• Blood Simple is one of the all-time great debut films—lots of them out there from Citizen Kane to The 400 Blows
  • Like nearly all of their work to follow, Blood Simple is a meditation on fate and randomness. We have, here, covering up someone else’s murder, McDormand’s character thinking she’s just killed Hedeya at the end—it absolute packs a punch. The Walsh character laughs and says “if I see him. I’ll sure give him the message”—hauntingly good.
  • Pauline Kael—haha- my oh my- outing herself as a suspect evaluator (though great writer) of film—“isn’t about anything” in a negative review
  • Frances McDormand (stunning in her debut), Dan Hedeya (2nd archiveable film after the hunger in 1983) and Emmett Walsh (a seasoned vet at that time in more than 12 archiveable films under his belt) are all superb— John Getz isn’t amazing and that hurts the film a little
  • Such an assured voice in their debut confident in structure and arc—it’s noir but it has a perverse sense of randomness that doesn’t really touch the majority of the fatalism in the noir genre that precedes it
  • Ebert calls it, praising, a “bewildering labyrinth”
  • Rain on the windows from noir
  • Clearly influenced by Cain- postman always rings twice,
  • It isn’t all writing either- there is the picturesque bar lighting frame within a frame here and there’s a miraculous sliding shot along the bar during with a tracking moving
  • Digital Painting celebrating 1985 Thriller Blood Simple

  • Certainly the POV elements of walsh’s character feels like de palma horror
  • Key plot iconography- the fish on the table, the lighter from Walsh
  • Such economy in the screenplay “husband bought a 38’ for me” in the opening”- every word is accounted for either in plot, character, or mood
  • Car coming while crime is going on would be repeated in Fargo
  • beautiful minimalist Carter Burwell piano score
  • Holly Hunter in a voice mail
  • A fabulous transition going from a close up of McDormand in a bar to her bed
  • I really don’t care at all for the scene of surrealism with Hedeya coming back to talk to McDormand in her apartment- bad form introducing that so late
  • Taut, suspenseful, ingenious
  • Strong physical performances- face as a tapestry- rare for this genre- for McDormand
  • Must-See film top 5 of the year quality