Fargo is one of my all time favorite movies. As it says at the outset, it is based on a true story (well, not exactly true…the Coen brothers who wrote/directed/produced the film “clarified” that claim after the film came out, saying instead it is based on bits and pieces of several stories), and is thus a relatively good example of art imitating life (as opposed to, say, life imitating art).
The interesting thing about the film to me is, that it is not really a whodunit, but rather a “whydunit.” It starts out with one of the main characters, Jerry Lundegaard (played by William H. Macy) plotting to kidnap his wife (a kidnapping which in fact turns into several acts of felony murder…the wife, a state trooper, two motorists, his father-in-law, a parking garage attendant and a “funny looking” hoodlum all end up dead as a result of this rather poorly planned kidnapping).
So, right off the bat the audience knows Jerry is behind the kidnapping. What we are left wondering about at the outset is: why? Jerry Lundegaard immediately comes across as a harmless looking, clean-cut, middle class guy…how can someone who looks like that get involved in a kidnapping and felony murder plot, associating with dangerous characters in dimly lit bar? Thus one of the sub-plots to this movie is a search for why and how. When asked by one of the co-conspirators (the funny-looking thug, played by Steve Buscemi), Jerry vaguely indicates that he needs money, but is otherwise very evasive: “…these are personal matters.”
In this blog post, I am going to skip over the other sub-plots in this excellent movie (ie, the murderous rampage of the bungling kidnappers, and the search for them by the intrepid and very pregnant Marge Gunderson), and focus only on the Jerry Lundegaard sub-plot…why does he want to put his wife at risk by kidnapping her, and how did he ever devolve to such a level of criminality?
The Coen brothers give us our first clue towards answering these questions, in the TruCoat scene. It depicts Jerry at work, just a typical day as a car salesman in Minneapolis. A customer and his wife are with Jerry at the showroom, and they are not happy. It seems they ordered a new car from Jerry, and Jerry is informing them that due to an “accident” the car comes with this expensive TruCoat sealant they did not ask for, or desire. And Jerry is telling them they cannot take possession of the car without paying an extra $500 for the unordered and unwanted sealant.
Well, the customer complains bitterly, and eventually Jerry goes into the back room to argue the customer’s case with “his boss.” But not really. Turns out, he stands around the break room instead, chatting about a hockey game with a co-worker. He never intended to talk to the “boss.” It is clear the whole thing is a scam. Jerry is lying to this customer…a lie which he is obviously well versed in. It is a lie that he has performed, over and over again, as part of his regular duty as an ordinary car salesman.
JERRY: Well, he never done this before, but seein' as it's special circumstances and all, he says I can knock one hunnert off that TruCoat.
CUSTOMER: One hundred! You lied to me, Mr. Lundegaard. You're a bald-faced liar!
(Jerry sits staring at his lap.)
CUSTOMER: ... A fucking liar -
WIFE: Bucky, please!
(Jerry mumbles into his lap) JERRY: One hunnert's the best we can do here.
CUSTOMER: Oh, for Christ's sake, where's my goddamn checkbook. Let's get this over with.
So, you all can see the purpose of these scene in the movie, I am sure…it is to point out that Jerry, by being a car salesman, is a habitual liar. Now, you may say, “well, those are just lies, not kidnapping or murder…” and car salesmen (and people in similar disreputable industries) make little white lies like this all the time, big deal. But what you have to keep in mind is the sheer volume of lying Jerry must engage in, day after day, as part of his sales job. It’s the quantity of the lying, not so much the quality, that you can see is probably the beginning of Jerry’s decline into more serious criminal behavior.
The next important scene revealing Jerry’s decent towards murder comes while he is in his office; he answers a most unwelcome phone call from an official at GMAC. Long story short: It seems Jerry has advanced from the nickel and dime lying of your average car salesman, to felony fraud and grand larceny. He has scammed GMAC for $320,000…for loans on apparently non-existent cars to fictitious customers. And GMAC wants the non-existent VIN numbers from him.
So, we the audience can begin to see the progression here: first petty lying, now criminal fraud. This GMAC scam seems a bit akin to identity theft; it makes you wonder if the buyers for these non-existent cars are fake or real? It is obviously a more complex fraud than, say, simply misrepresenting the nature of an item for sale, but criminal fraud it is, indeed; and we the audience can surmise that such serious criminality must have sprung from the day to day habit of lying, alluded to above; which loosened his moral compass to the point such decent into felonious behavior became, in fact, a relatively small and believable step to undertake.
It is not clear what Jerry did with this $320,000 of GMAC money he took, except that he must have lost it somehow (gambling? bad investments?) and he now finds himself heavily in debt. And with no chance of getting any mercy from his parsimonious father-in-law, has finds he HAS to try something desperate…hence, the audience finally has the mystery revealed…the why and how of Jerry Lundegaard’s decent to kidnapper and murderer is now fully explained.
If someone were to tell me “Gee, thins was a good movie, but I just don’t understand Jerry’s motive here,” I would naturally assume this person had been taking too many bathroom breaks during the movie. The why and how evidence is plain, and clearly revealed in those key scenes. To understand Jerry, you just have to watch those scenes.
And at the end of the movie, when the cops finally catch and arrest him…it is hard not to feel a little sorry for Jerry Lundegaard. Still, as the audience knows, kidnapping and murder are crimes…for which the penalties must be paid.
Humbly, as always, at your service...you betcha! jim
The interesting thing about the film to me is, that it is not really a whodunit, but rather a “whydunit.” It starts out with one of the main characters, Jerry Lundegaard (played by William H. Macy) plotting to kidnap his wife (a kidnapping which in fact turns into several acts of felony murder…the wife, a state trooper, two motorists, his father-in-law, a parking garage attendant and a “funny looking” hoodlum all end up dead as a result of this rather poorly planned kidnapping).
So, right off the bat the audience knows Jerry is behind the kidnapping. What we are left wondering about at the outset is: why? Jerry Lundegaard immediately comes across as a harmless looking, clean-cut, middle class guy…how can someone who looks like that get involved in a kidnapping and felony murder plot, associating with dangerous characters in dimly lit bar? Thus one of the sub-plots to this movie is a search for why and how. When asked by one of the co-conspirators (the funny-looking thug, played by Steve Buscemi), Jerry vaguely indicates that he needs money, but is otherwise very evasive: “…these are personal matters.”
In this blog post, I am going to skip over the other sub-plots in this excellent movie (ie, the murderous rampage of the bungling kidnappers, and the search for them by the intrepid and very pregnant Marge Gunderson), and focus only on the Jerry Lundegaard sub-plot…why does he want to put his wife at risk by kidnapping her, and how did he ever devolve to such a level of criminality?
The Coen brothers give us our first clue towards answering these questions, in the TruCoat scene. It depicts Jerry at work, just a typical day as a car salesman in Minneapolis. A customer and his wife are with Jerry at the showroom, and they are not happy. It seems they ordered a new car from Jerry, and Jerry is informing them that due to an “accident” the car comes with this expensive TruCoat sealant they did not ask for, or desire. And Jerry is telling them they cannot take possession of the car without paying an extra $500 for the unordered and unwanted sealant.
Well, the customer complains bitterly, and eventually Jerry goes into the back room to argue the customer’s case with “his boss.” But not really. Turns out, he stands around the break room instead, chatting about a hockey game with a co-worker. He never intended to talk to the “boss.” It is clear the whole thing is a scam. Jerry is lying to this customer…a lie which he is obviously well versed in. It is a lie that he has performed, over and over again, as part of his regular duty as an ordinary car salesman.
JERRY: Well, he never done this before, but seein' as it's special circumstances and all, he says I can knock one hunnert off that TruCoat.
CUSTOMER: One hundred! You lied to me, Mr. Lundegaard. You're a bald-faced liar!
(Jerry sits staring at his lap.)
CUSTOMER: ... A fucking liar -
WIFE: Bucky, please!
(Jerry mumbles into his lap) JERRY: One hunnert's the best we can do here.
CUSTOMER: Oh, for Christ's sake, where's my goddamn checkbook. Let's get this over with.
So, you all can see the purpose of these scene in the movie, I am sure…it is to point out that Jerry, by being a car salesman, is a habitual liar. Now, you may say, “well, those are just lies, not kidnapping or murder…” and car salesmen (and people in similar disreputable industries) make little white lies like this all the time, big deal. But what you have to keep in mind is the sheer volume of lying Jerry must engage in, day after day, as part of his sales job. It’s the quantity of the lying, not so much the quality, that you can see is probably the beginning of Jerry’s decline into more serious criminal behavior.
The next important scene revealing Jerry’s decent towards murder comes while he is in his office; he answers a most unwelcome phone call from an official at GMAC. Long story short: It seems Jerry has advanced from the nickel and dime lying of your average car salesman, to felony fraud and grand larceny. He has scammed GMAC for $320,000…for loans on apparently non-existent cars to fictitious customers. And GMAC wants the non-existent VIN numbers from him.
So, we the audience can begin to see the progression here: first petty lying, now criminal fraud. This GMAC scam seems a bit akin to identity theft; it makes you wonder if the buyers for these non-existent cars are fake or real? It is obviously a more complex fraud than, say, simply misrepresenting the nature of an item for sale, but criminal fraud it is, indeed; and we the audience can surmise that such serious criminality must have sprung from the day to day habit of lying, alluded to above; which loosened his moral compass to the point such decent into felonious behavior became, in fact, a relatively small and believable step to undertake.
It is not clear what Jerry did with this $320,000 of GMAC money he took, except that he must have lost it somehow (gambling? bad investments?) and he now finds himself heavily in debt. And with no chance of getting any mercy from his parsimonious father-in-law, has finds he HAS to try something desperate…hence, the audience finally has the mystery revealed…the why and how of Jerry Lundegaard’s decent to kidnapper and murderer is now fully explained.
If someone were to tell me “Gee, thins was a good movie, but I just don’t understand Jerry’s motive here,” I would naturally assume this person had been taking too many bathroom breaks during the movie. The why and how evidence is plain, and clearly revealed in those key scenes. To understand Jerry, you just have to watch those scenes.
And at the end of the movie, when the cops finally catch and arrest him…it is hard not to feel a little sorry for Jerry Lundegaard. Still, as the audience knows, kidnapping and murder are crimes…for which the penalties must be paid.
Humbly, as always, at your service...you betcha! jim
3 comments:
The moral of the story is that things like little white lies can and do get out of hand. We've all taken chances and risks, and we all have regrets.
But most people would just think about someone being killed, and then say to themselves "no" that is just too heavy and I can't and couldn't live with it. "We don't need that" would be my thoughts exactly. I'm too paranoid as it is, I "think" too much and would not be able to have normal dreams at night after the killing.
But if your main occupation is playing a fantasy sexual role for hire, and you spend many of your waking hours convinced that it is your other person having sex with guys you find unattractive, and not your real person, then you might be detached enough already that saying no in one of your occupations (lives) might not be no in the other life you are living. What was once neat and tidy could become a mass of confusion emotionally.
This confusion could become so strong that one could murder someone and then stand back and plead convincingly that they had nothing to do with it.
Brian De Palma's early film "Sisters" (I think I recall) has one of the sisters who has convinced herself convincingly that she did not butcher anyone, and that is was somebody else (the other sister I think). I have not seen this movie in decades, but the images are very powerful and some of the plot remains impressed upon film viewers regardless if they liked or remember much of that 70s horror minor masterwork.
But anyway, I truly hope that there is a trial because then we will get to hear some pretty good stories that reveal just where and what place the participants are living in. It might even play out that an insanity plea could have been filed and granted to one of more of the defendants, we know that at least one of the Sisters in De Palma's pretty picture was surely was insane. Could any of the people involved here be short a card or two in their deck? Like "Sisters" we don't know for sure who did the slashing, but we think we have narrowed it down some.
Jim Fargo is one my favorite Coen Bros films. This film and PleasantVille really made me sit up & notice William H Macy.
Your observation was so dead on and I think it is one of the reasons most Americans have so much contempt for Used Car salesman and Politicians.
They Lie with impunity daily over and over and have the gall to think we will or should not notice!
At least an Escort or Prostitute is an honest whore, we all know they are paid to lie both verbally (oh yeah your so sexy and look just like Brad Pitt said to a 250lb 5'6" client) or a physical lie(faking the interest & the orgasm) it's understood by both parties, it's a part of the contract.
Whats sad are the individuals(like Jerry Lundegaard)who don't see their own criminality and moral bankruptcy! And I include our present POTUS in that category. We have not had such criminality since Nixon and his Den of Thieves!
And yet if you asked George Bush to his face are you an Honorable man he would Answer emphatically Yes!
Nixon did the same.
Jerry Lundegaard's Both!
The Banality of Evil, it can never recognize it's own criminality!
Dewayne, even if you were waterboarded, you could not cite one instance in which George W. Bush has made a false statement or given a false piece of information deliberately presented as being true (as opposed to statements and information that later may have turned out to be false in the light of new information). In the case of the Fargo character and the criminal suspects we are discussing, they knew they were making false statements at the time they made them.
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