4) Fargo
For some reason I don’t think I “got” the Coen brothers until I saw Burn After Reading. The ending scene where they two guys are like “So what happened here anyway? What did we do? Nothing I guess. Oh well” sort of summed up how I felt about every Coen movie I had seen up to that point, and it was like an alarm bell going off and I was like “ohhhh so that’s the point of all their movies!” It was revelatory. I went back and rewatched all of them, and now am so outraged that Fargo lost the Academy Award to The English Patient, which I also hated the first time but probably would like more if I ever cared to see it again. To be clear, I do not.
Fargo truly has something for everyone, though. Well-composed steadicam tracking shots? Got those. Beautiful landscape shots and sincere characters contributing to a realistic sense of space and place? At your service. A human being being fed into a wood chipper? Done and done. Steve Buscemi being sexually serviced? Thought you’d never ask. Scene after perfectly constructed scene, Fargo is mesmerizing and absurd, a perfect summation of the short-term thinking by dumb folks looking for easy money. At least they earned some kudos for No Country for Old Men.
