More than a decade before the Coen brothers won the Academy Award for Best Picture for No Country for Old Men, they were nominated for Fargo. They didn’t take home Best Picture that night, but they did walk away with Best Original Screenplay (and their star Frances McDormand walked away with Best Actress) for their hugely influential, darkly comic crime thriller.
The Coens lost Best Picture to The English Patient, but Fargo arguably holds up better today. The bizarre world, unique crime story, and colorful cast of characters in Fargo make it a timeless gem.
Frances McDormand More Than Earned Her Oscar For Playing Marge Gunderson
Frances McDormand was more than deserving of her Best Actress win for playing Marge Gunderson in Fargo. On top of nailing the “Minnesota nice” accent, which is tricky enough, McDormand perfected the balance of Marge’s personality: friendly but fierce.
In McDormand’s hands, Marge feels like a real person, not a noir archetype. She’s a cop investigating a murder, but she’s just as concerned about what she’s going to eat for lunch.
Roger Deakins’ Minimalist Cinematography Is Filled With Iconic Shots
Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins masterfully used bleak imagery to complement the bleak plot twists in Fargo. Deakins gave the movie a visual style of its own, but he also included a handful of unforgettable shots that rank among the most iconic frames in movie history.
A prime example of the iconic images in Fargo is the bird’s-eye-view wide shot of a snow-covered parking lot with a single set of tire tracks trailing through it.
William H. Macy Nails His Flustered Portrayal Of An Everyman In Over His Head
The plot of Fargo is kicked off when William H. Macy’s car salesman character Jerry Lundegaard tries to bilk his father-in-law out of a ransom by paying two guys to abduct his wife. Jerry can’t even pull off a registration tag scam at the dealership, but thinks he can pull off an $80,000 kidnapping.
Macy beautifully captures a mild-mannered everyman finding himself in way over his head. He gets more and more panicked and stressed-out as the movie goes on and the walls start closing in.
The Plot Is Wildly Unpredictable
It’s no wonder that the Coens won Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars for their work on Fargo, because the movie’s plot is wildly unpredictable. After so many decades of crime fiction, it’s nearly impossible to come up with an original crime story – but Fargo has a crime story like no other.
The Coens are constantly surprising the audience as Jerry’s plan goes horribly wrong in ways the audience can’t anticipate (as well as the obvious ways they could anticipate).
Steve Buscemi And Peter Stormare Share Hysterical Chemistry As Bickering Criminals
Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare give a pair of scene-stealing supporting turns in Fargo as Carl and Gaear, the goons that Jerry hires to break into his house, kidnap his wife, and hold onto her until he can secure a cash ransom from his wealthy father-in-law.
Carl and Gaear’s banter about where they’ll eat breakfast and how they’ll split the money makes for some of the funniest moments in the movie. Thanks to Buscemi’s hysterical chemistry with Stormare, the duo’s bickering lands.
It’s The Epitome Of The Coens’ Idiosyncratic Style Of Dark Humor
Since their debut feature Blood Simple, the Coens’ movies have been defined by their uniquely dark sense of humor. The Coens’ darkly comic sensibility can be seen when Abby kicks Marty in the crotch in Blood Simple, when Charlie Meadows’ real identity is revealed in Barton Fink, and when a tornado hits town at the end of A Serious Man.
Fargo is arguably the epitome of the Coen brothers’ idiosyncratic pitch-black comedic style. The plot is pure grisly noir, but the Coens fill each scene with quirky slice-of-life humor.
Carter Burwell’s Foreboding Score Creates A Tense Atmosphere
Carter Burwell has composed the scores for most of the Coen brothers’ movies, and Fargo is one of his most memorable works. The foreboding tones of his music create a suitably tense atmosphere for the downfall of Jerry’s criminal scheme.
The main motif in Burwell’s score, adapted from the Norwegian folk song “The Lost Sheep,” captures the movie’s style as a small-town American folk noir.
The Woodchipper Scene Is Still Shocking Today
When Marge finally tracks down Gaear, she finds him disposing of a corpse by shoving it into a woodchipper. She pulls a gun on Gaear as soon as she spots a human foot sticking out of his blood-soaked gardening machine.
This is one of the most memorable movie moments of all time. The bloodstains surrounding the woodchipper and the casualness with which Gaear pushes severed limbs into it are just as shocking today.
It Takes Place In A World Of Its Own
The only connection between the movie Fargo and its TV adaptation (aside from a few Easter eggs) is that the TV series takes place in the bizarre, crime-ridden world that the Coens created for their movie.
Most crime films strive for realism, but the Coens went the other way and carved out their own strange little universe. The world of Fargo feels as immersive and unique as the galaxy far, far away in Star Wars. Revisiting this world will never get old.
Marge Gunderson Is Arguably The Greatest Cop Character In Movie History
Marge Gunderson might be the greatest cop character ever created. She’s not an obsessive rogue who breaks the law to enforce it like Dirty Harry. For Marge, it’s just a job. She’s more interested in her husband’s painting contest than the double homicide she’s investigating.
She does things by the book and brings in perps without using excessive force. Her pregnancy adds a unique angle to the story – she throws up at a gruesome crime scene, but not because she can’t stomach the gore; she just has morning sickness.