- 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
[…] Blood Simple – Coen […]
Would you have any serious qualms about my calling this a masterpiece? After my first viewing, I think it may be the Coens’ most bracingly directed work, cracking with elegant tracking shots, visual homages to Sam Raimi (for whom Joel Coen had worked as editor on The Evil Dead) such as the shaky cam in the scene where Marty attacks Abby, formal symbolism such as the drop of water in the final scene (which ties back to the line about Walsh’s misson: “The drop has changed, but the run remains the same”), instruments of suspense that would have done Hitchcock proud (the approaching headlights, the knife in the hand, etc.). You also have the motif of light vs dark as evil vs good, with Marty first attacking Abby in broad daylight, and Abby taking refuge in the shadows as the Walsh character expires in the bathroom (there are other examples which I can’t remember); a quintessential neo noir both in its ambient vibrations, aided by stylish neon visuals and the haunting minimalist piano score, as well as the unabated pessimism of its script, which in my opinion has one of the greatest final lines in history. McDormand and Hedaya are excellent, but Walsh is simply unforgettable, truly a “poet of sleaze” as Ebert esteemed him. Possibly my favorite Coen, though that may have something to do with the fact that I, like many, know The Big Lebowski like the back of my hand at this point, whereas this is still fresh to me because I’ve only seen it once.
@Max- Not at all. As a rule I don not think a one grade discrepancy is worth getting in an uproar about usually. Great work here by the way.
@Max
I see this post is from a while ago but I started Coen Brother’s Study and was similarly blown away at how great this was. I had seen it once before but it was years ago and I did not remember being anywhere near as impressed.
I think this is darker than their later films or maybe it just seems that way without their usual humor to balance out the violence with the exception of the PI played by M. Emmet Walsh. Also, there is no real clear protagonist or characters that are genuinely likeable although the PI played by M. Emmet Walsh is certainly entertaining and I love that Ebert quote as well.
Frances McDormand’s Abby is not really a femme fatale even though on the surface it is her affair that seems to be the driving force for putting everything in motion. To each their own but I don’t really think of McDormand (even young like she is here) as a great beauty like Jane Greer, Veronica Lake, or Ava Gardner. She is having an affair yes, but we also see her husband is an abusive scumbag. Speaking of which, Dan Hedaya might give the best performance as he plays the husband who is being cheated on with such seething rage, that is somewhat rare for angry movie characters who we expect to have over the top outbursts and be constantly talking but in a way I think this actually makes him even more menacing. There are several scenes with him sitting silently letting the anger within boil.
Open roads and shots of fields used as motif to randomness and chance that Coen Brothers became known for not to mention greed whenever a bag of cash is there for the taking; Fargo, No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, and The Man Who Wasn’t There. All these films have some aspects of this. The overhead shots we see repeated throughout Fargo.
The stretch of the film from Ray discovering Julian near death to the burial scene was so tense and utterly horrifying. Few films actually show not just the brutality but also the messiness of actually carrying out a murder. And not just the act of murder but the aftermath including disposing of or in some way making the body disappear.
There was Brilliant editing throughout final 10 minutes with the cat and mouse scenes in the apartment. I was reminded of Polanski regarding the manipulation of a contained space like the inside of the apartment where the use of close up shots and various camera angles would create a more claustrophic environment. A couple times in the film the camera would either zoom out of go from close up to a long shot and I realized the area such as the apartment was actually a larger space than it initially appeared to be.
@Graham and @Max- hopefully it looks better now