Blood Simple - Eine mörderische Nacht

The Coen brothers' debut feature is a sign of what was to come in their careers. Smart uses of tension, outlandish situations, and camerawork are on full display here and set the tone for their unique style. The story is pretty simple, but it's the viewer's perspective of all the misunderstandings between characters that make this film interesting to watch. Great suspense makes Blood Simple a worthy watch and debut for the Coens.

Blood Simple is pure Coens. There are the usual bag of cinematic tricks, the twisting storyline, the seamy characters, and the occasional droplet of dark humor. The story concerns a bar owner who thinks his wife is cheating on him. He hires a sleazy private investigator to find out, and when he learns the truth, he wants them dead. Trouble is, things get kind of complicated when a murder occurs. The film creates a palpable feeling of tension, where you don't know what to expect next. Half the fun of this film is trying to figure out what will happen. A true testament of the well sturctured nature of the film, is the fact that there are only four main characters, and they hold your attention till the very end. And in traditional film noir fanfare, all of these characters have some sort of sordid business to attend to. The Coens drew on their experiences on Blood Simple and made the similar, but very different, Fargo. Watch Blood Simple for a good old fashioned film noir that will keep you guessing.

The Coens are like Soderbergh, they alternate between risky adventures and "commercial" projects. Only in the Coens' world, it is not so much a matter of commercialism but a matter of respect for the genre. Half of their films are profoundly layered, with a typical genre at the "bottom" and all sorts of annotation and commentary in layers on the top.

Its the same in abstract painting, the real stuff that is: to be good at distancing yourself from representational art, you have to master it before you leave it. So the Coens work on mastering a genre before they extend it (and goof all over it).

Naturally, their first project is a straight genre picture. Naturally, it is good (even excellent in its class), if not particularly novel.

Noir is an abused term. I think there are only two notions that are necessary. The first is the existence of a capricious fate, producing coincidences that toy with humans (usually humans). The second is the placement of the viewer (via the camera) in some sort of conspiracy with this fate. In some nefarious way, the viewer _causes_ some of these.

You'll have to decide whether a noir film made after the period in which it was developed can be enjoyed in the same way. It does necessarily carry some distance, the study rather than the intuition. But the hardest thing in noir is ending. These guys do it as perfectly as I know: the last vision of a dying man, watching something inconsequential but inevitable.

Abby is cheating on husband Marty with his employee Ray. Unbeknownst to them, Marty has had the pair followed and caught in the act by an odious private detective. With Marty rejected he turns to the detective with an offer of money to kill the cheating lovers and dispose of the bodies. The detective accepts and, with Marty out of town to ensure an alibi, the plan seems so clear and simple to execute. However, where blood is involved, nothing ever runs smoothly or simple.

Watching No Country for Old Men recently put me in mind of Blood Simple and gave me an excuse to watch it again for the first time in about a decade. I was glad that I did because, although it is very slimmed down, all the themes and standards that continue with the Cohen brothers down the years. The film is a modern noir-ish crime thriller with a contained set of circumstances bringing death and ruin to all involved. The story is engaging but it does have holes within it but they are not serious enough to affect the flow. What carries it through everything though is the visual style and feel given to the film by the Cohen's. From the opening sequence in the car to the ever present roar of the incinerator to the sweating, cackling presence of the detective, the sparse dialogue just doesn't matter because of the delivery. As with No Country, you can feel the oppressive heat and tension in each scene and it makes for a satisfying film.

The cast play to this heat and tension with contained but tense performances. The standout is Walsh, whose sweaty moral void is the heart of the film. Hedaya is almost as good in a smaller role. The two "lead" characters suffer a little from being less interesting but nevertheless both Getz and McDormand are good. Blood Simple is a tight and short film with limited dialogue and little in the way of quick action. However what it does have is a wonderful sense of Texas and crime. The slow pace adds to the claustrophobic feel of heat, which in turns adds to the tension and the constant presence of death in the air. Amazing to think the Cohen brothers started getting it so right so early in their careers.

This film is the Coen brothers' homage to the great noir thrillers of the golden age. Cheating spouses, feckless private dicks, mistaken identities, a bundle of dirty cash are rendered to their bare essence in the mess of rotting fish sitting on Marty's desk. The film is notable as much for the audacity of the Coen brothers in getting it made as it is for its success in turning the broad, open expanses of west texas into a claustrophobia unknown even to Saddam in his spider hole. It appears the Coens made five minutes of the film to show to investors, though they had absolutely no idea what the rest of the film would look like. They basically sold the mood of the film, and their efforts bore fruit. The film established the Coen brothers as a creative force and Frances McDormand as a rising art house star whose journey would eventually garner Oscar for the Coens' "Fargo." I rate it highly for visual appeal, intelligent story and good sheer suspense and terror.