supports the shiny
new pictures. Fargo is not, as crime thrillers go, a bombastic one, so
the major concern is dialogue, which is sharp and distinct here. Carter
Burwell's ethereal score affords pretty much the only notable use of the
outboard channels.
Coen Brothers aficionados will be disappointed to learn that the CoBros did
not lay down an audio commentary for this, one of their signature films.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins, who (a) frankly admits he hasn't seen the film in
years, and (b) appears to have just taken up the Sominex habit, delivers the
yak-track. Most of Deakins's remarks relate to the technical aspects of the
production—fascinating as far as they go, but lacking somewhat in
revelatory insight. You'll learn, however, a good deal of what it's like to toil
alongside Joel and Ethan Coen from the man who has photographed eight of their
movies, including the upcoming (at this writing) Intolerable Cruelty and
The Ladykillers. In case you don't get
enough of the Deakins magic here, the disc also includes a lengthy text article
clipped from American Cinematographer that will surely satisfy your
hunger for all things Deakins.
Minnesota Nice is the most notable new extra, a half-hour documentary
featurette incorporating both fresh and familiar interview clips from both Coens
and several of the film's stars, including Frances McDormand (it's tough to skip
out on the promo tour when you're married to the director), William H. Macy,
Steve Buscemi, and Peter Stormare. Given the notoriety of the picture in
question, I was a trifle surprised that this retrospective, though certainly
welcome, wasn't considerably meatier. Many of the anecdotes from Joel and Ethan
Coen are comments that have cropped up before in other venues (including the
next extra I'll mention). Still, given what we were offered on the previous
Fargo discs—a whole lotta nothin'—Minnesota Nice makes
a pleasant look back at the making of the movie.
Supplementing the EPK is a 20-minute interview segment from PBS' The
Charlie Rose Show that dates back to the time of Fargo's theatrical
release. Both Coens and Frances McDormand (see the comment in the preceding
paragraph) kick around the conversational Hacky Sack with old Charlie. Once you
get past the fact that Rose is an insufferable windbag, he does manage to ask
some cogent questions (as opposed to, say, Larry King, who is also an
insufferable windbag but routinely asks obvious, poorly-researched questions),
and the discussion is lively and informative.
For those that enjoy such folderol—and I'm one—there's a nifty
trivia track that serves Pop-Up Video-style tidbits about the film and its
sub-Arctic environs. Unlike many such features that throw up a balloon every few
minutes, this track maintains a steady barrage of clever morsels from start to
finish. I laughed, I cried, I scrolled back to catch the spots that flew past
before I finished reading.
Behind-the-scenes photo buffs will delight in the fairly extensive selection
of production stills from the Fargo shoot. The supplements wrap up with
the film's theatrical trailer and commercial spot, plus a bonus trailer for the
Blue Velvet: Special Edition DVD. There's also an alternate menu tossed
in as an Easter egg—though it seems to me to defeat the purpose to
announce a "hidden" menu on the back of the keep case.
"Hidden" in plain sight, I suppose.
The Rebuttal Witnesses
You have no call to get snippy with me. I'm just trying to do my job
here.
As the foregoing reveals, I enjoy Fargo quite a lot. Which strikes me
as rather odd, given that it's one of only three Coen Brothers films I do like.
(The others, in case you're curious, are Blood Simple, which is sort of a dry run for
the later and better realized Fargo, and The Man Who Wasn't There). I find their
out-and-out comedies (e.g., Raising
Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy)
too obtuse for my taste. The Big
Lebowski and Barton Fink are, in my
humble (and apparently lonesome, at least around the Verdict) position,
unwatchable. Miller's Crossing bored
me to tears. So what is it about Fargo that lands it pretty squarely in
the center of my list of all-time favorite films?
I think, in part, it's because Fargo is the only Coen Brothers film
whose characters I understand. I've never been to Minnesota or North
Dakota—I once spent a year in Maine, which bears some
similarities—but every one of the quirky folks in this movie resonates
with me as a genuine human being. They are like people I know, and are motivated
by things that motivate people with whom I'm familiar. Now, I don't—to the
best of my knowledge—know any kidnappers or serial murderers, but I
understand who these particular individuals are and why they do what they do.
They're my neighbors, and probably yours.
Then there's the cast. Marge Gunderson may be one of the two or three best
roles ever written for an actress, and Frances McDormand never steps wrong in
playing what could have been a stereotypical ethnic caricature. William H. Macy
deserved an Oscar statuette (he was nominated) for his faultless portrayal of
the unraveling Jerry Lundegaard. Steve Buscemi is excellent here also.
But I truly believe it comes down to the fact that, for once in their
career, Joel and Ethan Coen let the film be more about what it's about, and less
about how it's about it. For two guys accustomed to swamping their substance
with overbearing and pretentious style, they finally decided just to create some
people, set them in motion amid a bizarre set of circumstances, and let the
story tell itself. It's a beautiful thing. I hope they try the same approach
again someday.
Closing Statement
But you're sayin'…What're you sayin'?
Fargo is not the greatest film ever made, but it's close. Without
question, it is a film unlike any other before or since, with a nonpareil sense
of place, an amazing blend of laughter and shock value, and a set of
unforgettable characters that will inhabit the minds of film fanatics as long as
there are films to be fanatical about. Every serious and casual cineaste should
own this sterling presentation, at least until such time as the Coen Brothers
themselves see fit to sit down with a microphone and record their own commentary
track for a future "Ultimate Edition."
And oh yeah…except for the opening scene, Fargo doesn't take
place in Fargo. Wouldn't you know?
The Verdict
I'm not gonna debate you, Jerry. I'm not going to sit here and
debate.
Yah, it's good, yah. This new Fargo DVD and everybody associated with
it can take off for pancakes house, that's for darn tootin'. Or I'll fix you
some eggs. Just don't get any Arby's on me. You betcha, yah.
We're adjourned.
Similar Decisions
• Ride With The Devil
• Deterrence
• A River Runs Through It
• Yes
Give us your feedback!
Did we give Fargo: Special Edition a fair trial? yes / no
What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.
Share your thoughts on this review in the Jury Room
Scales of Justice
Video: 90
Audio: 89
Extras: 85
Acting: 100
Story: 100
Judgment: 99
Perp Profile
Studio: MGM
Video Formats:
• 1.85:1 Anamorphic
• Full Frame
Audio Formats:
• Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (English)
• Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (French)
Subtitles:
• French
• Spanish
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Release Year: 1996
MPAA Rating: Rated R
Genres:
• Crime
• Drama
Distinguishing Marks
• Audio Commentary Featuring Director of Photography Roger A. Deakins
• Documentary Featurette: Minnesota Nice
• The Charlie Rose Show Interview with the Coen Brothers and Frances McDormand
• Trivia Track
• American Cinematographer Article
• Stills Gallery
• Theatrical Trailer
• TV Spot
• Bonus Trailer
• Alternate Menu
Accomplices
• IMDb
• The Complete Fargo Screenplay
• Go Investigate Some Malfeasance Up Brainerd!
• Pancakes House
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