You bet, ‘Fargo’ deserves its praise

By JOHN HANSEN

MARCH 16, 2006

“Fargo” was one of the most-honored and best-reviewed films of 1996. It racked up seven Academy Award nominations (and two wins) and was named the year’s best movie by the New York Film Critics Circle. Respected critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the best films I’ve ever seen.”

Today, movie fans still love the Coen brothers’ film. It ranks No. 101 on the Internet Movie Database’s all-time rankings. “Fargo” has earned its title as the Great Brainerd Movie.

“Fargo” wasn’t filmed in Brainerd — or in its titular location, for that matter — but St. Louis Park natives Joel and Ethan Coen deserve credit for not only setting a movie here, but setting it in the dead of winter.

To argue that “Fargo’s” Brainerd doesn’t feel like the real Brainerd is to miss the point. There’s no question the film has a sense of place, even if that place is the nothingness of rural Bathgate, N.D. The film’s menacing Paul Bunyan statue isn’t the real one, but it certainly fits the dark mood more than our friendly looking lumberjack. The truisms of living up north are right there on screen: Any Brainerdite can relate to Jerry Lundegaard scraping his truck’s ice-caked windshield in frustration.

Besides, in not being filmed on location, “Fargo” is in good company. “Mallrats” is set in New Jersey, but it was filmed in Eden Prairie; the location sleight of hand doesn’t make the comedy any less funny. I loved all the Roswellian touches of TV’s “Roswell” and didn’t care one bit that it was shot entirely in and around Hollywood. The excellent “X-Files” explored mysteries all over the United States, and you’d hardly guess it was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Coens employed creative license by using real city names to evoke a mood for viewers who have never been to this neck of the woods. Minneapolis is a cold hub; Brainerd is a barren backwater; Fargo, N.D., is the gateway to the end of the Earth; and Bismarck, N.D., where Lundegaard flees, actually is the end of the Earth. Go west from there and you’ve entered hell itself. It’s not reality, but it’s a great metaphor.

Those accents and colloquialisms (“You betcha,” “yer darn tootin’,” “heckuva deal,” “for Pete’s sake,” “yaaaaah”) might be exaggerated, but they’re also laugh-out-loud funny. You can’t beat the scene with the hookers from Chaska and Le Sueur (“Well, White Bear Lake originally — go Bears”) and their description of Steve Buscemi’s character as “funny looking. Even more than most people.”

To argue that it’s all a mean jab against Minnesotans is to again miss the point, as director Joel Coen explained in a March 1996 Associated Press story: “You can laugh at a friend or yourself even … at behavior that is funny. But that doesn’t mean that you’re condescending.”

Frances McDormand’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Brainerd Police Chief Marge Gunderson is the opposite of condescending. Ebert described McDormand’s performance as “true in every individual moment.” Gary Susman of the Boston Phoenix wrote that Marge is “the first movie cop in about 45 years who’s not neurotic, tortured, cynical, scarred or tainted by her brushes with evil.” Premiere Magazine ranked Marge as the 27th best movie character ever (one spot behind E.T. and three spots ahead of King Kong).

The Coen brothers’ script is consistently funny, and the lines are expertly delivered by McDormand, Buscemi and William H. Macy. As wild and unpredictable as the plot is, it seems like this is how it might really go down: Lundegaard is unable to call off the kidnapping. Not because the kidnappers are crazy, not because they are double-crossing him and not because they got a better deal. It’s simply because Lundegaard doesn’t know the kidnappers’ phone number.

Contrasting the comedy, the violence in “Fargo” is undeniably effective. In the DVD documentary “Minnesota Nice,” the Coens say the film is partly a commentary on the potential for violence in repressed, polite societies. Even if you nodded in agreement when Marge concluded after one glance at the crime scene that the killers couldn’t be from Brainerd, take heart that there are actually no violent locals in “Fargo.” Their origins are unexplained, but kidnappers Gaear and Carl don’t seem to be Fargoans or Minnesotans — Gaear had never been to the Twin Cities and Carl doesn’t have the accent.

Introducing the film as “based on a true story” — when it’s actually not — cleverly pushes the envelope of what you can get away with in a film. It’s kind of hilarious that the AP continually reported that “Fargo” was based on a true story and that Ebert wrote, “I have no doubt that events something like this really did take place in Minnesota in 1987.” It shows that while the Coens are serious, artistic filmmakers, they don’t take any of it too seriously.

“Fargo” was a groundbreaking film when it came out, and 10 years later, there’s still nothing like it.

For Pete’s sake, ‘Fargo’ is overrated

By JOHN HANSEN

MARCH 16, 2006

Sure, “Fargo” was showered with awards and glowing reviews, but not many of those voters or critics were from Minnesota. In fact, most of them had probably never been to Fargo, N.D., or Brainerd.

The Dispatch didn’t review the film, but the paper’s disgust for “Fargo” was as pure as the bright white landscape that bookends the movie. An April 22, 1996, editorial basically argued that all copies of this stereotype-reinforcing, overly violent piece of junk should be destroyed, ending with the kiss-off, “Anybody got a match?”

If “Fargo” is the Great Brainerd Movie, it’s only because of a lack of challengers to that throne. Its closest competitor is the 2005 docu-comedy “The Hole Story,” about the black hole on North Long Lake a few winters ago, but that film doesn’t yet have a distribution deal so almost no one has seen it. Still, I’d give the nod to “The Hole Story” sight unseen because at least it was filmed in Brainerd.

Roger Ebert called “Fargo” “completely original.” Well, sure it is, but that’s only because it’s not remotely based on the real cities of Fargo or Brainerd. The movie’s “rural Brainerd” is actually farmland along Highway 1 near Bathgate in northeastern North Dakota, not the tree-lined corridors that lead into our city. The film’s Fargo is a one-shack outpost in the middle of nowhere, not a city of 90,000 people with a major university.

The movie doesn’t even bother with an establishing shot of Brainerd; that’s lazy filmmaking. We just see barren roads, the police station, Marge’s house, the Blue Ox truck stop and the Lakeside Bar, none of which are actual Brainerd locations. The Coen brothers didn’t even bother to shoot the real Paul Bunyan statue, instead designing an out-of-character, mean-looking version to greet visitors.

Aside from the opening scene at the fictional King of Clubs, the film doesn’t even take place in Fargo. But at least the misleading title is one punch to the gut aimed at Fargo instead of Brainerd. Former Fargoan and Washington Post writer James Lileks, who is not a fan of the film, gave his theory on the title: “To the real world, Fargo is a spatter of brick and wood on the edge of the world, a tight grim cyst of humanity where no one is tanned but everyone is freezer-burned, where Jell-O is a fruit and Heinz 57 is Tabasco. ‘Brainerd’ means nothing to anyone.”

And since it was filmed in the nothingness of North Dakota, “nothing” was certainly the impression given off by the Coen brothers’ Brainerd. The filmmakers missed an opportunity to capture the true character of wintertime in the Brainerd lakes area — snowmobiling and ice fishing — without sacrificing small-town Minnesota quirkiness.

Three of my favorite films are “Sideways,” a road trip through California wine country; “Garden State,” about a young man’s return home to New Jersey; and “Lost in Translation,” about a lonely American’s visit to exotic Tokyo. All were filmed on location, and it’s a big part of what makes those films great. I feel like I’ve been to those places, even though I haven’t. I first watched “Fargo” before I had ever set foot in Brainerd — I grew up in Fargo and watched the film out of a sense of cultural duty — but even then, I didn’t feel like the movie gave me a sense of any Brainerd, real or made up.

What’s more, the geographical movement through the plot seems to exist purely for the sake of funny, quotable lines.

Jean Lundegaard asks her husband, “How was Far-goooohhhhh?”

Carl suggests to his cohort, “Let’s stop outside Brainerd. I know a place there where we can get …” Well, let’s just say “pancakes.”

And later, Jerry Lundegaard and Marge Gunderson have an awkward exchange about Babe the Blue Ox.

Sheer filmic contrivance is the only way to explain why Lundegaard meets the kidnappers in Fargo, even though they clearly aren’t natives of Fargo. Granted, the kidnappers aren’t overly bright, but why would they drive through Brainerd on their way to the Twin Cities when going through St. Cloud would shave off a solid hour? Because the Coens thought Brainerd would be a better landscape to drench in blood, no doubt.

And that’s just one of many geographic inaccuracies. The Blue Ox, really a downtown bar, becomes “that truckers’ joint out on I-35.” Marge tours around Moose Lake on her way back from the Cities; there’s no Moose Lake in the Brainerd lakes area. Norm Gunderson says he plans to go ice fishing “up at Mille Lacs” rather than “over at Mille Lacs.”

Of course, all those geographic lies in “Fargo” are just part of the larger, introductory lie: That it’s all based on true events that “took place in Minnesota in 1987.” (The series of events portrayed in the film didn’t take place anywhere at any time.) That’s not clever, it’s just stupid, as was co-writer Ethan Coen’s coyness in a phone interview with the Dispatch shortly after the film’s release. He brushed off the question about what’s true about the movie with: “Most people don’t care.”

To tell the truth, I don’t really care for “Fargo.”