Coen Marathon-- "Blood Simple"

This blog has been quiet for some time, so I figured I'd liven it up, and what better way to do so than to go through the Coen Brothers' filmography? Now, I've already seen many of their films, but there are some I haven't seen. Regardless, I'm going to watch all of them, and I'm going to try to pump out 1,000 word essays on each one. Their films are complex and it's tough to understand everything that's going on in them, so leave comments if I miss out on anything.

I'm going to go in chronological order, starting with Blood Simple, their 1984 debut. Watching this movie, I had a really hard time not comparing it to their later work. The Coens are distinctive, almost more distinctive than any other filmmaker I've seen. The idiosyncratic humor, the violence, the philosophically wandering dialogue, the brilliant cinematographic flourishes you don't notice until they're almost over-- the Coens have crafted their own world, and we're just visiting. It's remarkable how much of this is established in Blood Simple. I hadn't seen it before, but the murder-gone-south story felt instantly recognizable as a Coen feature. The understated yet powerful camera work paints a movie rich with visual symbolism and unique setting. The Coens employ light with an auteur's eye (especially in a masterful last sequence) that highlights the lows and highs of the film's morality. This is a dark film, one of their darkest, but they manage to add copious amounts of humor. The plot starts out simple enough-- Abby (Frances McDormand) is cheating on her husband Marty (Dan Hedaya) with Ray (John Getz). In typical Coen fashion, however, things take some unexpected turns, and things get messy. What Blood Simple manages to do so well is unveil the events in a way in which characters make incorrect assumptions that seem correct with the knowledge that they have. Blood Simple never has to scream denouement at its viewers, it trusts them enough to pick up on the twists and runs haywire with them. Chekov's guns are scattered throughout the movie, and keeping track of them and witnessing them pop up throughout the film is a mental exercise that's invigorating and testing all at the same time.

It's not hard to see how beautiful the film is. The neo-noir style allows for the Coens to go all out when it comes to lighting, setting, and brutal violence. And it is brutal-- the film's most disturbing scene comes from a lack of blood, only dirt and sweat. Metaphors are never blatantly obvious here, and that's to the film's credit. Movies that shovel out intellectual themes easily ready for digestion grate on the subtlety that the artistic format allows. This isn't to say blatant metaphor can't be used and used well (see American Psycho) but that's not what the Coens are going for. Their films are visually striking and thematically subtle, in other words, fodder for cinephiles.

All the actors perform admirably, especially M. Emmet Walsh as Visser, the slick hitman who plants many of the chess pieces in the game of murder. The soundtrack can be a bit over the top, but it creates atmospheres of suspense in varied ways. The dialogue is not as strong as it will be in Coen films, but it easily holds its own against any other films.

I can see why this was such an exciting film when it came out. It holds up well to an impressive career and offers a rich tapestry of betrayal, symbolism, and windbreakers.

Final Grade: A-