Blood Simple   

Made: 1984

Cast: Frances McDormand, Dan Hadeya, John Getz, M. Emmet Walsh, Samm Art Williams

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Screenwriter: Joel and Ethan Coen

Cinematographer: Barry Sonnenfeld

Producer: Joel and Ethan Coen

               The opening dialogue sets up the tone of an affair between the two leads and within seconds you know what the movie is about. They are being followed, a little Volkswagen, though it might be nothing. Turns out to be a man in yellow with a psychotic laugh. Played by M. Emmet Walsh in one of cinema's best performances, he is asked why he took the pictures of the couple he was following. "Call it a fringe benefit," he says. Mean, cruel details. In Texas, you are on your own. Blood Simple is a hard movie to describe. Its part play, part movie, part tragedy, part comedy, part horror, unlike anything before it but sorta like a lot of things. Above all is a detective story vibe coming from the novels of Raymond Chandler (where the title of the movie comes from) mixed with the camp horror movie genre of Sam Rami in his Evil Dead series. The other element is pure Coen Brothers: a sly touch of personal madness.

               Dan Hadeya has a thankless role as Julian Marty, though he does a great job of playing a man who is determined to keep control of people around him. You can tell he thrives on it. Played by John Gates, Ray comes off as a nice person, not exactly the kinda guy you want around your girlfriend but nice enough. Frances Mcdormand plays Abby, the women of everybody's affection, and its easy to see why: she is smart, beautiful, and mysterious. None of the characters in love triangle are crazy (though a bit trashy), they are ordinary folks for whom ideas like murder and adultery are very real...but also unwilling victims of a true psychopath. M Emmet Walsh's detective Loren Vasser is a careful kind of dimwitted man, but not clever in the sense of most movie villains.  He always defers when threatened, like it's never his fault when things go wrong. I don’t think Walsh has a problem killing the couple he is hired to kill, I think he is just....lazy. I could write this whole review around Walsh's character of Detective Vasser, one that has haunted my dreams since the first time I saw this movie. If there was ever a correct vision of the angel of death in cinema, this is probably it. Rounding it off is Samm Art Williams as Maurice, who there could almost be another whole story about off to the side ("A Day in the Life of Maurice!").

               The clever screenplay of the Coens shines through, seeming to be something it is not the whole time. A backwater story about Texas trailer trash comes to be a metaphor for the way simple problems can lead to lies and corruption of souls, how people come to do things they never thought themselves capable of. Miscomunication is a theme, as Abby thinks Ray killed her husband and because he can't "say it"; Maurice thinks ray took the money but Ray has no idea what he is talking about; it is all communicated badly. Soon both members of the couple suspect each other, and without trust all is lost. What's great about the dialogue is how both sides can be taken seriously. The screenplay touches on little details, its ok for men to cheat but not women, the number of bullets in Abby's gun, etc. Detective Vasser screams, "I don’t know what you two thought you were gonna pull off!" No one knows what is going on, except the audience.

               The Coen Brothers are maybe the greatest of all American movie directors. Joel and Ethan have written, edited, produced and directed pretty much everything they have ever done. Not a small feat, seeing of how their titles include Raising Arizona, Fargo, Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, No Country for Old Men, True Grit and many other movies that strike a chord with people and make them memorable. They also have films that only resonate to their dedicated fans: Blood Simple, Barton Fink, Hudsucker Proxy, A Serious Man, Miller's Crossing, Burn After Reading, Inside Llewyn Davis which are all more artistically demanding films. Two directors for two different end results, do they collaborate completely or does one lean more towards a certain style? They straddle the line between accessibility and experimentation, which to me is the goal of great art. No movie is a genre film, they all mix elements of all genres in within. They started with the debut of Blood Simple in 1984 and never looked back, never compromised, always set a high standard for intelligent movie making. Most of their movies will be in my series of Favorite Films.

               Blood Simple has one of the great endings in thriller history. Silent but deadly, the final showdown of the two characters left alive is impressive to this day and overshadows the rest of the movie. Its kind of all you remember after first viewing, but then you think back and there's the scene on the side of the road with the dead body, and the breaking into the house by Marty, and the fishing trip's payoff, and you start to realize that the ending is only as good as it is because of what came before. That's great storytelling. It's "compact" story telling too at about 90 minutes, and you really have to think of how many other directors would have messed this story up. I’s hard to pick what the Coen brothers are best at in their many talents, but thank god they have so many!