Fargo (film)

This article is about a 1996 movie. For other uses, see Fargo.
Fargo

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Joel Coen
Produced by Ethan Coen
Written by
  • Joel Coen
  • Ethan Coen
Starring Frances McDormand
William H. Macy
Steve Buscemi
Harve Presnell
Peter Stormare
Music by Carter Burwell
Cinematography Roger Deakins
Edited by Roderick Jaynes
Production
company
Distributed by Gramercy Pictures
Release dates
  • March 8, 1996 (1996-03-08) (United States)
  • May 31, 1996 (1996-05-31) (United Kingdom)
Running time
 98 minutes[1]
Country
  • United Kingdom[2]
  • United States[2]
Language English
Budget $7 million[3]
Box office $60.6 million[3]

Fargo is a 1996 American black comedy written, produced, edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars Frances McDormand as a pregnant Minnesota police chief investigating roadside homicides that ensue after a struggling car salesman (William H. Macy) hires two criminals (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife in order to extort a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law (Harve Presnell).

Fargo premiered at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival where Joel Coen won the festival's Prix de la mise en scène (Best Director Award) and the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or.[4] A critical and commercial success, Fargo received seven nominations at the 69th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two awards: McDormand won Best Actress and the Coens won Best Writing (Original Screenplay).

In 2006, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and inducted into the United States National Film Registry for preservation, making it one of six films to have been preserved in their first year of eligibility.[5] The American Film Institute named it one of the 100 greatest American movies of all time in 1998.

The film was followed by the FX television series created and written by Noah Hawley, with the Coen brothers acting as executive producers.[6]

Plot

In 1987, Minneapolis car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) is desperate for money; repayment is due on a large GMAC loan that he fraudulently collateralized with nonexistent dealership vehicles. Dealership mechanic Shep Proudfoot (Steve Reevis), an ex-convict, refers him to an old partner in crime, Gaear Grimsrud (Stormare). Lundegaard travels to Fargo, North Dakota, where he hires Grimsrud and Carl Showalter (Buscemi) to kidnap his wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrüd), and extort a ransom from his wealthy father-in-law and boss, Wade Gustafson (Presnell). He gives the men a new car from his dealership's lot, and promises to split the $80,000 ransom with them.

Lundegaard pitches Gustafson a lucrative real estate deal; when Gustafson agrees to front the money, Lundegaard attempts to call off the kidnapping, but it is already in motion. Lundegaard then learns that Gustafson plans to take the deal solely for himself, leaving Lundegaard a paltry finder's fee. Showalter and Grimsrud kidnap Jean in Minneapolis as planned. While transporting her to their remote cabin hideout, a state trooper pulls them over outside Brainerd, Minnesota for driving without the required temporary tags over the dealership plates. After Showalter tries (and fails) to bribe the trooper, Grimsrud kills him. When two passing eyewitnesses see Showalter disposing of the body, Grimsrud kills them as well.

The following morning, Brainerd police chief Marge Gunderson, who is seven months pregnant, initiates a homicide investigation. Records from the murdered trooper's last traffic stop, along with a phone call to Proudfoot, placed at a local truck stop by two suspicious men, lead her to Lundegaard's dealership, where she questions Lundegaard and Proudfoot. While in Minneapolis, Gunderson reconnects with Mike Yanagita (Steve Park), an old classmate who takes her to dinner, tells her that his wife (another classmate) has died, and attempts to seduce her.

Lundegaard informs Gustafson and his accountant, Stan Grossman (Larry Brandenburg), that the kidnappers have demanded $1 million, and will deal only through him. Meanwhile, Showalter, in light of the unanticipated complication of three murders, demands that Lundegaard hand over the entire ransom (which he still believes is $80,000); and GMAC gives Lundegaard 24 hours to repay their loan or face legal consequences.

When the time comes for the money drop, Gustafson decides to deal with the kidnappers himself. At the pre-arranged drop point in a parking garage, he refuses to hand over the cash-filled briefcase to Showalter until his daughter is returned. Showalter kills Gustafson, takes the briefcase, and flees, but not before taking a bullet in the jaw from Gustafson. When he opens the briefcase, Showalter is astounded to discover far more than the anticipated $80,000. He removes that amount to split with Grimsrud, then stashes the rest, intending to return for it later and keep it for himself. At the hideout, he discovers that Grimsrud has killed Jean. After a heated argument, Grimsrud kills Showalter as well.

During a phone conversation with a mutual friend, Gunderson learns that Yanagita's dead wife was never his wife, nor is she dead, and that Yanagita is the perpetrator behind a long series of anonymous harassments. Reflecting on Yanagita's treachery and convincing lies, Gunderson returns to the car dealership and re-questions Lundegaard, who refuses to cooperate. When she asks to speak to Gustafson, Lundegaard panics and flees the dealership. After returning to Brainerd, Gunderson drives to Moose Lake, where she recognizes the dealership car from the dead trooper's description. She finds Grimsrud feeding the last of Showalter's body into a wood chipper. He tries to escape, but Gunderson shoots him in the leg and arrests him. Meanwhile, North Dakota police track Lundegaard to a motel outside Bismarck, where he is arrested while attempting to escape through a bathroom window.

That night, Gunderson and her husband, Norm (John Carroll Lynch), discuss Norm's mallard painting, which has been selected as the design for a US postage stamp. Marge is very proud of his achievement, and the two happily anticipate the birth of their child in two months' time.

Cast

Production

Factual vs. fictional

Multiple accounts exist regarding the factual (or fictional) basis for Fargo. The film opens with the following text:

This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

Closing credits, however, bear the standard "all persons fictitious" disclaimer for a work of fiction.[7]

To resolve this apparent discrepancy, the Coen brothers explained that they based their script on an actual criminal event, but wrote a fictional story around it. "We weren't interested in that kind of fidelity," Joel Coen said. "The basic events are the same as in the real case, but the characterizations are fully imagined ... If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept."[8]

The brothers have modified their explanation more than once. In 1996, Joel Coen told a reporter that—contrary to the opening graphic—the actual murders were not committed in Minnesota.[9][10] Many Minnesotans speculated that the story was inspired by T. Eugene Thompson, a St. Paul attorney who was convicted of hiring a man to murder his wife in 1963, near the Coens' hometown of St. Louis Park; but the Coens claimed that they had never heard of Thompson. After Thompson's death in 2015, Joel Coen changed the explanation again: “[The story was] completely made up. Or, as we like to say, the only thing true about it is that it’s a story.”[11]

The film's special edition DVD contains yet another account, that the film was inspired by the infamous 1986 murder of Helle Crafts from Connecticut at the hands of her husband, Richard, who disposed of her body through a wood chipper.[12]

Locations

Principal photography on Fargo began on January 25, 1995 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. However, due to the region's unusually mild winter that year, the crew moved locations on March 9 to Hallock, Minnesota to find more suitably snow-covered landscapes for the film's winter setting. A second unit under the direction of Roger Deakins filmed near Bathgate, North Dakota where the film's Paul Bunyan statue was constructed.[13] Despite the film's title, no scenes were filmed in or near Fargo, North Dakota.

Filming locations used during production include:

Accent

The film's use of "Minnesota nice" and a "singsong" regional accent are remembered years later, with locals fielding requests to say "Yah, you betcha," and other lines from the movie.[17] According to the film's dialect coach, Liz Himelstein, "the accent was another character." She coached the cast using audio tapes and field trips.[18] Another dialogue coach, Larissa Kokernot (who appeared onscreen playing a prostitute), notes that the "small-town, Minnesota accent is close to the sound of the Nords and the Swedes," which is "where the musicality comes from." She also helped McDormand understand Minnesota nice and the practice of head-nodding to show agreement.[19] The strong accent of Jerry and Marge is less common in the Twin Cities, where over 60% of the state's population lives. Speakers from Minneapolis and St. Paul are more characterized by the Northern cities vowel shift, which is also found in other places in the Northern United States as far east as Rochester, New York. In general, the accent was largely exaggerated.

Reception

Critical response

Fargo holds a 94% approval rating and 8.7/10 average on Rotten Tomatoes based on 87 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Violent, quirky, and darkly funny, Fargo delivers an original crime story and a wonderful performance by McDormand".[20] The film also holds a score of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 24 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[21]

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both named Fargo the best film of 1996. It was also Ebert's fourth favorite of the 1990s.[22] In his original review, Ebert called it "one of the best films I've ever seen" and said that "films like Fargo are why I love the movies".[23]

The film was ranked number 84 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Movies" list in 1998 (although it was removed from the 2007 version) and number 93 on "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs" list. The character Marge Gunderson was ranked number 33 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains. In 2006, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Film festivals

Fargo was screened at many film festivals. It was in the main competition at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Prix de la mise en scène (Best Director prize). Other festival screenings included the Pusan International Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the Naples Film Festival. On March 1, 2006, for the film's tenth anniversary, the first annual Fargo Film Festival screened Fargo by projecting the film onto the side of the Radisson Hotel (the city's tallest building) in downtown Fargo. The city repeated the event on September 29, 2011.

Awards and honors

Wins

Nominations

Other honors

American Film Institute

Soundtrack

Fargo/Barton Fink: Music by Carter Burwell
Soundtrack album by Carter Burwell
Released May 28, 1996
Genre Film score
Length 43:15
Label TVT
Coen Brothers film soundtracks chronology
The Hudsucker Proxy
(1994)		 Fargo
(1996)		 The Big Lebowski
(1998)

As with all the Coen Brothers' films, except O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the score to Fargo is by Carter Burwell.[29]

The main musical motif is based on a Norwegian folk song[30] called "The Lost Sheep", or natively "Den bortkomne sauen".

Other songs featured in the film include: "Big City" by Merle Haggard, heard in the King of Clubs while Jerry meets with Carl and Gaear, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Boy George plays in the garage as Shep works, and "Let's Find Each Other Tonight" a live nightclub performance by José Feliciano that is viewed by Carl and a female escort. In the diner, when Jerry is urging Wade not to get police involved in his wife's kidnapping, Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good" can be heard faintly in the background. The restaurant scene with Mike Yanagita is accompanied by a piano arrangement of "Sometimes in Winter" by Blood, Sweat & Tears. All the songs heard in the film are featured only as background music, usually on a radio, and do not appear on the soundtrack album.

The soundtrack was released in 1996 on TVT Records, combined with selections from the score to Barton Fink.[29]

Track listing

No. Title Length
1. "Fargo, North Dakota"   2:47
2. "Moose Lake"   0:41
3. "A Lot of Woe"   0:49
4. "Forced Entry"   1:23
5. "The Ozone"   0:57
6. "The Trooper's End"   1:06
7. "Chewing on It"   0:51
8. "Rubbernecking"   2:04
9. "Dance of the Sierra"   1:23
10. "The Mallard"   0:58
11. "Delivery"   4:46
12. "Bismarck, North Dakota"   1:02
13. "Paul Bunyan"   0:35
14. "The Eager Beaver"   3:10
15. "Brainerd Minnesota"   2:40
16. "Safe Keeping"   1:41

Home video releases

Television series

In 1997, a pilot was filmed for a television series based on the film. Set in Brainerd shortly after the events of the film, it starred Edie Falco as Marge Gunderson and Bruce Bohne reprising his role as Officer Lou. It was directed by Kathy Bates and featured no involvement from the Coen brothers. The episode finally aired in 2003 during Trio's Brilliant But Cancelled series of failed TV shows.[35]

A TV series inspired by the film, with the Coens as executive producers,[36] debuted on FX in April 2014.[37] The first season received high acclaim from critics and audiences.[37][38][39] Existing in the same fictional universe as the film with each season featuring a different story, cast, and era. The episode "Eating the Blame" reintroduces the buried ransom money for a minor three-episode subplot.[40][41]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Fargo". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Fargo (1995)". British Film Institute. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
  3. 1 2 "Fargo (1996)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Festival de Cannes: Fargo". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-09-16.
  5. ↑ "'Fargo,' 'Blazing Saddles' Added to National Film Registry". ABC News.
  6. ↑ Goldberg, Lesley (January 14, 2014). "FX's 'Fargo' Cast, EPs on Film Comparisons, Anthology Format, Courting Billy Bob Thornton". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  7. ↑ Fargo from the Urban Legends Reference Pages
  8. ↑ Heitmueller, Karl (2005-04-12). "Rewind: What Part Of 'Based On' Don't You Understand?". MTV.com. Retrieved 2012-09-25.
  9. ↑ O'Rourke, Mike (1997-02-11). "Reaction to 'Fargo' nomination". Brainerd Dispatch. Archived from the original on Dec 31, 2002.
  10. ↑ Smetanka, Mary Jane (2008-08-08). "We're ready for our close-up, Mr. Coen(s)". Minneapolis Star Tribune. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
  11. ↑ Roberts, Sam (2015-09-05). "T. Eugene Thompson Dies at 88; Crime Stunned St. Paul". New York Times. Retrieved 2015-09-07.
  12. ↑ Gado, Mark (1986-11-18). "All about the Woodchipper Murder Case". Crimelibrary.com. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  13. 1 2 3 IMDB Fargo (1996) – Filming locations.
  14. ↑ "(stock photo with location)". Cgstock.com. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  15. ↑ "At last, a real home". Ccht.org. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  16. ↑ J. Pinkley (April 28, 2003). "Kitchen of Kemp, Melroe home". startribune.com. Archived from the original on 2007-10-22. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  17. ↑ McMacken, Robin (May 9, 2004). "North Dakota: Where the accent is on friendship". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  18. ↑ Laura Randall (March 26, 2004). "She Accentuates Film Performances". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  19. ↑ Chris Hewitt (October 19, 2005). "Forget `Fargo' – actors put accent on Minnesota realism". Saint Paul Pioneer Press. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  20. ↑ Fargo at Rotten Tomatoes
  21. ↑ Fargo at Metacritic
  22. ↑ "Memo to the Academy". Siskel & Ebert. Aired on January 18, 1997.
  23. ↑ Ebert, Roger (March 8, 1996). "Fargo". Chicago Sun-Times (Sun-Times Media Group). Retrieved March 31, 2010.
  24. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills Nominees
  25. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains Nominees
  26. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes Nominees
  27. ↑ AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores Nominees
  28. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) Ballot
  29. 1 2 "Soundtrack Details: Fargo". SoundtrackCollector.com. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
  30. ↑ Braxton, Jonathan. "Fargo/Barton Fink". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
  31. ↑ https://itunes.apple.com/au/movie/fargo-1996/id341289724
  32. ↑ Ty burr (May 2, 1999). "SUMMER FILMS: SYNERGY; A Few Words in Defense of Swag". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
  33. 1 2 IMDB Fargo DVD Information
  34. 1 2 http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Fargo-Blu-ray/4352/
  35. ↑ "Television: Reruns; Edie Falco in 'Fargo,' and Other Gems You Never Saw". The New York Times. 31 August 2003. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
  36. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (2012-09-21). "FX Teams With Joel & Ethan Coen And Noah Hawley For Series Adaptation Of 'Fargo'". Deadline.com. Retrieved 2012-09-25.
  37. 1 2 "FX Sets Premiere Date For 'Fargo,'" from Variety, 1/14/2014
  38. ↑ "Billy Bob Thornton to star in "Fargo" TV series". CBS News. August 2, 2013. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
  39. ↑ "Metacritic: Fargo Season 1". Metacritic. July 14, 2013. Retrieved July 14, 2013.
  40. ↑ Ray, Amber (May 7, 2014). "'Fargo' episode 4: The Easter egg that connects the series to the film". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved June 20, 2014.
  41. ↑ Nguyen, Hanh (May 6, 2014). "Fargo Boss Breaks Down That (Very Familiar) Money Shot". TV Guide. Retrieved June 20, 2014.

Further reading

External links

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