The movie _Fargo_

[Craig Clark]

S Johnson wrote:
  > Real people! Clumsy, lost, petty, loving, awkward people. In a movie! 
  > Congratulations on catching up. Fargo was a Mike Leigh film 
  > transported to the MidWest (or which ever bit it was in).

J. replied: 
 > Ack!  Now that comparison caught me off guard =).  I don't think I laughed
 > once during _Naked_, unlike most Coen brothers flicks, especially _Fargo_.
 > Maybe a cultural gap prevented me from catching most of the humor? 
 > (Wherever Leigh is from..) 

I think the comparison is between the humanity of the characters in 
Mike Leigh's films, and the same quality in the characters in 
_Fargo_. I have a problem with this, since I think the Coens are 
not showing us "clumsy, lost, petty, loving, awkward people". I think 
they are showing us "clumsy, lost, petty, awkward people who are 
incapable of love". I'll exempt Margie from this, but probably not 
even her husband; and I'll say that Jerry's father-in-law at least 
has the decency to be torn between concern for his daughter and 
concern for his bank balance: everyone else in the film puts the bank 
balance first (okay, Margie excepted).

There was a strong capacity for love in the two female protagonists of
 _Naked_ (can't remember their names, and this is the only Mike Leigh 
film I've seen). And I recall the male protagonist's conversation with the
nightwatchman being very funny indeed (and any "lightening" in the film's
tone being circumvented by the hateful and hate-filled fucking that 
follows this scene). For "clumsy, lost, petty, loving, awkward people", 
sympathetically and unsentimentally portrayed, in modern British cinema,
go to the films of Danny Boyle (_Shallow Grave_ and _Trainspotting_, 
particularly the latter).

To get this discussion closer to the topic of this list, I'd argue 
that Danny Boyle probably comes closest to Pynchon inasmuch as 
both are capable of finding something something sympathetic in even 
the worst characters (I repeat that Blicero's meditations on 
Gottfried's beauty show a real capacity for tenderness, even in a 
member of the SS). This is - to link to an issue I aired a few days 
ago - something which Pynchon has in common with Philip K Dick as 
well. On the other hand, the Coen Brothers' sheer cinematic skill is 
an analogue of Pynchon's writing genius.



  
Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"