Fargo Scene Analysis - Movie Review Example

Fargo Scene Analysis The film Fargo presents a recreation of real life events that took place in 1987 in Minnesota. Although some of the names have been changed, the creators of the film indicate that they attempted to recreate events exactly as they occurred out of respect for the dead. However, as in any retelling of any story, changes are made by the teller based upon their understanding of the issues and attitudes depicted. Basically, the film opens on the day Jerry Lundegaard hires two hit men to kidnap his wife, agreeing that they can have half of the ransom money and he’ll keep the other half. It turns out, Jerry is in significant financial trouble and has a passively adversarial relationship with his father-in-law, who has lots of money but refuses to consider helping Jerry get ahead financially. However, numerous things go wrong and several people end up getting killed, including a policeman, two innocent witnesses, the father-in-law, a parking lot attendant, the wife and one of the hit men. The empty wastefulness of these efforts emerge as the main theme of the film, which can be discerned from the specifics included in several key scenes, such as the Roadside Distractions scene that occurs at approximately 25:15-32:40. By analyzing this particular scene, one can gain a deep understanding of the characters of the killers as well as the film itself. The Roadside Distractions scene is one of the few scenes that occur at night and in the dark. As such, it is a scene that, at first, seems to be quite disconnected with the rest of the film, which is shot usually during the day or in well-lit interiors. However, the scene follows immediately upon the scene in which Jerry learns that his father-in-law is going to steal his idea for a parking lot in another town whether Jerry profits from it, through a finder’s fee that will come nowhere close to meeting his financial needs, or not. This scene leaves Jerry standing alone in the middle of an empty, snow-covered parking lot attempting to scrape ice off of his window. He is literally blank, blinded and clueless regarding everything that is happening and in the dark about what is about to happen. When he returns home with the groceries, Jean is gone and the house is torn up. He practices his words to Wade, Jean’s father, before picking up the phone to report the crime. Again, he is clueless and powerless as he realizes that Jean’s kidnapping required quite a bit more violence and confusion than he’d anticipated and remains completely out of touch with the kidnappers as the following events take shape. By focusing first on the Blue Ox bar, the Roadside Distractions scene calls attention to the activities of the kidnappers they retrace their steps and begins to trace the path that Margie Gunderson, the police chief, will follow as she attempts to solve the crime. This also reinforces the earlier conception of these criminals in terms of a couple of two-bit amateurs, unsure of what they’re about but willing to take a shot at the big money. The darkness outside contrasts sharply with the whiteness of the parking lot that we have come to associate with Jerry. This contrast hints at the idea that things are not going to go as planned. We see Showalter again behind the steering wheel, reinforcing the idea that he is the active member of the team in that he does all the work. Jean is tied up in the backseat, where she has been through the entire film and presumably through much of her life metaphorically speaking. Grimsrud sits in the passenger seat, silent but watchful as they are pulled over for something as ridiculous as forgetting to put up temporary tags in the dealer truck. In this pose, he seems completely focused on what they are doing and the absolute necessity of avoiding detection. The missing temporary tags that set off the action of this scene are emblematic of the action that takes place through the rest of the film. Small stupid mistakes are what changes this peacefully planned and supposedly no-harm crime into the bloodbath it becomes. The inept approach taken by Showalter in committing the crime is immediately brought to bear as if it hadn’t been for this single oversight, at least three people would not have been killed. The acting of this character also brings this element out as he is constantly looking to Grimsrud for verification, forgiveness and companionship, which he never finds. However, the scene also establishes the dominance of Grimsrud, demonstrating that while he may not be the worker that Showalter is, he is undoubtedly the more violent and thus the more dominant of the two men. Showalter’s pitiful attempt at bribing the police officer into forgetting about the temporary tags again illustrates his inability to accurately assess a situation to deal with it appropriately. Had he merely accepted the minor traffic ticket, he could have been long gone before it ever came to court. His attempt at getting out of the ticket, however, is what alerted the patrolman to something more sinister happening and prompted Grimsrud to murder him before he had a chance to defend himself. Showalter’s inability to do anything adequately is then again demonstrated as he stands holding an obviously dead policeman in his arms while he faces the oncoming car. He couldn’t have painted a clearer picture for the couple in the passing car if he’d tried. This again forces Grimsrud to act if they are to escape undetected. This is a common pattern between the criminals in that while Showalter is sent out to do the work, and typically botches it in some manner, Grimsrud is the one who performs the serious actions. His intense focus on chasing down the couple and his utter lack of restraint in murdering them illustrate his inability to comprehend true human emotions. This is brought home in the climax of the scene when Grimsrud stops outside the car that he’s run off the road and peers inside to see the woman, still strapped in her seat upside down and breathing heavily in terror and Grimsrud only backs up a step to get a better aim and then fires coldly into the car, presumably killing her. This sequence brings Grimsrud’s character to the forefront, illustrating him as an empty man much as the landscape around him is illustrated as empty and ties this theme of emptiness to the theme of ineptness. This is particularly true as it is this crime scene that brings Marge Gunderson, the chief of police in Brainerd, into the case and it is her persistent investigation that eventually identifies the criminals. The technical aspects of the film help to bring the attributes of the characters out in greater detail as well as help to point to the various themes of the story that the producers were attempting to convey. From a cinematic viewpoint, the Roadside Distractions scene is one of the few scenes that occur at night and in the dark. It opens with a mid-shot of the exterior of the Blue Ox bar where Showalter and Grimsrud had earlier shared a room with two prostitutes, reinforcing their amateur status. This expands out to a look up at the giant red-checkered figure of Paul Bunyan and pans down to the sign below him meant to welcome people to Brainerd. For those familiar with the story, this provides a hint of foreshadowing in that it is the law of Brainerd that will bring these men to justice. The camera then finally focuses upon the long stretch of open, snow-covered roadway that stretches off into the darkness. Down the center of this roadway is the beige Sierra driven by the kidnappers as the only vehicle on the road. As the camera moves from an outside aerial shot to an interior close-up shot of the two men in the front seat of the car, the audience becomes aware of the red and blue lights flashing behind the car. As Showalter pulls the car over to the side of the road, he warns Jean, covered with a tarp and assumed to be tied up in the backseat, to be quiet or they’d just have to shoot her. This statement is then followed with a look over toward Grimsrud that seems half-concerned that Grimsrud will do something unnecessary and half-acknowledging that such a possibility must be considered. Building the tension in this scene is the camera’s focus on the image in the side view mirror as seen from inside the truck. The policeman is seen to be getting out of his patrol car with the only part of his body visible being the mid-section, fully centering the guns he wears on his belt. This remains the only view of him as he walks up to the car and begins talking with Showalter. The only difference is that we are no longer seeing the policeman from Showalter’s perspective in the driver’s side mirror, but from Grimsrud’s perspective in the passenger seat through the window. This sets up the violence to follow as well as illustrates the concept that the story is Grimsrud’s story, not Showalter’s. When Showalter’s attempt to bribe the policeman only serves to perk up his suspicion, Grimsrud jumps over Showalter, shoves the policeman’s head down onto the windowsill and grabs for the gun he has stashed in the glove compartment which he uses to blow a hole through the top of the policeman’s head. Careful editing of this sequence makes it seem as if every action were taking place independently yet simultaneously, with focus remaining almost exclusively on the hands carrying out these actions. That this is a story told from Grimsrud’s perspective is again made clear as Grimsrud jumps into the driver’s seat and chases after the witnesses in the car that passed while Showalter was holding the corpse on the side of the road. Two cameras are used in this sequence. One allows the audience to see the determined, completely focused concentration on Grimsrud’s face as he chases down the witnesses in close-up from inside the car. The other looks out of the car over the hood, apparently from the driver’s seat to see the road opening up in front of him. The end of the headlights can be seen as can the fleeing red lights of the other car until it squeals on the road. This single short-lived sequence helps illustrate the point that regardless of our planning, the road apparently goes straight for miles, we can never tell what’s just ahead of us, especially as the witnesses car spins out and lands on its roof along the side of the road for no apparent reason other than a snowy road. The scene takes on greater weight thanks to the judicious use of external and internal sound. While the scene begins with some high strings music in the background while the camera is focusing on the bar and the Paul Bunyan statue, but then fades away as the echoing hollowness of a car driving on a road is heard and the Sierra comes into view. This eerie silence is interrupted only by the occasional whimpers of Jean as she lies in the backseat. As the engine noise dies down, Showalter tells Jean to be quiet and in the empty silence before the policeman steps up to the door, a low ominous melody on the bass strings begins, just loud enough to provide an impression of the music and increasing the tension levels of the audience. This music begins to build by the time the officer asks Showalter to step out of the car. For a heart-stopping second, there is no sound, then there is the interior noise of scrambling for guns, heavy breathing, struggling and a shot. Again, the audience hears nothing but interior sound as Grimsrud tells Showalter to get the cop out of the street and Jean begins to cry again, but these sounds are quickly drowned out by a new sound, an echoing empty sound as another car begins to approach them from the opposite direction. As the car draws closer, the high note played on the strings becomes more obvious, again reaching a fever pitch as the car nears, slows and then passes by with a seemingly frozen moment in which the driver and Grimsrud make eye contact. The music now takes on a more hectic beat as Grimsrud pursues the other car, accompanied now by staccato arrhythmic percussion strikes and building again only to be suddenly stopped when the car in front spins off the road. It starts again at a sad, melodic level when Grimsrud finds the car and steps out to take care of business. As the man flees the scene, the music builds to a sudden climax and dies as he falls to the ground, leaving only the sound of the door open beep in the car as accompaniment for the shooting of the woman inside and the end of the scene. As this discussion has demonstrated, the acting, sound and cinematic presentation of this scene reinforce those elements of the scene that pertain directly to the characters and themes of the film as a whole. Showalter is played as a talkative, overly self-conscious individual who never seems capable of doing anything right. He is constantly unsatisfied and always seems to be somehow mistreated despite his own insistence on his importance. Grimsrud is the strong and silent type who permits Showalter to do all the running while demanding that he gets the final say in how things should be. He is ruthless and empty, much like the majority of the film. While Showalter demonstrates the futility of the efforts of the various characters involved, Grimsrud demonstrates the emptiness of their goals and the final fact that with money or without it, none of these men were ever anything more than the blank snow upon which they carried out their schemes. Read More