Three Obscure Films

I started having film screenings for neighbors in the new development I moved into. I thought I would provide some brief comments on three somewhat obscure movies.

Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?

This 1978 film starring George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset, and Robert Morley is a load of laughs. Segal and especially Morley are very funny. It’s a whodunit, and despite the movie being a comedy, the deaths are rather gruesome. For those who like mysteries, humor, great locales, and food, this is great entertainment. One of my favorite lines (and there are many) delivered by Morey’s Max, as he wonders about the killings: “Don’t tell me another cook has been murdered! Who is it this time, Aunt Jemima?”

The Last of Sheila

Released in 1973, here is another humorous mystery that has an even darker edge to it, but is still able to be very witty. We have a great script here, filled with so many twists and turns it will make your head spin like Linda Blair. The writers are, believe it or not, Broadway musical composer Stephen Sondheim and actor Anthony Perkins, who it turns out were lovers of puzzles. They have concocted a gem here. The movie has an all-star cast including James Mason, James Coburn, Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, and Raquel Welch. Great locales in this movie, too. Herbert Ross is the director, who also gave us Play it Again, Sam, The Goodbye Girl, and The Turning Point.

3:10 to Yuma

The remake of this film (2007) may not be as famous as the original (both based on the Elmore Leonard story), but it is still pretty good. Christian Bale does an excellent job playing the Job-like farmer who has lost a foot due to friendly fire when he was a soldier, has a severely ill child, and is debt-ridden. In addition, his son has little respect for his non-aggressive ways. Bale’s character has a chance to make some money by transporting a notorious outlaw, played with charismatic bravado by Russell Crowe, who, ironically, likes to quote the Bible. His character is complicated, as he points out that those who want to hang him for his crimes are themselves guilty of atrocities but have hid behind the hypocrisy of those in power. The story focuses on whether Bale’s farmer, through his heroic actions, can prevent his son from losing his goodness in a world of lawlessness.

Blood Simple

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Well, here is another film, after last week’s The Last Picture Show, which takes place in Texas. Blood Simple (1984) is the Coen Brothers’ first feature film, and with it they pay homage to the elements in the noir tradition, but also subvert them. The noir derived from James M. Cain novels, such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, contain a wife’s infidelity in the plots, with the woman acting as femme fatale as she manipulates the men. Even though we do have a philandering wife here, and she is a strong character, she is as much in the dark about what is happening as her lover. Usually in film noir stories, the private investigator, although usually a type of anti-hero, still has a code he follows as he tries to unravel a mystery, such as in The Maltese Falcon or Chinatown. Here, the PI undermines the tradition by having no moral center, but instead is a nihilistic killer just out to satisfy his own greed.

The first shot of the film is of a road, but there is a piece of tire tread on it, which fits in with the voice-over by the cynical PI, Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) who says life doesn’t come with a guarantee, and it doesn’t matter who you are, no matter how powerful or important, “Something can all go wrong.” But, he says people still whine as if they expected things to work out okay. He says the Russians at that time declared that their system of governing was based on everyone supposedly taking care of everyone else. But here, in the United States, he says, if you complain to a neighbor, “just watch him fly.” He says he knows Texas, “and down here, you’re on your own.” He is expressing the downside of the American belief that individualism reigns supreme. There is then a cut to a car by itself on a road, at night, in the rain, epitomizing that lonesome individuality.

Ray (John Getz) is driving Abby (Frances McDormand), but there appears to be a car following them which is a Volkswagen Beetle. Abby says that for their first anniversary, her husband, Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), gave her a gun. It is pearl handled, a sort of Texas version of jewelry. (If you introduce a gun in a story, as Anton Chekhov said, the writer better fire it later in the tale, and that is what happens here). Abby is planning to escape to Huston because, she says, that if she stayed, she would probably use the weapon on her husband. Her remark is sort of a version of “If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword,” or any other lethal device. (The fact that she refers to her husband by his last name shows the lack of emotional connection between them). Ray works at Marty’s bar, and says he tolerates the man because he’s not married to him, so he hasn’t had murderous feelings toward Marty. This statement is ironic considering what happens later in the film. But, Abby’s remark here about shooting her husband later comes back to haunt Ray. She asks why he offered to drive her, and he says that he likes her. She says they just passed a motel sign. It’s an implied suggestion to have sex. They are next seen in bed with trucks and cars whizzing by, casting ominous shadows, showing transience, not stability, and a noisy, not peaceful, coupling.

In the morning, Marty calls the motel room, surprising Ray that he knows of the infidelity. Marty is then seen with Visser who has taken pictures showing Ray in bed with Abby. Visser is cruelly sordid as he says, “I know where you can get those framed.” He seems to delight in commenting on the decadence of the world, like a man viewing the failings of humans as a sort of entertainment show. He has a cigarette lighter that has an inscription which reads, “Elk Man of the Year,” an ironic title, showing that there isn’t much in the world worthy of praise if Visser is receives an award (the lighter will be important later). Marty doesn’t like that Visser stayed there to watch the lovemaking, and he comments that there was no need for taking pictures since the PI reported that the two were together. Visser probably likes seeing Marty suffer by looking at the photos. Marty, in a threatening response to Visser saying he was just doing his job, says in ancient Greece they would cut off the head of the messenger that brought bad news. Visser laughs and says that doesn’t make sense. Marty agrees, but he notes that it made them feel better. Visser says that he isn’t a messenger, he’s an investigator, and that in Texas, killing is against the law (another ironic statement considering what Visser does later). He also says that the news could have been worse, because Marty expected Abby’s lover to be black, which shows the racism of the husband, but also Visser’s nasty comic sense. Even though Visser is the cynical one, he states with ironic humor that Marty is a pessimist, “always assuming the worst.” Marty throws his payment at the man, and tells him not to show up again. He says if he needs Visser, he’ll know what rock to look under. Visser just laughs and says Marty’s line is a good one. Visser isn’t even insulted, because he knows what he is, and doesn’t see the need to feel shame given how despicable people are, including himself. 

At Marty’s bar a black bartender, Meurice, puts on “It’s the Same Old Song” by the Four Tops, an African American group, and the local whites shake their heads, which provides a feel for the prejudice in the community. But the title of the song also points to the Coens paying homage, as Adam Nayman says in his book, The Coen Brothers, to the noir stories that preceded this one. There is a young woman at the bar named Debra (Deborah Newman), who says she is an old friend, and that she has known Meurice for ten years, when in fact they just met. It is a ploy to keep Marty at a distance. Marty still tries to pick her up, probably to get revenge for Abby. Marty says to Debra to tell Meurice she can’t meet up with him later because she has a headache. But she says wittily of the headache excuse, “It’ll pass.” He persists but then she tells him flat out she doesn’t want anything to do with him. Marty is a loathsome, pathetic character who is continually humiliated during the course of the film.

In a scene at Abby’s place, ominous music plays consisting of bass sounds interspersed with steel-like instrumentals that sound like death knells. Abby goes through her purses looking for bullets and the anniversary gun, which suggests she may, as she noted earlier, ironically respond by shooting the person that gifted her the weapon. She secretly loads the pistol with three bullets. Ray says he has to see a guy, and Abby knows what he’s thinking and warns him not to go to the bar.

But Ray goes to the bar anyway. “Sweet Dreams” is playing in the background, which is obviously in counterpoint to what is happening here. Marty looks at the workers burning trash behind the establishment, the inferno mirroring Marty’s state of mind. A bug zapper is heard crackling, an unpleasant, destructive sound that reflects Marty’s emotions. Ray confronts Marty who says he doesn’t want to talk to him. Ray says if he’s not getting fired he might as well quit. Marty then asks him if he’s enjoying himself, an obvious reference to the infidelity, and Ray is now the one who doesn’t want to talk. Ray has the audacity, given the circumstances, to say he’s owed two weeks wages. Smoldering Marty says, “No,” but goes on to say that he thinks it’s funny Ray believes Abby just cared about him. Marty says she had her followed because he believes she has been unfaithful with other men. Marty predicts she will act innocent when Ray confronts her about her promiscuity. Marty warns Ray that he’ll shoot him if he shows up there again. We have a violent atmosphere growing here, but the violence plays out in unexpected ways.

Marty sits back in his chair and looks at the ceiling fan, with its suggestion of life going in circles and getting nowhere, a frustrating symbol of existence. He tells Meurice that he isn’t going home but just will remain where he is, in hell, which fits the fire imagery and reflects a depressing vision of life. He calls Abby at Ray’s, but doesn’t say anything, trying to be intimidating. Ray, made suspicious by Marty’s statement about Abby’s alleged sexual affairs, asks if the call was for her. She says she doesn’t know because “he” didn’t say anything. Ray, his jealousy growing, asks how she knew it was a “he” calling. She asks, jokingly, if Ray has a girl, and was she “screwing something up” for him. He then turns her remark back on her, asking was that what he was doing, implying that maybe he isn’t her only lover. Suspicion and mistrust inhabit these characters, which goes along with Visser’s statement about how in the end we are on our own. She says she can be out of his hair, and he says if that’s what she wants, telling her she can leave. She then says she can sleep on the couch, showing how Marty has created doubt between them.

The soundtrack now uses a piano to show the contrasting bass and treble sounds introduced earlier. Marty is again looking at the ceiling fan, and we see Abby looking at the one where she sleeps. It is Texas, which is hot, so the actual heat coincides with the passions of the characters which overcome reason, and no fan can cool the drives of lust and revenge. Abby goes to Ray’s bed, and he reaches for her, his attraction overcoming his reservations about Abby’s motives.

The next morning, Abby gets out of bed, thinking she is safe, but Opal, Marty’s dog is there, so she realizes so is her husband, and he grabs her before she can call for help. She reaches for her purse but the gun spills onto the floor. He says let’s go outside and “do it in nature,” suggesting the base, animalistic aspect of what drives these people, also symbolized by the dog being there. As the two struggle, there is the further connection to the bestial side of people as there is a sound that mimics the dog breathing quickly. Abby twists around, breaks Marty’s finger, and kicks him in the crotch, inverting the initial appearance of her being the weaker individual. The image of Abby’s attack is one suggesting castration which adds to Marty’s humiliation process. He drags himself away, vomits, and then Ray comes out with the gun he picked off of the floor, as Marty slinks off and drives away. Ray points out how Marty appears even more ridiculous because he drove in the wrong direction toward a dead end, which is a foreshadowing of what is to come.

There is a shot of Marty’s middle finger in a splint, another emasculation image that reflects his cuckolded status. He meets with Visser in a parking lot next to his Volkswagen, so it is confirmed that he was the one following Abby and Ray to the motel. He has a doll hanging from his rearview mirror that has breasts that light up when the chain is pulled. He also asks if Marty injured himself by sticking his finger up the “wrong person’s ass.” The PI’s low moral personality is always on display. He goes on to tell a joke about a man who broke one hand, and then injured the other one protecting the first. Visser told the man that he has found true love if his wife will wipe his behind for him. For Visser, that is how low the measure of love has sunk.

Marty has a job for the PI. At first Visser says, “if the pay’s right, and it’s legal, I’ll do it.” When Marty says, “it’s not strictly legal,” (quite an understatement), Visser ethically edits his requirements by saying “if the pay’s right, I’ll do it.” Visser cackles all the time, but as he realizes Marty wants him to kill Abby and Ray, he is very serious. He doesn’t say he wouldn’t do it, but calls Marty an “idiot.” He believes Marty has been thinking about hurting his wife and her lover too much and, “it’s driving you simple.” The title of the movie comes from a Dashiell Hammett novel, Red Harvest, where “blood simple” refers to how people enter a state of mind that has regressed because of fear and violence. In this film, the characters, because of lust, jealousy, suspicion, and revenge, commit stupid acts, as Visser implies. But, the PI now refers back to his musings on Russia where people are supposed to stress the social good, and only make fifty cents a day. Marty offers to pay him ten grand. So, the “on your own” American way kicks in. Visser tells Marty to go fishing out of town and get noticed, so he has an alibi, and to hide the money transaction. Marty says to burn the bodies in the incinerator behind his place, which reflects his rage that has led him to his personal hell.

Abby finds an apartment to rent on her own, so her relationship with Ray has not been finalized. Abby is in bed at Ray’s place, wondering if she hears Marty. She tells Ray they would probably not hear him because Marty is “anal.” Instead of saying “anal retentive,” to show compulsiveness to detail, Abby unwittingly demeans her husband when she says Marty once said to her, “I’m here, I’m anal.” She points to her head, which makes the gesture imply that Marty is a shithead. She says that Marty doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it’s nasty, whereas Ray’s leanness of speech is “nice.” So, the same quality can be malevolent or benevolent, depending on the situation, which emphasizes how everything is relative, and not predictable. Outside the bedroom window there is at first nothing, but then we see Visser’s Volkswagen, the alternating shots helping to develop the menacing atmosphere.

Visser breaks in and takes Abby’s gun, which Marty probably told him about. He sees the couple sleeping together. The next shot is of the PI calling Marty, telling him the job is done. They meet at Marty’s bar after closing late at night. Marty, back from his alibi trip, slaps some dead fish on the table, their corpses creating an association with the murder plot. The PI again hands some photos to Marty. They appear to show Abby and Ray bleeding from gunshot wounds. Marty feels sick even though he ordered the hits, and vomits in the bathroom, which reflects on the disgusting events occurring. There is a fly buzzing around Visser near the dead fish, symbolizing the corrupt nature of the business at hand. Marty gets the money out of his safe and pays Visser. The PI says that doing this kind of killing is risky, to which Marty says then Visser shouldn’t have done it, which is exactly why we learn that Visser didn’t kill the lovers. He has a different type of murder planned that he thinks will protect his interests. The PI then shoots Marty with Abby’s gun, wipes it, and leaves it there, saying to Marty, “You look stupid now,” which is his view of humanity. There are camera shots of Marty through the circling blades of the ceiling fan, reminding us of the pointlessness of the actions of these characters, and as Nayman says, along with the repetition of “It’s the Same Old Song,” the vicious cycle of deaths that results from betrayals and violence. (The fan may be a nod to the noirish ceiling fans in Casablanca).

Ray then shows up at the bar to again try to secure his back pay, but there’s only change in the cash register. He goes in the back and accidentally kicks the gun on the floor, and the weapon discharges, jolting him out of a feeling of safety into a world of danger. He sees the blood dripping down Marty’s arm. He looks for the gun underneath the desk, which has the barrel pointing at him, which is another foreshadowing. He retrieves the pearl-handled pistol, that he knows belongs to Abby. Ray probably thinks he’s covering up Abby’s murder, but he’s not too bright in his attempt. He puts his fingerprints on the gun as he places it on the table next to the dead fish, linking the weapon to its deadly purpose. He tries to soak up the blood with his jacket and wash the garment in the sink, an almost impossible task. There is now talk outside the office and Meurice’s voice can be heard. He tries to wipe the wet floor, but it’s pointless. He at least takes the gun, but puts it in Marty’s jacket pocket instead of his own. He then hauls Marty’s body into his car. He drives by the furnace, its flames showing how Ray is now in the hell on earth that Marty mentioned earlier. But, he doesn’t burn the body, which creates problems, and shows how people immersed in violent events abdicate their reason.

As he drives, there is that lonesome ride on the road at night again, revisiting the opening scene, and reminding us of Visser’s comment about being “on your own.” On the radio is an evangelist, which adds detail to the setting, but it also is a reminder of the sins that are being committed. Also, the preacher is talking about how the end of the world is coming, which adds to the atmosphere of doom in the story. This talk is followed by the almost horror story effect of Ray hearing Marty breathing and groaning in the back seat. This realization freaks Ray out, as if he has been visited by a ghost, which is a reminder of how departed spirits are considered representative of wrongful deeds revisited on the living. As Nayman points out in his book, characters that are alive are believed to be dead. Such was the case with the doctored photos of Abby and Ray, and now, here, Marty is not dead yet. It’s similar to Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis acting like a cockroach before he actually becomes one, or Bottom (the name says it all) in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream being an ass prior to turning into a real jackass.

Ray stops the car and runs out of it. When he goes back to the vehicle, Marty is not there. He is crawling on the road. Ray backs up the car and acts like he’s going to run him over, but stops, most likely thinking that might be a too messy way of finally ending Marty. He takes a shovel instead and is ready to use it. The shovel scraping on the ground produces a sound that grates on the nerves. Marty grabs Ray’s leg, implying that Ray is being dragged into the hell that Marty’s violent plans have precipitated. A truck’s headlights are in the distance, and Ray drags Marty into the car, trying to cover-up his actions. He digs a hole in which to bury Marty. The man is not yet dead, writhing in the grave as Ray starts to cover him with dirt. But Marty pulls the gun out of his pocket and tries to shoot Ray, his anger and violence now infecting even his last actions on earth. But, there are only two bullets left in the revolver, so there are several empty chambers. Ray takes the pistol from him as Marty keeps pulling the trigger. Marty screams as Ray piles on the dirt, the ground pulsing under the surface as Marty moves, adding to the macabre, scary movie effect of the scene.

As day breaks, Ray drives off on that lonely road again. An approaching driver flashes his lights at him, which could signify a sort of warning, and is also consistent with a feeling that anything can now be thought of as a threat. But the driver is just telling Ray that he has left his lights on. As he passes, the other driver, in a Texas style greeting, smiles and points his fingers like a gun, which takes on an ominous feel given the circumstances. The shaken Ray calls Abby from a gas station, and tells her he loves her. He returns to his place with a smiling, unaware Abby in bed.

Meanwhile, Visser is burning the original photos. He pulls out a cigarette and realizes his Man of the Year lighter and the doctored photos are missing. He, too, has gone “simple” in this criminal activity, and his judgment has suffered. We then get a shot of a ceiling fan again, reminding us of the futility of actions.

Ray didn’t sleep in the bed with Abby, worrying about what has transpired. He is on alert, but maybe he is a little afraid of his lover. He tells Abby he went back to the bar and covered things up. He says that they have to be careful, and not go off “half-cocked,” which is a gun metaphor, and is an appropriate image for what happened to Marty. He says they have “to be smart,” which is the exact opposite of how these people are behaving. Ray says that if someone shoots a man, “you better make sure he’s dead,” as if giving Abby advice about what he thinks is her botched murder attempt. He was in the service, and says that the only thing worth learning there is that if you don’t kill the enemy, he can get up and kill you, which reveals his fearful state of mind. Abby is totally confused by what he is saying. The phone rings but all that is heard is that ominous ceiling fan. Abby says it must be Marty on the phone. Ray laughs, thinking Abby is trying to deceive him about Marty’s death, and says “I’ll get out of your way,” thinking that Marty might have been right, and it was one of Abby’s other lovers on the phone. He places the gun on the end table and says she “left her weapon behind.” He is assuming she shot Marty, which is what Visser wants others to believe. This world is full of treachery which spawns fear and suspicion.

There is a brief scene which shows how Marty, after returning from his fishing trip,  left a voice message accusing Meurice of stealing from his safe and wanting to talk to him and Ray. This story was how Marty was going to explain the missing cash he was actually giving to Visser for the murders. There is a cut to Ray checking out the blood stains in his car as Meurice shows up. Ray quickly covers the blood as Meurice tells him he’s sloppy for stealing the money since he, along with Meurice and maybe Abby are the only ones, other than Marty, who know the combination to the safe. Here again deception leads to false conclusions. There is a bit of dark, foreboding humor as Meurice flicks the cigarette out of Ray’s mouth saying they are like “coffin nails.” He then lights up one himself as he leaves. There is more humor as Meurice also drives the wrong way toward the dead end of Ray’s street, as did Marty, which suggests how all people are heading to a “dead end” on their earthly journeys.

Looking for his lighter, Visser goes to the bar and sees that Marty’s body is not there. He hides when surprised by Abby, who sees that the back door window has been broken and the bolt slid open. To emphasize the “simple” nature of these people wrapped up in their irrational states of mind, she slides the bolt closed, reminding one of the saying about closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. She discovers a hammer that Visser was using to break the safe. The spooky-looking dead fish are staring at her, looking like animal ghosts. She returns to Ray’s place, probably thinking that maybe it was Ray who tried to steal money from the safe and possibly killed Marty. Nothing is as it seems in this morally compromised upside-down world.

It appears Abby wakes up and hears heavy footsteps as she washes up in the bathroom. The creaking of the bathroom door adds to the list of creepy sounds as she sees Marty somehow still alive sitting in the living room, saying, “Lover boy ought to lock the door.” He tells her he loves her. She tells him that she loves him too, but he says that she is just saying it because she is scared. He repeats Ray’s words about how she “left her weapon behind,” but he tosses her a make-up compact, emphasizing her role as a film noir femme fatale. But she, unlike others fitting the genre type, never plotted to actually kill her husband, and is not especially manipulative. Marty then throws up gallons of blood and Abby wakes up as this scene turns out to be a nightmare, but not one far removed from what is happening in the waking world of the story.

Abby returns to Ray’s place. He is packing up and says isn’t that what she wants. He does ask if she wants to go with him. They don’t know what’s happening because they are unaware of Visser’s role in the goings on, so they suspect each other. He says he can’t sleep or eat. He then says that Marty was alive when he buried him, which confounds Abby. Ray finds the altered pictures at the bar that pretend to show he and Abby were shot. He sees the Volkswagen outside that he saw in the first scene, and Ray drives away. Abby enters her apartment and Ray is there. He tells her to turn out the lights, so as not to be an easy target, since he now knows that someone is threatening them. Visser, believing Ray and Abby are a threat to him now after discovering what he left behind at the bar, is outside with a gun. Abby turns the light back on, and they say they love each other just as Ray is shot. She jumps out of the way and knocks out the light with her shoe. She hides. Visser gets into the apartment and is searching Ray for the lighter. He clubs Ray to make sure he’s dead.

The PI looks for Abby. He has gloves on to cover up his crime. He tries to open a window to the room next to the bathroom where Abby is hiding. She grabs his hand, slams the window down, and puts a knife through his hand. Nayman points out that his bleeding extremity could mean he has been caught red-handed. But, Except Abby doesn’t even know whose hand she has impaled. He starts shooting holes through the wall erratically, which is another of several references to impotence, as Nayman notes. Then he just bangs against the wall making howling sounds since he is caught like an animal in a trap, emphasizing the evolutionary reversal that takes place when violence turns people “simple.” He breaks through the wall and pulls the knife out of his hand. Abby finds her gun. She steadies herself on the floor and shoots him through the wall. She says, “I’m not afraid of you Marty,” because she knows nothing about Visser, and has no idea that her husband is actually dead. He just laughs out loud and says, “If I see him, I’ll sure give him the message.” Once violence predominates, and the “blood simple” factor kicks in, his parting remark paints life as just one dark, absurd joke.

The next film is Before Sunset.

Harold and Maude

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

This 1971 film has one of the odder relationships in movie history, which is one of the reasons it is a dark comedy “cult” classic. But this Hal Ashby directed movie’s early May, late December romance is at the thematic center of a movie that emphasizes the need to reconsider the whole perpetuating cycle of birth, life, and death.

The opening scene is a bit of a shocker as we hear the first of several Cat Stevens songs while Harold (Bud Cort) goes through preparations which culminate in his supposed hanging suicide. As he swings from the rope in one of the many dark, garishly opulent rooms in his family’s mansion, his mother enters, Mrs. Chasen (Vivian Pickles). She is unfazed and asks if Harold thinks he is being funny. As she talks on the phone about an appointment, Harold laughs slightly and then makes fake gagging sounds. This form of suicide could be indicative of the way his mother is emotionally “suffocating” him. She tells him that dinner will be at eight o’clock and that maybe he could be a little more “vivacious.” The black comic tone has been launched.

Harold performs several phony suicides during the course of the story, including a pretend self-inflicted gunshot wound, where he initially points the gun at his mother while she fills out all the questions meant for him in a dating questionnaire with her own opinions. In answer to his psychiatrist’s question if the suicides are for his mother’s benefit, he says no, not “benefit.” The movie obviously reflects the anti-establishment, anti-parental authority attitude among the youth in America at the time fueled by the hostility toward the Vietnam War. The house and Mrs. Chasen’s exaggerated clothes show a society preoccupied with material things (similarly satirized in Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait). The movie directs its satiric thrust against the military in the form of Harold’s Uncle Victor (Charles Tyner), a high-ranking armed forces member whose name is ironic, since what he has won along with his glorious war stories is the loss of his right arm. The empty uniformed sleeve responds to the pulling of a cord by simulating a salute, an obvious jab at overzealous patriotism. It is darkly funny that right after Uncle Victor says he sees in Harold a little Nathan Hale, the man who said he regretted that he had only one life to lose for his country, that we have the shot of Harold floating like a dead person in the overly affluent family’s pool as his mother takes a swim, thus satirizing the loss of life for the object-worshiping country America has become.

Harold folds his hands over his chest as he lies on his back with his eyes closed, looking like a corpse at his psychiatric sessions. Harold’s psychiatrist (G. Wood) asks him what he does for enjoyment, the youth says he goes to funerals. He even buys a hearse for his car. He later modifies the sports car his mother provided as a replacement by welding on a hearse-like roof onto the Jaguar, a vehicular “screw-you” to his mother’s controlling nature and her preoccupation with materialism and appearances. Harold, although young, preoccupies himself morbidly with the end of life. Then he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), a woman approaching the end of life, at a funeral. The first thing she does is offer him a piece of licorice. She brings something pleasurable, and a form of sustenance (although a dubious one) to the sad proceedings. She says “Who sends dead flowers to a funeral? It’s absurd.” She wants to celebrate that death is a part of life, and dead flowers just double down on one side of that process. She sizes up Harold’s inability to see the whole picture quickly. When he answers in the negative to her question about whether he sings or dances, she says, “No, I thought not.”

To emphasize the need to see that panoramic picture of worldly experience, Ashby gives us a joyous parade in the same shot as the funeral procession. Maude wears colorful clothes and carries a bight umbrella in contrast to the dark appearance of the mourners. Maude takes whatever car is available for transportation, including the priest’s at the funeral service. She even steals Harold’s original funeral conveyance, not knowing he owned it. He comments that her auto thefts upset people. She responds by saying, “I’m merely acting as a gentle reminder: here today, gone tomorrow, so don’t get attached to things.” But, she says that doesn’t mean she is averse to collecting stuff. Her “memorabilia” is not to show capitalistic gain, but instead reminds her of past experiences, and helps her appreciate the world. As she says, these things are, “incidental, not integral” to existence. It is significant that Maude lives in a train car. As opposed to Harold’s hearse, this mode of transportation symbolizes that living things are on a journey between two points, birth and death, and there are numerous stops along the way to experience what life offers.

Through her “stuff,” Maude opens Harold up to appreciate the body’s senses. She shows him paintings that stimulate the visual and provides him with smells to savor olfactory delights. He explores the tactile sense by touching a wood sculpture that suggests a vagina. He penetrates the opening with his hand, and even tries to fit his head through it (a substitute for the penis?). In this way, Maude is his midwife into bringing to life his youthful latent sexuality. She also introduces him to expressing himself artistically in dance and music, starting him on his interest in playing the banjo. While still pursuing his disturbingly comical theatrical self-destruction at home to ward off his mother’s picks for a potential mate (self-immolation, dismemberment, and disembowelment), he enjoys himself with Maude in the woods, saving a dying tree, where she celebrates “living things,” and going to a carnival (where they play with toy trains, reinforcing the journey of life initially implied by Maude’s train/home). She tries to convey to him the satisfaction derived from a passion to participate in life. She tells him that she is always looking for “variety” and “the new experience.” When she asks Harold why he would like to be a flower in a field, he says because they all are alike. It probably shows his desire to conform like most young people to the pressure around them to fit in. She says that they may look alike, but all living things are unique, and that specialness should be celebrated. She tells him “that much of the world’s sorrow” comes from people allowing themselves to think that they are not individually important.

She preaches that there are important issues worth fighting for: “Liberty. Rights, Justice … what sense in borders and nations and patriotism.” She sees these creations as mental prisons. She tells him that she used to “break into pet shops to liberate the canaries.” She comments that “the zoos are full, the prisons overflowing ... how the world still dearly loves a cage.” It seems she sees that people sometimes seek security in being told how to live so they can have the relief of giving up the responsibility of choices, and also incarcerating that which interferes with the status quo. He now realizes the incompleteness of his life so far when he says that “I haven’t lived. I died a few times.” Maude understands that many are afraid to risk failures by engaging in possible opportunities. She says, “A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really.  They’re just backing away from life.” Like the coach of a sports team, she exhorts Harold to “LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.”

There are two scenes which provide a personal insight into why these two characters act the way they do, and deepen their presentation. Harold admits to Maude in a tearful moment that he was involved in a scientific experiment at school which resulted in an explosion and fire. When he saw how genuinely affected his mother was by the possibility that Harold was dead, he decided that he elicited more real emotion by dying instead of living. A single shot economically lets the audience peer into Maude’s psyche. While the two sit together, Harold sees the imprint of a Nazi concentration camp brand on her arm. We realize that her being a holocaust survivor amplified her commitment to “live life fully.”

The two declare their love for each other, and, yes, become physically intimate. The representatives of the established world order which are outraged at such a union are satirized because they are limited by their restricted ways of thinking. The psychiatrist, with Sigmund Freud’s picture on the wall, is baffled because Harold does not fit into the typical psychoanalytical belief in the Oedipal complex, because he doesn’t subconsciously want to sleep with his mother, but instead wants to have sex with his “grandmother.” The celibate priest, with the picture of the pope behind him, declares his revulsion at the union, while perversely overly imagining the physical appearance of Maude’s aging female form.

Maude already gave us hints early on where the story was headed. She told Harold that “it will all be over” on her approaching 80th birthday. She said that 75 was too young and 85 was just biding time. At a birthday celebration he prepared where he is ready to ask her to marry him, she says what a wonderful farewell he organized, as she has already taken the pills and would be gone soon. Unlike his false suicides, hers is real, but more appropriate because she realizes that she has lived a full life and is ending it on her terms. He tells her that he loves her again, and she encourages his tapping into this feeling by saying, “that’s wonderful. Go and love some more.” He is crushed by her death, and we see him driving his hybrid hearse up a hill. It plunges off a cliff. For a moment we think that he has killed himself for real this time. But, the demolition of the car symbolizes the destruction of his previous morbid outlook on life. The camera points upward to the top of the precipice, and Harold, now in life-affirming mode, plays his banjo, and dances away.

This motion picture challenges preconceived notions about material ownership, patriotism, and especially, love. But, isn’t that what art is supposed to do?

The next film is Gilda.

Fargo

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

This 1996 film by the Coen brothers starts off with a statement about how they are realistically presenting actual events in the movie out of respect for the dead. The Coens are satirizing the overwhelming trend in recent years to give into reality-based stories as the accepted source for entertainment. The story here is really fictitious, but like all great writing, it uses true experiences as a way to reveal human nature. By declaring that the film is based on an actual story, the effect is to allow the audience to be drawn into a bizarre tale they might otherwise reject.

The Coens are from Minnesota so their imaginative script comes from their real experiences living among the people inhabiting this land. As can be deduced from the names of the characters, many of the people who live there derive from Sweden, coming from one cold land and settling in another. The filmmakers described the locale as “Siberia with family restaurants.” This line points to the duality of the setting. (As Adam Nayman points out in his book, The Coen Brothers, when the pregnant Marge says, "I think I'm going to barf," her words can reflect the fact that she will soon give birth to a new life but also to a "general sense of disgust at the bloody mess" involving the crime she is investigating). There is the harshness of the cold mixed with politeness on the part of the natives. It’s what the Coens call “Minnesota nice.” The language is filled with corny, folksy phrases, such as, “Oh, yah,” You’re darn tootin!” and “Oh, you betcha.” These people face a challenging environment with a smile, like the cheery cashier despite her unglamorous job, and a persistence, like the fellow later in the film who knows it perpetually gets colder and still another weather front is coming in, but who continues to clear his driveway. But, the makers of this movie also stated that this forced continual politeness represses the negative aspects of humans, which can lead to violent eruptions. So, I guess it’s reasonable to say that the Coens give us here a dark version of The Prairie Home Companion.

The movie starts with a whiteout shot where nothing can be seen initially. The first object that emerges out of this impenetrable view is a car towing what we learn later is a new tan Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. The man bringing the car to the inn/restaurant/bar is Jerry Lundegaarde (William H. Macy). He registers under a false name, and he has stolen the car from the auto dealership where he works as part of a scheme to have two crooks kidnap his wife so he can extort a ransom from his well-to-do father-in-law. Given the level of deception and criminality involved it is possible that the lack of visibility at the opening of the movie signifies the moral blindness of the perpetrators. Also, as Nayman notes, Jerry's towing "the second vehicle is like an albatross around his neck."

The two men Jerry hires to do his dirty work are Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare). Carl is a talker, and right from the beginning he starts to question why a man would sink so low as to kidnap his own wife. But, he gets tongue-tied while speaking, receives a withering look from Gaear, and quickly capitulates to the immorality by wanting to take a look at the Ciera. When they approach Jerry’s house to take his wife, there is a telling scene about the two opposing worlds that exist in this story. Jerry’s wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrüd) sits comfortably on her couch, industriously knitting, watching television, looking out through her picture window at the peaceful surroundings when a man with a ski mask approaches the window, trying to peer inside. Jean looks like she is just watching another TV show projected on another glass screen. Then she is caught like the proverbial deer in the headlights, unable to even think that anything bad is happening until the man smashes through the window, basically shattering her safe life, wrenching her through the looking glass and delivering her into the dark side of this existence.

In Blood Simple, the Coens first explored how all intelligence and reason go out the door when people become obsessed with money. Here, the wrong decision to allow greed to rule leads to a domino effect where more and more dumb and violent acts follow each other. A policeman stops the two kidnappers because Carl negligently forgot to replace the dealer tags on the Ciera. When Jean, bound up in the back seat, makes a noise, the policeman becomes suspicious. Carl comes to violence slowly. He threatened Jean hesitantly when the cop approached by saying she must be quiet, “Or we’ll have to, ya’ know, shoot you.” Not his large partner. Gaear, who, with white hair, resembles the Abominable Snowman. He, unlike is babbling fellow criminal, hardly speaks. He has a frozen facial expression, almost like he is in hibernation. That is until his killer instincts kick in. He grabs a gun from the glove compartment, pulls the policeman’s head down against the open car window and shoots the officer in the head. Carl is shocked by the attack. As Carl tries to remove the body from the road, another car goes by with people witnessing the dead cop. The dominoes keep falling as Gaear pursues the other car at high speed, forcing them to go off the road and overturn their vehicle. Like a cold killer, fitting in with the landscape, Gaear assassinates the two.

In the middle of this mayhem is the loving couple comprised of Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand, Oscar winner for Best Actress) and her husband, Norm (John Carroll Lynch). She is an unlikely hero at first glance. She is seven months pregnant, but it turns out can still handle the full duties as Brainerd’s Chief of Police. She and her husband dote on each other. When she is awakened about the homicides, Norm says he’ll make her eggs, despite her protests, telling her, “You have to have a breakfast.” Even though it is so cold out that the police car won’t start, she can rely on him and comes back into the house because the “Prowler needs a jump.” She encourages him in his hobby of painting birds, saying how important it is that his drawing will be on the three cent stamp because they are needed to make up the difference between the old and new rates. She takes time to pick up worms for his fishing, and he meets with her for a lunch buffet with Muzak playing in the background, showing how serene their life is compared to what Marge has to deal with in the outside world. They smile as they say that they love each other. In the midst of this violence and the bitter weather, these two are like a warm fireplace, and Marge can go out and fight crime knowing Norm has her back. At one point Gaer is watching a documentary about beetles at the same time that Marge is doing the same while she is in bed with her husband. Nayman stresses the contrasting contexts of these images which imply that for Gaer, it reflects the "insectoid evil" that he is a part of, while for Marge, the beetles exhibit how a mother provides food for her offspring. 

I’m not the first to point this out, but there are vertical blinds in Jerry’s office at the car dealership (owned by his father-in-law), which makes it look like he is in a virtual prison now because of his financial mishaps, and foretells his future place of residence behind bars. He is even dishonest in his job, as we see him deceive a customer about the charge for a car sealant. He is fraudulently borrowing money based on the dealership’s cars to try to pay off some illegal debts he has incurred. Probably part of his problem is the belittling way he is treated by Jean’s overbearing father, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell), to whom he is obligated for giving him his livelihood. Wade says to him, after Jerry wants a loan to make a deal to better provide for his family, “Jean and Scotty never have to worry.” Which means Jerry is a lousy breadwinner, and Wade couldn’t care less what happens to his son-in-law if things go south financially. Jerry’s folksy speech and soothing voice mask a seething, twisted soul beneath. He seems to have forgotten what damage would come to his son finding out that his mother was kidnapped. The overhead shot of him walking in the snowy parking lot makes him look like a tiny speck of life and emphasizes what a morally small man he is. His minuscule ethics are placed in ironic counterpoint to shots of the literally larger-than-life statue we see of Paul Bunyan, a mythical lumberjack who symbolized strength and heroic acts in the face of the adversary in this frozen expanse. (Nayman says that the brawny Gaear who dresses like Bunyan and later uses an axe, "is richly suggestive of the disparity between cultural myths and their earthbound inspirations."), We see Jerry’s inner self when he erupts scraping ice off of his windshield when Wade won’t lend him the money, and when he is confronted by Marge about the stolen tan Ciera that the dead policeman mentioned in his report. At the end he does not have the courage to face up to what he set in motion, but instead tries to run away from his crimes, and squeals like a caught animal when the police find him in a motel room.

Greed warps Wade who wants to horse-trade the amount to be paid for his daughter’s release. He is so covetous of his money that he wants to be the one meeting with Carl, dismissing Jerry by saying he will “muck” things up, and thus subverting Jerry’s plans to get the cash. Wade recklessly takes a gun with him and surprises Carl, who has caught the violence bug from Gaear. Angry about someone other than Jerry showing up, he shoots Wade dead, but not before Wade shoots him on the side of the face. He takes the ransom which turns out to be a million dollars instead of the $80,000 Jerry said would be the ransom. Carl then kills the parking attendant, eliminating a witness, just as Gaear had done. His greed kicks in now, taking only the eighty grand with him to deceive his partner, and, in an amazingly “blood simple” way, buries the rest of the money under the snow next to a long expanse of fence, with only a small ice scraper as a marker. When he gets back to the cabin where the two are staying he finds Jean dead on the floor, obviously killed by Gaear, because, as the snowman says, she was starting to scream. Despite the fact that Carl has a ton of money stashed away (if he can find it) it doesn’t slacken his thirst for more compensation. He says the Ciera is his and threatens his partner to let him have it. He walks out the door but Gaear goes after him with that axe, so unmoved by murder that he puts on his hat before going outdoors to kill someone.

The film showcases Marge’s intelligence and investigative talents. She knows the whole scenario behind the killings on the road, concluding by the size of the footprints that there were two perpetrators of different size. She realizes that the patrolman’s license plate notation of “DLR” means that the automobile he stopped was recently acquired from a dealership. She tracks the car to Jerry’s place of employment. There is a scene where Marge has dinner with an Asian American man, an acquaintance of her past, which adds humor to the story because despite his ethnic background, his manner of speaking resembles those long-time residents of the area. Some have felt the scene doesn’t fit in well with the film. However, her finding out that this man lied about being married and his wife passing away leads Marge to conclude that some men, although appearing innocent, can be devious. It is after her discovery of this deception that she realizes that Jerry may be lying about the car being stolen from his lot. Her suspicions are confirmed when she presses him for an inventory check and Jerry runs off.

After finding out that the two kidnappers are staying at the lake she drives around looking for the car, which she discovers. The greed for this object turns out to be an anchor which sinks the criminals. She finds Gaear trying to get rid of Jerry’s body in a chipper. She confronts the killer, who flees, but Marge stops him with a shot to the leg. After she secures Gear in the back of the police car she simply but precisely sums up the devastation that comes from avarice, and how alien is Gaear’s way of life compared to hers. All these deaths have occurred “for what? For a little bit of money? There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha you know that? And here ya’ are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.”

With the female Marge being the provider of the family, and coming home to the male domestic Norm, we have a flipping of the "norm." As Nayman says, the "traditional roles in life and cinema" are reversed. The film ends with stability restored, after so much chaos, in the warmth of the Gunderson’s bed, and we are encouraged by their hope for the future as the birth of their child approaches. As Norm rests his hand on Marge’s protruding belly, he says, “Two more months.” She repeats, “Two more months.” 

The next film is Marnie.