Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 350: The Minnesota Murders

A few posts ago I reviewed Pulp Fiction and mentioned how Quentin Tarantino's success propelled so-called independent film-makers into the mainstream. Another couple of film-makers who achieved the same level of success during the 1990s were Joel and Ethan Coen. Throughout the 1980s the Coens made a number of cult movies such as Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing, which were met with critical acclaim but were never commercially successful. The first hint of success for the Coens was with 1991's Barton Fink which was nominated for three Oscars however it was a film released five years later that really put them on the map. 

Nominated for seven Oscars, Fargo was a darkly comic piece which combined the brothers' brilliant ear for dialogue with a story that wouldn't be out of place in a 1940s Film Noir. Although the opening title credits claim that Fargo was based on a true story it was more that the film's central plot was constructed from a number of grizzly murder cases. Set in the 1980s, the film follows useless second hand car salesman Jerry Lundegaard as he attempts to get himself out of bankruptcy by having his own wife kidnapped. Jerry's belief is that his wealthy father-in-law will pay the ransom set by the kidnappers and he will then in turn be able to clear the debt that he's found himself in. But the plan is beset with a number of problems namely that the recommended criminal Carl as brought along the stoic, almost mute Gaear along with him. It's made clear that Gaear has a short fuse and soon after the kidnapping he kills three people all of whom witness the woman's body in the back of their car. As the murders happened outside Brainerd, Minnesota the town's local police chief Marge Gunderson is called in to investigate the crime. Marge isn't your usual pioneering cooper as she's heavily pregnant and also seems more like a housewife than she does detective. Marge's kindly approach does get results though as she is able to chase the criminals' car back to Jerry's lot. But her willingness to believe everything she's told means that Jerry gets away Scott free and her opinion only changes after a run-in with an old school friend. Fargo's final fifteen minutes are especially violence with one character being shot in the cheek and then finished over in a very unusual way. Let's just say I'll never look at a woodchipper in the same way again. 

Fargo is unlike anything I've ever seen before on this blog and that's one of the things that made it stand out to Academy voters. The film was nominated for seven awards include Best Director and Best Picture and actually triumphed in two categories. The first of these was Best Actress, with Joel Coen's wife Frances McDormand picking up the prize for her brilliant portrayal of Marge. Though I'd seen Fargo several times before I didn't realise that it was thirty minutes into the film before Marge arrives on screen. Having watched a fair few Oscar winning turns over the course of the challenge, I was surprised to see how subtle McDormand's performance in this film was when compared against previous victors. McDormand never appears to be acting and this naturalistic turn as the kindly police chief meant that the actress' honour was more than deserved. The Coens won a further award for their witty and well-constructed screenplay which was perfectly paced and featured a gripping murder mystery. The frozen landscape of the film is perfectly captured by legendary cinematographer, and long-time Coen collaborator, Roger Deakins. Despite eleven Oscar nominations, Deakins has never won which I feel is one of the biggest errors the Academy has ever made. Another nominee, William H Macy, gave an incredibly frantic turn as the sad-sack car salesman Jerry who is in over his head from the very beginning. Steve Buscemi and Peter Stomare also make for an excellent pairing as Carl and Gaear with the former doing all the talking and the latter just looking menacing. There's no denying that Fargo is an excellent film which rightfully propelled the Coen Brothers into the mainstream where they belonged. Their next picture, The Big Lebowski, was another cult hit but it would be another eleven years before the brothers had another film nominated for the big prize at The Oscars. 

Next time a look at another actor who became a force to be reckoned with during the 1990s. 

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 261: A Southern Gene

Continuing the theme of looking back at what the stars of the 1970s nominees were doing in the next decade, we come to the work of Gene Hackman. The star of two of my favourite 1970s nominees, The French Connection and The Conversation, Hackman only featured in one nominee in the 1980s. That film was Mississippi Burning, in which Hackman starred as FBI Agent Rupert Anderson who returned to his home state of Mississippi in order to solve the case of two missing civil rights workers. The film, set in 1964, centres around the rural community of Jessop County who don't take too kindly to two outsiders interfering in their business. At the time, segregation was rife and even staff in the sheriff's department are members of the Klu Klux Klan. The black members of the community are often at risk of having their churches set on fire or to find flaming crosses on their lawns. Anderson's superior Agent on the case is the much younger Alan Ward, a college-educated liberal who isn't as worldly wise as his new partner. Indeed, Anderson knows the area well and is able to get more information by popping into the local beauty parlour than Ward does when he formally questions a number of suspects. Feeling he's getting nowhere, Ward calls for more agents to descend on the area, followed soon by the press and members of the army. Eventually, a war of words breaks out between the locals and the agents, with the black members of the town caught in the middle. Ward and Anderson are later convinced that Deputy Pell had something to do with the death of the men and question his wife about her flimsy alibi. When Anderson appeals to Mrs Pell's better nature, he sets in course a chain of events which change the area forever.

In his other nominated film Midnight Express, director Alan Parker manipulated certain events of a true story in order to create a more compelling film. He did this again with Mississippi Burning, in which he fictionalised the investigation into the civil rights worker's disappearance to create a gripping narrative. I was quite enthralled throughout most of Mississippi Burning, which took the form of a standard police procedural albeit it one that dealt with deeper themes. Peter Biziou's Oscar-winning cinematography really encapsulates the mood of the time as he able to get the audience to experience the hatred felt between both sides of the community. His shots of the attacks on the churches were particularly exceptional and provided some harrowing imagery throughout the film. Just like in Midnight Express, the haunting score makes you feel uneasy at times, though this film was nowhere near as gritty as the Turkish prison epic. The disparate nature of the two agents is what's at the heart of the film and their both given life by two fantastic actors. As Ward, Willem Dafoe gives quite a methodical performance as the educated man forced to deal with customs that he sees as backwards. However, this is really Hackman's film and he delivers another outstanding turn as the agent raised in a similar community who is forced to return to the hatred that he thought he'd left behind. Hackman portrays Anderson as somebody who understands the people, but also disagrees with them and his mixture of humour and violence is an unsettling combination. Hackman was Oscar-nominated for his role here as was Frances McDormand as the timid Mrs Pell who later gets her chance at a new life. The one real problem I had with Mississippi Burning was that I found it to be a little bit too one-sided at times as in all of the white members of the community were shocking racists and all of the black civilians were victims. Whilst I feel that this is probably close to the truth, it does make both sides come off as caricatures at times. Luckily, Anderson and Ward feel like real people and this contributes to an incredibly satisfying, if harrowing film about the many forms that prejudice comes in.

Next time another previous winner offers us another film in which he writes, directs and stars.