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| Frances
McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Harve Presnell |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Man: So, I'm tendin' bar there
at Ecklund and Swedlin's last Tuesday and this little guy's drinkin'
and he says, "So where can a guy find some action? I'm goin' crazy
down there at the lake." And I says, "What kinda action?" and he
says, "Woman action, what do I look like?" And I says, "Well, what
do I look like, I don't arrange that kinda thing," and he
says, "I'm goin' crazy out there at the lake," and I says, "Well,
this ain't that kinda place."
Gary: Uh-huh.
Man: So he says, "So I get it, so you think I'm some kinda jerk
for askin'," only he doesn't use the word jerk.
Gary: I understand.
Man: And then he calls me a jerk and says the last guy who
thought he was a jerk was dead now. So I don't say nothin'. And
he says, "What do ya think about that?" So I says, "Well, that don't
sound like too good a deal for him then."
Gary: Ya got that right.
A
car salesman in Minnesota masterminds a scheme in which he hires two
hoodlums to kidnap his wife so his wealthy father-in-law will pay the
ransom and solve his money problems.
 Movies
like Fargo are those unique little cinematic jewels that
pop up unexpectedly and whose success is completely baffling to
everyone, not in the least to the filmmakers themselves. After the
commercial failure of The Hudsucker Proxy, the rather expensive
Joel Silver-produced comedy that was supposed to have been the Coen
brothers' breakthrough movie in the mainstream market, they decided
to forget about ever being successful and went ahead and made a
movie even their best friends thought only a handful of Minnesotans
would ever 'get'. But Fargo proved a bit of a runaway success,
eventually winning Oscars for Best Screenplay and Best Actress.
Frances McDormand got most of the attention ensuing from the film's
success, but character actor William H. Macy is the one who gives the
subtlest, most affecting performance in this reviewer's opinion. McDormand's
pregnant sheriff may be an odd-ball original, but her wide-eyed mannerisms
don't have the range of Macy's role of Jerry Lundergaard, who makes
an unlikable loser working himself into a tight spot painful, tragic
and funny to behold.
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Two movie-only releases have been available
for Region 1, both of which have now gone out of print in anticipation
of the Special Edition expected to be released in North-America
later this year. Various movie-only releases have also been available
from several distributors in Region 2. The long-awaited Special
Edition is being released for Region 2 in April 2003 and served
as the basis for this review.
The widescreen image, framed at
1.85:1 is anamorphic and is overall of excellent quality. The minor
defects in the source print, such as the hairs, scratches and dust
visible in the preivous Region 1 release from MGM/UA have been cleaned
up considerably, and the compression artefacts that had been visible
in some of the shots of snowy exteriors are also completely gone.
There is a slight softness to the image, but colors, blacks and
fleshtones are natural and consistent, making this the best this
movie has looked on home video thus far.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtrack has also been spruced up a bit, with
better spreading of ambient sound when compared to the Region 1
MGM/UA release, though rear channel activity still remains mostly
limited to subtle enhancement of location sound and deep support
of the exquisite musical score.
The main supplement in this solid
special edition is the newly produced 30-minute documentary 'Minnesota
Nice', which features new interview footage of Frances McDormand,
the Coen brothers, William H. Macy and Peter Stormare, as well as
older clips featuring Steve Buscemi. It's an excellent production
that covers all the bases on the film's concept, production and
aftermath, with solid input from most participants. Almost equally
interesting is the 20-minute interview with the Coen Brothers
(McDormand is also present, but speaks fairly little throughout)
from the Charlie Rose Show. Rose is an intelligent, articulate interviewer
who talks to them interestingly about their craft and their reputation
as uncommercial filmmakers.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins provides an audio commentary
track that's reasonably informative, but that is also mostly redundant
after watching the documentary. The soft-spoken Englishman also
falls silent a lot of the time, making this addition something of
a disappointment. More lively is the trivia track that can
run alongside the film. Its informative value is however mostly
limited to listing on-screen actors' previous films and citing dictionary
definitions of semi-relevant terms. Film buffs will get more out
of the article from American Cinematographer that has been
reprinted in a series of text screens. It's an in-depth look at
the production process that can get a little technical but that
offers probably the best insight into the film and its visual look
available on this disc. It's complemented by a still gallery
with many behind-the-scenes production shots. A generous selection
of trailers and TV spots rounds out these variable
but overall quite decent supplements. The
animated menus are impressively designed, like snow being scraped
off the front of a car windshield and footage from the film playing
in the background.
Dan Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: March
31, 2003
Click
here for IMDB info on Fargo.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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