The Coen Project: Fargo

"So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, ya know? Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it." - Marge Gunderson

The Coens followed up Hudsucker Proxy, their most stiffly formalist work to date, with Fargo, the most humane film in their canon. The humanity of Fargo rests entirely in the character of Brainerd Police Chief Marge Gunderson, who isn't really a "Coen brothers" character at all. She's a tourist in the Coen-verse, someone whose basic decency and intelligence is largely absent in other Coen brothers movies. Marge is a rebuke to any critic who complains that the Coen brothers have nothing but contempt for their characters. They treat Marge with the gentleness and empathy due to someone of her wholesomeness. Most Coen brothers characters are treated with contempt because they are worthy of contempt. The Coens are interested in showing how social forces deform humanity, and the best way to illustrate that is to create deformed humans. And humans don't get much more deformed than the likes of Gaer Grimsrud, Carl Showalter and Jerry Lundegaard. Their dumb lust for money and, in the case of Jerry, the social standing money brings, has turned them into bloody-minded troglodytes. Their lack of humanity is made even starker compared to Marge. The very fact that the Coens created someone like Marge shows that they are not bloodless cynics. They're simply more interested in the sad flailing of people who've absorbed the cutthroat ethos of the American dream than in the humble strivings of good-hearted citizens. And who can blame them? What's more fun, watching Marge and Norm eat Arby's together, or Gaer feeding Carl into the woodchipper?