Fargo

"Where do you live?" "Minnesota." "OH YEAH YOU BETCHA"-Many conversations with folks over the years have ended up going like this. I think a lot of that comes from this movie.

This film has grown to be so storied and impersonated that I wonder if some have forgotten just how good it really is. People immediately go into the accent, and immediately think that those of us who live here had never considered that people here talk that way. Do people talk that way here? It depends. In the cities (what we call Minneapolis and St. Paul here), there is not a thick accent, for the most part. But longtime residents have it, and when one ventures outside the metro, one can hear a pretty thick accent on display.

When I saw the movie for the first time, it seemed that the Coen Brothers were making fun of the dialect. I doubt that. Instead, I think that they are using the dialect to create this world. This world only works if there is an overt folksiness to the people in the movie. Only in that world will the horror of the acts committed by the people in the movie be truly stark.

The film follows Jerry Lundegard's (William H. Macy) bumbling attempt to extort money from his father in law. He recklessly hires two thugs to kidnap his wife and then put a ransom on his wife. Jerry is then convinced that his father in law will cough up the money to the thugs who will in turn give him the money he needs to solve his financial woes. Unfortunately, things do not go smoothly, and when the thugs commit murder in Brainerd, MN, the town police chief Marge (Frances McDormand) is called onto the case.

The savagery of the crimes of the hired thugs is a contrast to everything else in the movie. Even the blood shed on the frozen tundra is stark, as the blood flows onto the white winter wasteland. But even more effective is the way the inhuman acts contrast to the simple human decency of Marge and her husband. Marge is 7 months pregnant (don't ya' know), and the love of her husband for her is part of the deep texture of this movie. The dialect of the film is part of the world, and therefore, not overdone. Of course there is exaggeration and caricature, but that is used in order to evoke more basic things about Minnesota. Also, the omnipresence of cold is on depicted. The cold in Minnesota affects every aspect of life, and this is on full display here.

It is a story told so well. As the Coens went on to glory years later with "No Country for Old Men", this film is left behind a bit. Every scene is brilliantly written and realized, and the longer I live in Minnesota, the more I appreciate what they did with it. Of course the accent is overdone, but isn't that what movies do?