Fargo (film)

Fargo is a 1996 American film written, produced, directed, and edited by the Coen brothers. The film stars Frances McDormand as a Minnesota police chief investigating homicides after a debt-ridden car salesman (William H. Macy) hires two criminals (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife and in this way to obtain the ransom money from his father-in-law (Harve Presnell). The film falls within the genres suspense, police, black comedy and neo-noir .

It premiered at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where Joel Coen won Best Director and the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or. Fargo was both a critical and commercial success, receiving seven nominations for the Oscars, including best film, and won two statuettes, the one for best actress for McDormand and the one for best original screenplay for the Coens. He also won other awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Director.

In 1998, the American Film Institute named it one of the 100 greatest American films of all time. In 2006, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was entered for preservation in the National Film Registry, making it one of only six films to do so in its first year of release. eligibility. To great acclaim from critics, a television series of the same name was released in 2014, inspired by the film and set in the same fictional universe.

Plot

In 1987 Minneapolis, car salesman Jerry Lundegaard is desperate for money; he is waiting for a loan from the bank fraudulently secured by non-existent vehicle sales. The dealership mechanic, Shep Proudfoot, an ex-con, puts him in touch with an old fellow criminal, Gaear Grimsrud. Jerry travels to Fargo, North Dakota, where he hires Gaear and Carl Showalter to kidnap his wife, Jean, and get the ransom money from his wealthy father-in-law and boss, Wade Gustafson. He gives them a new car that he took from the dealership and promises to split the $80,000 ransom between them.

Meanwhile, Jerry proposes that Wade lend him the money to build a car park; After discussing it with his advisor, Wade agrees to invest in the business, and Jerry unsuccessfully tries to contact the kidnappers to cancel the initial plan. Later, Jerry discovers that Wade plans to run the parking lot business for him, leaving him only a commission. Carl and Gaear kidnap Jean from her Minneapolis home as arranged. As she is being transported to her hideout in a remote cabin, they are stopped by a police officer outside Brainerd, Minnesota for driving without the proper temporary license plate. After Carl unsuccessfully tries to bribe the policeman, Gaear shoots him dead. As Carl tries to move the body, two more people witness the scene as they drive by and Gaear chases and kills them as well.

The next morning, Brainerd Police Chief Marge Gunderson, seven months pregnant, begins investigating the homicides. Records of the murdered cop's last traffic stop, along with a phone call to Proudfoot from an area truck stop by two suspicious men, lead Marge to Jerry's dealership, where she questions Jerry and Proudfoot. Meanwhile in Minneapolis, Marge meets up with Mike Yanagita, a former classmate who takes her out to dinner and tells her that his wife—another classmate—has passed away, and despite telling him that she is married and of her state of advanced gestation, he tries to seduce her.

Jerry informs Wade and his accountant, Stan Grossman, that the kidnappers have asked for a million dollars and will only deal through him. Meanwhile, Carl, due to the three unplanned deaths, asks Jerry for all the ransom money—a sum he still believes is $80,000; the bank gives Jerry twenty-four hours to repay the loan or face legal consequences. When it's time for the ransom, Wade decides to deal with the kidnappers himself. At the agreed place to make the exchange, he refuses to give the briefcase with the money to Carl without first releasing his daughter. Carl shoots Wade dead, takes the briefcase and walks away from him, but not before taking a bullet to the jaw from Wade, who was carrying a concealed pistol. When he opens the briefcase, he discovers that there is much more money than the $80,000 he expected. He takes the earlier amount to share with Gaear and hides the rest of it, planning to come back for it later. At the hideout, he discovers that Gaear has killed Jean. After a heated argument, Gaear kills Carl as well.

During a phone conversation with a mutual friend, Marge discovers that Yanagita's deceased wife was never his wife and isn't dead either, and that Yanagita is responsible for a series of anonymous stalkers. Reflecting on Yanagita's convincing lies, Marge returns to the dealership and interrogates Jerry again, who refuses to cooperate. When she demands to speak to Wade, Jerry panics and leaves the dealership. After returning to Brainerd, Marge drives to Moose Lake Township, where she recognizes the dealership's car according to the dead cop's description. She walks over to find Gaear stuffing Carl's remaining body parts into a wood chipper. He tries to escape, but Marge shoots him in the leg and arrests him. Meanwhile, the North Dakota police find Jerry at a motel on the outskirts of Bismarck, where they arrest him after he tries to escape through a window.

That night, Marge and her husband Norm talk about their painting of a duck, which has been selected as the design for a United States stamp. Marge is very proud of her husband's achievement and they both anticipate the birth of her child with two months to go.

Cast

Production

Background

After the release of The Big Leap (1994), the Coen brothers had intended to direct The Big Lebowski, but because Jeff Bridges was not available to filming at the time, they put that production aside and resumed writing Fargo, a story they had previously begun developing. After three months of writing, the Coens finished the script. Before filming The Great Leap, the Coens had discussed their upcoming projects with producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films, to whom they sent the script for Fargo in October 1994 and they, after reading it, agreed to bring it to the big screen. While Warner Bros. refused to participate as producer, PolyGram took its place along with Working Title, and Gramercy Pictures joined as North American distributor. Unlike the great production of The Great Leap, this time the directors had with a low budget and a smaller film crew. The budget available for production was $6.5 million—the lowest used by the Coens since Raising Arizona (1987).

Casting

William H. Macy had originally been considered for a smaller role as sheriff, but finding himself so identified with the character of Jerry, he auditioned once more for this role and even flew to New York to attend a new casting for fear they would give the job to another actor. Ethan Coen later commented: "I don't think any of us [the Coen brothers] realized the tough acting challenge that we were giving Bill Macy with this role. Jerry is a fascinating mix of the utterly naive and the utterly deceitful. However, he is also innocent; although he set these horrible events in motion, he is surprised when they go wrong." Richard Jenkins was another of the actors who had attended the casting for the role of Jerry. Joel Coen stated in 2021 that in a At first they had imagined Jerry differently, "a little overweight and uncomfortable with his body, a little scruffy." It was also revealed that Macy had auditioned to play accountant Stan Grossman, who works for Jerry's father-in-law.

The roles of Marge Gunderson, Carl Showalter, and Gaear Grimsrud were written to be played by their respective actors. Although Steve Buscemi had already worked with the directors making cameo appearances, the Coens wanted to have the actor play one more role." substantial.” Peter Stormare, on the other hand, had never worked with them before—although he had been offered a role in Miller's Crossing—and was selected in part because they wanted an actor an actual Scandinavian to accompany the rest of the characters of that ancestry. Frances McDormand was initially excited by the idea of working with the Coens, but was surprised to learn the character of Marge had been written for her. McDormand felt that what set Marge apart from other female characters written by the Coens is that the latter fell short. She learned to use a gun and spent days talking to a pregnant police officer like Marge in the film and, along with John Carroll Lynch, she developed a backstory for her character. After watching the film, McDormand noted that much of Marge was inspired by her sister Dorothy, who is a minister and chaplain for the Disciples of Christ.

Filming

The wood grinder used in the film is at the Fargo Moorhead Visitor Center in Fargo (North Dakota).

In this film, the directors wanted to change the style radically from their previous works. Together with cinematographer Roger Deakins, the Coens decided that the film would include several deep exterior shots and shots where the camera lingers static. "We didn't want to do dramatic camera movements like we'd done before," Joel Coen commented on it. "Because we didn't want to emphasize the action, make it look too dramatic or irrational." In terms of atmosphere and visual style, the filmmakers arranged the schedule to film only cloudy days and where the horizon line could not be made out. Filming began on January 23, 1995, three months after the script writing was completed. The script was very detailed and every "yah" or incomplete sentence was written out, Stormare recalled of her experience:

One of my first lines was “Where is the pancakes house?» I thought, it has to be "Where is the pancake house?» And then, when we were doing the scene, I said, "Where is the pancake house?» And then Ethan: Peter? What are you saying there? Where is the pancake house? «No, he says: Where is the pancakes house?» Oh, I thought it was a typing mistake. "No, it is not a typo error, so is the script."

Filming took place primarily in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area and in and around Pembina County, North Dakota. The winter of that year turned out to be one of the warmest in film history. Minnesota, weather conditions made it difficult for the production to make artificial snow. On March 9, the crew moved further north, specifically to Grand Forks County in North Dakota, where there was enough snow to to finish the exterior scenes before returning to Minneapolis on March 20 to finish filming. Other scenes requiring snow were filmed in northern Minnesota, away from Fargo and Brainerd.

Almost all of the scenes were shot on location, except for a couple of small sets, and each of the locations was used to set the respective scenes where the events supposedly occurred. Jerry's initial meeting with Carl and Gaear was at a pool hall and bar called The King of Clubs in northeast Minneapolis. It was to be demolished in 2003, along with most other buildings. off that avenue, and replaced by low-income housing. Gustafson's car dealership was actually a Wally McCarthy Oldsmobile in Richfield, a southern suburb of Minneapolis; the site is now occupied by Best Buy's national corporate headquarters. A twenty-four-foot-tall statue of Brainerd's most famous inhabitant, Paul Bunyan, was built for the film and placed on a street west of Bathgate, North Dakota. The Blue Ox Motel was the Stockmen's Truck Stop, located in South St. Paul and still in operation. Ember's, the restaurant where Jerry discusses the ransom delivery with Gustafson, was located in St. Louis Park, the Coens' hometown; the building now houses an outpatient medical treatment center.

The editing of the film took around twelve weeks and was done by the Coens under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes with the help of Tricia Cooke, Ethan's wife. Although most of the plot takes place in Brainerd and Minneapolis, the Coens preferred to name the film after the city of Fargo, where the story begins, a decision they claimed was made because they liked the "sound of the word" better as a title.

Dialect

The directors, originally from Minnesota, wrote the script taking into account the accents and expressions they used to hear during their youth in that part of the country. In addition, they took some expressions from a book called How To Talk Minnesotan, written by Howard Mohr, and gave some copies to the actors during filming. Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, and Harve Presnell were instructed by a trainer to adapt their accents to the specific geographical area where the story takes place, whose Scandinavian influence is evident in its inhabitants. According to the trainer, Liz Himelstein, "the accent was one more character". She used voice recordings of people from North Dakota and had the cast listen to the accent during filming. "We were staying at a hotel next to a mall and we would go out for coffee or lunch and listen to the sounds around us," she Himelstein said. "We couldn't believe people actually talk like that." Another dialogue coach, Larissa Kokernot—who also played one of the prostitutes—helped McDormand understand typical Minnesotan behavior—known as Minnesota nice—and practice nodding your head in approval. The purpose of the accents was to give the characters a local and ordinary character, rather than to be totally realistic. The unique dialect of Fargo has become quite popular after the release of the film and it is common for several inhabitants of that area are asked to say "Yah, you betcha" or other lines from the film.

Soundtrack

The music for Fargo was composed by Carter Burwell, a frequent collaborator on the Coen brothers' films. The main theme is based on an old Scandinavian folk song called "Den Bortkomne Sauen". Burwell also included other typical Scandinavian music elements such as hardingfele and some 1960s pop songs.

The film includes other songs such as "Big City" by Merle Haggard, which can be heard in the bar in Fargo, North Dakota where Jerry Lundegaard meets the kidnappers, Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud. You can also see "Let's Find Each Other Tonight", a live performance by José Feliciano, which is witnessed by Carl and his escort. Neither of these two songs was included on the original soundtrack album.

The soundtrack album was released in 1996 by TVT Records and also included compositions by Barton Fink (1991), a film also directed and produced by the Coens.

Fact vs. Fiction

There are several versions regarding the veracity of the events described in Fargo. The film begins with the following text:

This is a true story. The events portrayed in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. For respect to the deceased, the rest has been counted exactly as it happened.

However, during the end credits a statement can be read stating that "All characters are fictitious." In response to this contradiction, the Coens have given different explanations over the years. In an interview for the French magazine Positif in 1996, Joel Coen commented: "In its general structure, the film is based on a true event, but the details of the story and the characters are fictitious" and he added that the opening text was added in order to "prepare the public not to see the film as a normal thriller". The same year in an interview for another outlet, Ethan Coen mentioned that the story was mostly true., but that it had not happened in Minnesota. After the film's release, a Minnesota newspaper investigated whether there were indeed such events in the state, but could find nothing.

In a documentary about Fargo, titled Minnesota Nice (2003), William H. Macy recounted that after a couple of weeks of filming the actor approached the directors interested in knowing about the facts:

I said, "Tell me a little bit about the real case," and they answered, "No, it's just... an invention." I insisted: “No, I mean, the case on which history is based,” they said: “No, it is not based on any story. We invented it.” I said to them, "He says it at the beginning of the script, 'based on a real story' and insisted, "Yes, but it is not." “They can’t do that,” I said, “Why not?” they asked, “Because they’re saying something that isn’t real,” and they said, “Every film is not real. We invented everything. It's a movie. It is not real."

Peter Stormare added:

It's a true story, but it might not have happened. Somehow they took their years of upbringing in Minnesota and stories they heard later when they moved to New York and put it all together as if it were just an event, like an autobiography. [...] There's a Marge somewhere out there.

Twenty years after its release, Ethan said, “We wanted to make a film within the true story genre. You don't have to have a true story to make a movie about a true story." However, in the same interview Joel stated that although the story is fictional there were two events that did happen. One such true story, according to Joel, was the story of a man who conned General Motors by faking serial numbers—as Macy's character does—in the 1960s and 1970s, but the events did not include kidnappings or murders.. The other true event mentioned by Joel was a murder case in Connecticut in which a man killed his wife and put her in a wood chipper. The relationship between the Connecticut case and the film was investigated in the documentary series The Shocking Truth (2017).

Premiere

Projection Fargo at the Radisson Hotel in Fargo.

Fargo was screened at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the highest award, the Palme d'Or, and Joel Coen won the Best Director award. Later, the film would reach the Busan, Karlovy Vary and Naples festivals. In 2006, on the tenth anniversary of its release, the Fargo Film Festival screened the film on a giant screen placed on one side of the Radisson Hotel, the tallest building in Fargo.

Reception

Ticket office

Fargo was released in select theaters in the United States on March 8, 1996. It grossed $24,567,751 in the United States and an estimated $36 million worldwide. Due to its low cost of production—approximately $6,500,000—the film turned out to be a huge box office success.

Criticism

Fargo was widely praised. Film critic Roger Ebert named Fargo his fourth favorite film of the 1990s (he also named it his favorite of 1996). In his original review, Ebert called it "one of the best movies" he ever saw, explaining that movies like Fargo were the reason why he loved movies. Many major critics called it " Best of the Year,” including Joel Siegel, Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum, Gene Siskel and Leonard Maltin. Fargo is one of the few films to receive a unanimous "A" rating from Entertainment Weekly.

The film was placed at number 84 on the "100 Years...100 Movies" list made by the American Film Institute, and was later removed from the 2007 version and placed at number 93 on the list. of "One Hundred Years... One Hundred Laughter". Additionally, Marge Gunderson was placed 33rd in "100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains". Fargo is among the list of movies included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. In 2006, this film was selected by the National Film Registry of the United States as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" - the last film to enter this list - and is one of the main examples of neo-noir and comedy genre. Director Martin Scorsese considered it his ninth favorite film of the 1990s. In 2022, Variety magazine included it at number forty on its list of the hundred best movies of all time.

Awards

Television adaptations

In 1997, a pilot episode for a television series based on the film was filmed. Set in Brainerd, the episode starred Edie Falco as Marge Gunderson, and was directed by Kathy Bates. The episode was broadcast in 2003 during the show Brilliant But Cancelled—a show about short-running series or pilots—on the Trio network. The Coens had agreed to take on consulting positions.

In 2012, the FX channel announced the project of a new television series with the Coen brothers as executive producers. The first season premiered in 2014 and received critical and public acclaim; in the episode "Eating the Blame" the series reintroduced the theme of buried ransom money, a subplot that lasted for three episodes. Four seasons have been broadcast so far, although within the same fictional universe, each one of them with a different plot, cast and decade of setting.