Blood Simple
by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dan Hedaya, Frances McDormand, John Getz, M. Emmet Walsh, Samm-Art WilliamsDirector: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cinematographer: Barry Sonnenfeld
Editor: Joel Coen
Editor: Ethan Coen
Editor: Don Wiegmann
Producer: Daniel F. Bacaner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-09-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal
Movie Reviews of Blood Simple
Movie Review: First outing for the Coens is an outstanding 80's film noir thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the Coen brothers' directorial film debut, and not only is it different from most other films in the Coens' catalog of work, it is just a different kind of film altogether. With a budget of just a little more than one million dollars and four main characters, the Coen brothers created a film noir thriller 35 years after the genre had expired. In this film the Coens demonstrate that if you have a conscience, a killing can be hard to carry out, but regardless of whether or not you have a conscience, a killing is hard to get away with.
Throughout the film, as is true in many film noirs, the audience is kept aware of most of what is really going on, which is a grand misunderstanding with very tragic consequences. The four characters are all being misled by the incomplete part of the jigsaw puzzle that each of them possesses. The setup is simple enough: Ray is having an affair with Abby, wife of his evil boss Marty. Marty gets angry about the situation and decides to pay a private eye to murder both of them. Things proceed to go as badly as possible for everyone from that point on as each of our characters are mainly motivated by mistrust - even the young lovers Ray and Abby.
What makes Blood Simple different from other Coen brothers films is he complete lack of humor throughout the entire film. Even the bleak "Fargo" is sprinkled with humor throughout. Equally noticeable is the cold remoteness that fills every square inch of this film which includes everything from Abby's Texas-sized apartment, to the flat open stretches of Texas landscape. This cold remoteness just seems to magnify the quiet terror of what is going on. For in this movie, the spilling of blood isn't clean, easy, or free of emotional consequence. For example, when one character is in the process of burying the "body" of someone he believed had been murdered by someone else, he finds out, much to his surprise, that the person is actually still alive. Now faced with the "necessity" of killing this person to cover up the crime, he finds the task impossible. As a result, he winds up actually killing the person in the most horrible way possible - by simply ignorring the fact that he is still alive and burying him anyway - all because he is too queasy to commit the overt act of shooting someone himself. As we witness the sun come up on a day bereft of the life of the deceased and the entombment complete, it's very relieving to remember it's only a movie.
None of this is to say that Blood Simple isn't an enjoyable film. Seeing the characters and their lives come apart one by one will keep you riveted to your seat. We already know "who done it," we're just hanging around to see if the other characters figure out not only "who done it", but what it is that has been done in the first place. All the cast members were great and Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, and M. Emmett Walsh have gone on to bigger and better things since this movie was made. I just wonder what happened to John Getz, since he performed just as well as the other three only to remain largely unknown. With the exception of a small part in the remake of "The Fly" in 1986, I can't think of another film in which I've seen him.
In summary, the best thing about Blood Simple is that even if we always know what's happening, we never know what's going to happen next up to the very end. Highly recommended. Unfortunately, this DVD can only be found used. For about twice what this DVD goes for used, you could buy "The Coen Brothers Collection" which includes Blood Simple and 3 other Coen brothers films. Unfortunately, the other three films in that collection are not their best work, in my opinion.
Summary of Blood Simple
The debut film of director Joel Coen and his brother-producer Ethan Coen, 1983's Blood Simple is grisly comic noir that marries the feverish toughness of pulp thrillers with the ghoulishness of even pulpier horror. (Imagine the novels of Jim Thompson somehow fused with the comic tabloid Weird Tales, and you get the idea.) The story concerns a Texas bar owner (Dan Hedaya) who hires a seedy private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to follow his cheating wife (Frances McDormand in her first film appearance), and then kill her and her lover (John Getz). The gumshoe turns the tables on his client, and suddenly a bad situation gets much, much worse, with some violent goings-on that are as elemental as they are shocking. (A scene in which a character who has been buried alive suddenly emerges from his own grave instantly becomes an archetypal nightmare.) Shot by Barry Sonnenfeld before he became an A-list director in Hollywood, Blood Simple established the hyperreal look and feel of the Coens' productions (undoubtedly inspired a bit by filmmaker Sam Raimi, whose The Evil Dead had just been coedited by Joel). Sections of the film have proved to be an endurance test for art-house movie fans, particularly an extended climax that involves one shock after another but ends with a laugh at the absurdity of criminal ambition. This is definitely one of the triumphs of the 1980s and the American independent film scene in general. --Tom KeoghSimilar DVD Movies
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