1 - Introduction

Summary

Fargo (1996) is Ethan and Joel Coens' most commercially and critically successful film (Fig. 1). It merits the kinds of examination this book offers not only on its virtues as a remarkable film, but also as one that provides insights into the Coen brothers' singular career, and into significant recent trends in both the film industry and American culture. Immediately and widely recognized as an important work, it received two Academy Awards (Best Actress for Frances McDormand and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, for Ethan Coen and Joel Coen) and was nominated for five more (Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, and Best Supporting Actor). It also received accolades from such prestigious venues as the Cannes Film Festival, the British Academy Awards, the Chicago Film Critics Association, and the New York Film Critics Circle. This is highly unusual for a low-budget, independently produced film without major stars. Further, this aspect of the film's success places it within the trend of the rise of independent filmmaking and distribution in the 1980s and 1990s. During this period, for a cluster of reasons, numerous films made and/or distributed outside the major Hollywood studios enjoyed unprecedented cross-over success into major markets. Fargo is not only important as an independent film of the 1990s that signals major shifts in the film industry, but it is also a haunting and delightful one that explores middle-American themes and settings from an original and unsettling perspective, that challenges traditional cinematic genre structures, and that comments on American racial, gender, and cultural traditions.