It has not yet been mentioned in this thread, but Fargo has one of my all-time favorite murder scenes, the scene where Buscemi gets axed by Stormare. There is a visual reference to it in Burn After Reading, so I take it the Coen brothers liked it a lot as well.
There is some excellent photography in this (I think the photography is better than the music, personally). They really make a good use out of the snowy landscape to create a feeling of solitude. For the record, here is the ice-scraping scene:
There’s not a doubt in my mind this is true. We know Jerry is seriously in trouble with GMAC; that is clearly his primary reason for running a scam. The parking lot and kidnapping are merely Plans A and B.
As to the amount, $320,000 is a lot of money, but I agree it’s not hookers and blow. He lives in a very big house on a big lot, has a mundane job, and his wife doesn’t work. If you’re embezzling money it doesn’t take long for it to add up; $10,000 extra on your mortgage you can’t afford, a few family vacations every year, jewellery for your wqife on every occasion, a few bad stock gambles… do that every year for 10 years (Scotty is about 12-13, so he may have been at this a long time) and it adds up, especially if he’s been pyramiding with GMAC as you suggest. I don’t think there’s any dark secret here. A LOT of car dealership people pulled this scam back then.
Whether he owes GMAC $320,000, $750,000, or $1 million we don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s closer to the $320,000 figure. He wouldn’t have tried to cancel the kidnapping in favour of the parking lot scam if he needed a million. I suspect he wants to rob his father in law in the deal because he hates him.
As to the accusation that the movie makes Minnesotans look stupid, which ones, I must ask? Marge Gunderson is most assuredly not stupid; she’s as sharp as a tack. Jerry’s stupid, but that’s sort of the point of the movie. (And it’s worth noting Jerry is from the big city, Marge is a small town girl.) Wade’s not stupid, although he’s a jerk; his man Stan Grossman isn’t stupid. Showalter and Grimsrud are stupid, but they aren’t from Minnesota.
It didn’t strike me that way at all. Possibly because my son is Asian, is named Mike, and talks very much like that. He’s Korean, not Japanese, but Asians who talk Minnesotan are not exactly rare in the Twin Cities.
FWIW, I thought the purpose of the scene was [ul][li]to present someone who looks different, but talks like all the other characters [*]to present Marge with a tragedy that she handles, or reacts to, differently than she does her police work. [/ul]Murders, kidnapping, criminals (“He’s fleein’ the interview! He’s fleein’ the interview!”) are things she has the skills to deal with. Someone she knew, who obsesses on her and lies about his life to try to get to her - that is a real tragedy. The scene contrasts with that brilliant speech she gives at the end, (“There’s more to life than a little bit of money…And it’s a beautiful day.”) [/li]
Marge’s life is split in two. She has a good life with the man she loves and supports, and who loves and supports her (“Ya gotta eat a breakfast.”) And she is about to have a child with him. And the child will grow up in the same culture as Marge, and she will understand that life. The criminals she deals with are outside that. It is only when she is transitioning back to her “real” life, or when Mike tries to trespass her boundaries and get into her “real” life with her husband, that she doesn’t have the skills and mindset to know immediately how to react.
My favorite ‘no dialogue’ scene is the one where the dude is burying the case of money in the snow drift next to a fence post on the side of the road. The camera pans down the road in one direction and you see and endless row of fence posts. Then the camera pans the other direction and you see an endless row of fence posts. Then you see the light bulb go off dimly in his head and he sticks the ice scraper into the snow drift to mark the spot.
My first thought was, well, it’s going to snow again soon and cover up the ice scraper. Then I realize that the sort of people that get involved in such crimes are those that don’t plan very far ahead and don’t foresee all of the things that could go wrong.
They managed to pack a whole lot of information into that ten-second scene.
I took that as a (two) generation gap thing. Wade’s no-nonsense. They probably had to eat dirt when he was Scotty’s age (and they were glad to have it!). Any exuberance from a child probably means he’s up to no good.
And Wade either suspected Jerry was a loser when he married Wade’s daughter or he found out when Jerry went to work for him. There was an exchange about this deal Jerry brought to Wade, something like:
Jerry: This deal could work out real good for me and Jean and Scotty.
Wade: Jean and Scotty never have to worry.
IOW he doesn’t care a bit about Jerry.
I thought it “regionalized” the film or something. They could have had a black actor using the same accent and it would have said to me, “We’re in Minnesota, remember? We’re not just saying Scandinavians talk like that—everybody up here talks like that.”
*I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.
*
Jerry had already embezzled the GMAC money. Maybe he used it on a different harebrained scheme, but more likely the $1M ransom was partly for paying it back.
The film is not actually “Based on a true story”. The Coens later admitted that they added that disclaimer so the viewer would be more willing to suspend disbelief in the story.
I suspect that if they hadn’t prefaced the film with that, people would have shot many holes in the plot as “too unbelievable.” Jerry may be stupid but:
GMAC is going to recall a large sum of money for a bunch of loans on fantasy vehicles. That will HAVE to bring a shitstorm down on Jerry. He has no choice but to run. Yet he wants to finance a lot of some sort. How will he collect on that if he isn’t around? Assuming Jerry pulled this off somehow, how would he explain the sudden improvement in his lifestyle?
Jerry is totally mundane, totally boring and totally unexciting. Jerry’s doodling on his notepad confirms how UNexciting he is. Jerry would not even think about leaving and starting a new life, he isnt an interesting enough person to want to do such a thing.
Besides, Jerry’s goal is not just to get some money- Jerry also does not want Jean or her father to find out that he was once in debt. If he only owned a few hundred thousand, he could get some loans, get a dozen credit cards, max out, pay off his illegal debts, and then declare bankruptcy to get out of debt - except that Jean would find out. IF he wanted to fake his death and leave, he could embezzle other monies and not have to bother with this scheme.
(Maybe you are confusing this movie with: “No Where to Run” … where David Jansen feels trapped and wants to escape and fakes his death ??? Nowhere to Run (TV Movie 1978) - IMDb )
Anyone notice the “boing boing boing” sound of keys in the ignition when the car door is open? I think it happens 5 or 6 different times.
Maybe to show how silent everything is covered in a blanket of snow.
One of Jerry’s key characteristics is that he keeps marching ahead regardless of the consequences. He doesn’t know the first rule of holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging. This is probably how he got into so much debt - he tried some little scam, then got into a bigger scam to cover the first one, and eventually was in so much trouble that he tried a huge scam - the kidnapping. He’s the old lady who swallowed the fly. The movie picks up on his story when he tries to swallow the horse.
Another scene that made me smile in a private joke kind of way is the scene where Carl and Grimsrud are driving into Minneapolis and he points out the tallest building. “IDS Building, the big glass one, tallest skyscraper in the Midwest after the Sears - uh, Chicago…John Hancock building whatever…” When I visited the Twin Cities to visit an uncle in the 1980s, my uncle proudly pointed out the very same fact (that it’s the tallest building outside Chicago, depending on your definition of the “Midwest”.)
Ever read Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis? Set in a small town in Minnesota in the first decade of the 20th century, reportedly just like the one where he grew up in the late 19th century. He did not think highly of Minnesotans, at least not the ones in small towns.
Although I have to say I went to university in Texas with a guy from a small town in Minnesota, and he was a really nice person.
Maybe it’s because I’m from the clan. Maybe it’s because the worst ones split off to join the Missouri Synod. Or maybe it’s because I’ve known instinctively who to not spill my guts to, even if she’s my best friend.
If they were perfect Ibsen, Strindberg, and Bergman wouldn’t have had careers.
