Friday, February 10, 2012

My Favorite Scene: Fargo

Fargo, that very perfect, very fictional masterpiece by Joel and Ethan Coen, is filled with moments that don’t matter. At first glance, half of the content that the Coen’s elect to feature in their 98-minute film have nothing to do with anything. Take, for instance, the remarkably awkward extended lunch between Mike Yanagita and Marge Gunderson. As the two high school pals chat it up in a dumpy restaurant, it becomes very clear very quickly that Mike is obsessed with Marge to the point of delusion. Their lunch ends, and although the scene is referenced one other time, it did nothing whatsoever to propel the film’s plot.

Neither does Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud having sex with prostitutes in a dive motel (followed, naturally, by a post-coital viewing of The Tonight Show). What these scenes do, however, is set an unprecedented level of character development that many filmmakers deem too insignificant to highlight.  When you go back and rewatch Fargo (and really, there’s never a bad time to go back and rewatch Fargo), keep track of how long Frances McDormand is in the film. I’d venture a guess that McDormand’s total amount of screentime ranks lowest among all of the actresses who have won the Best Actress Oscar.  I mention this because, despite the fact that she really isn’t in the movie much, we know everything there is to know about Marge Gunderson.

That was an incredibly long-winded, ass-backwards way of backing into the scene I want to highlight, but I feel it is important to make mention of an aspect that’s often overlooked when discussing the film. Fargo is a great movie, and its many, brief interludes of character development are what make it that.

Which is probably why, in a film filled with endless amounts of pathetic desperation, I’m drawn to the moment that defines idiotic hopelessness in a way I’ve never seen a movie encapsulate.

The deal was simple: Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare) were hired by Jerry (William H. Macy), to kidnap Jerry’s wife, Jean, so that Jerry could collect the ransom money from his father-in-law, Wade, a rich asshole who detests Jerry.  When it’s finally time to swap Jean for the dough, Wade shows up at the meet instead of Jerry, which infuriates Carl to no end. Within minutes, half of Carl’s face has been blown off and Wade lays dead on the top floor of a parking garage.
The next time we see Carl, he’s pulled over on the side of the road, changing the “dressing” on his wound. And then he sees it. He opens the suitcase and sees that the $80,000 he was supposed to collect is $920,000 more than he anticipated. He takes out $80,000, sets it aside, and gets out of his car, case in hand.

He walks over to a fence line a few yards away, gets down on his knees and begins digging a hole in the snow with a tiny, red ice scrapper. Once the hole is dug, he places the loot in the ground and begins covering it with snow. Once buried, we’re privy to film’s best, most comical moment. Buscemi, in a fantastic bit of emotional expression, looks down the fence line: snow and fence. He turns his head and looks the other way: snow and fence. It’s all the same, for miles on end. He slams the red scrapper into the snow to mark where the loot is, stands up, studies his work, and walks away.
As Carl works his way back to his car, the film ingeniously cuts to a wide shot framing the red scrapper on the right, the car on the left, Buscemi in the middle, and a whole lot of nothing everywhere else. And all’s we can do is sit back and laugh. It isn’t currently snowing, but seriously, how long will it take for wind and/or snow to hide that ice scrapper? And when you consider how needlessly hostile Carl is to the psychotic Gaear minutes later, we can’t help but wonder exactly how Carl made it this far in his life.

This scene, as you may know, was made famous after the media went batshit crazy when Takako Konishi was found dead in the snow near Fargo in 2001. Media outlets reported that Konishi apparently made the trip from Japan to find the buried money depicted in the film, which was ultimately wildly inaccurate. At any rate, Fargo is (by far) one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, for scenes precisely like this one.

It’s best to summarize the scene in Carl’s own words. Upon discovering how much money he’s really in possession of, Carl, through his half-mangled face, quietly blurts, “Jeshsush Sshrist.  Jeshsush fucskem Sshrist.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

16 comments:

  1. Great post, I love this movie and this scene. This movie has made me want to visit Fargo. I've been doing a movie education thing for grad students in my department who are lacking and this movie is near the top of the list.

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  2. Great post! I love Fargo, it's one of those beautiful looking movies without even trying - all the snow and cold it creates perfect atmosphere. Have you seen A Serious Man? I was thinking about checking this one out, but the opinions I've heard are so different it's either a failure or a masterpiece.

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  3. I remember reading somewhere that Frances McDormand said this was the only scene in Fargo the two Coens argued about. One wanted him to look left, the other right, so Buscemi did both. Of all the things to disagree on!

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  4. I love FARGO. This scene, and the one later when he comes into the cabin and says "You should see the other guy" - which is the definitive use of that quote, I think - are two of many I laugh out loud at. Buscemi's character here is one of my favourite screen characters. Nice post!

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  5. Yah, Marge, you got to have some breakfast.

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  6. What a great section to have! Fargo i definitely a film filled with plenty of amazing scenes and I loved the fact that you have them on a deeper level. The Coen brothers are probably one of the most amazing masters of creating the unspoken tention between the characters.
    Well written and well said!

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  7. @Sati. A Serious Man was a movie that seriously grew on me weeks after watching it. It's a perfect combo of Coen's serious and Coen's funny. Very very odd film.

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  8. @Colin Haha that's awesome! Seriously, of all the things to bicker about... That story speaks to the Coens' personalities brilliantly.

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  9. @Andy Buckle I knew you loved this flick, and I'm glad to hear you like this scene as much as I do! I wouldn't be surprised if that was the first use of that phrase. Fuckin' Coen's man, those guys just have it.

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  10. @amelie Thanks so much for your kind words! Glad to hear you like the movie. Thanks for stopping by!

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  11. I love fargo and this scene is such an odd one. It's pretty pivotal as well, I'd have taken the money and fixed my face!

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    1. Ha, I know right?! Or at least paid the mad blondie off. Why mess with him like that, even after you've gotten all of that money? Ahhh, one of the great comical mysteries of the movie.

      Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting!

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  12. An enjoyable post of a great scene, thank you. Not sure if I agree with you, though, that the scene with Mike Yanagita has "nothing whatsoever" to do with the plot. Up to this point Marge is a pretty trustworthy person, a good person, which is why she takes time during her investigation to meet Mike. She's truly sad for him when he tells her he's a widower. Then, when on the phone later, she finds out Mike's entire story is a falsehood. It makes her start to think that perhaps she shouldn't trust everything everyone says (cue scenes of her thinking and eating a burger!). Freshly cynical, she heads back to investigate Jerry Lundegaard, which propels the plot in another direction. If it were not for Mike's lies, Marge might have headed back without pressuring Lundegaard into acting irresponsibly. It's a great moment of screenwriting, because a character shift causes plot shift, not the other way around.

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    1. I've seen Fargo many, many times, and I have never viewed the Mike Yanagita as what you just described. But goddamn if what you said doesn't make perfect sense. Thank you so much for lending that insight, it just made me appreciate the film much more. Fantastic stuff.

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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