4 - Fargo, or the Blank Frontier

Summary

The Coen brothers' comic crime drama Fargo (1996) is so appealing perhaps because it is so wittily involved in a critique of American civilization, particularly the late twentieth-century family and community. In this, the Coens share common interests with the quasi-independent cinema of the past 30 years, represented by such diverse films as Blue Velvet (1986) and Happiness (1997). The Coens played with such a critique in their earlier explorations of genre film, especially Blood Simple (1983), Miller's Crossing (1990), and the comedy Raising Arizona (1987). As with much postmodern art, a concern for eccentric stylization, a preoccupation with genre convention that borders on fetishization, and above all a form of cynicism and snide sarcasm (basic to their humor) tend both to enhance their comedy and blur the credibility of their observations. Like David Lynch, Todd Solondz, and other postmodernists, the Coens approach their material from a bemused distance, with the sense that sympathy for their characters (and for humanity) may be the earmark of the sucker (the worst thing to be in the hip posture of postmodernity), to the point that their critical perspective is often difficult to ascertain. The Coens also share, perhaps precisely because of this apparent sensibility, an inability to suggest a sense of an alternative to what they critique. What some critics see as an element of the ineffable in their work may be their refusal to take their material seriously or, worse, their tendency to view the world with haughty disdain that their jokes barely mask.