The scene with Marge and her old friend from High school seems out of place and random but it's the conversation and the revelation later that he was lying that leads her to revisit the dealership, to not take people at face value just because they're meek.
Also, very little of the movie actually takes place in Fargo, North Dakota, just the meeting at the start to plan the kidnapping, the rest is in Minnesota.
Correct. This scene is critical for her to realize the ways in which someone can lie right to your face. Even something that is easily proven otherwise.
The Coen brothers put that part in there about it being based on a true story, but it really wasn't. Also, Jerry told the kidnappers he was only going to get $80,000 and split it with them, but he knew the whole time he was going to ask for a million. He was going to keep the rest for himself and then just pay them the $40,000, which is why Buscemi was so surprised when he saw how much was in there. And that's why he buried it, so his partner wouldn't know.
I think it’s really funny that Steve Buscemi’s character wanted to fight over the price of the Sierra, even when he knew he had that million dollars waiting for him after he left. It’s a great insight into what a short-sighted, shitty person he was. And, in the end, it got him killed..
Especially considering that car was used in multiple murders. It's evidence and the authorities are looking for it. Common sense would say you'd want to get as far away from that car as you can. Just another example of what a bonehead Carl was. You got $40k and another $920k in the suitcase, Carl. Let Gaear have that car lol.
I love the contrast between Marge's family life and Jerry's. Both have loving families and modest middle-class homes, but while Marge is perfectly content with what she has, Jerry is miserable and unsatisfied, always wanting more. Marge and her husband radiate wholesomeness, while Jerry makes your skin crawl. It's the ultimate contrast between someone who appreciates life's blessings and someone who doesn't.
Jerry also had a collosal arsehole for a father-in-law. Many people have gone crazy on account of dealing with shitty relatives for decades. Doesnt justify Jerry but explains a lot.
So true. The difference is also shown at the end where Marge just can't understand why they'd do all that just for a little bit of money and talking about how nice the day was
I do have some sympathy for Jerry as you could tell from every interaction he's ever had with his father in law has just been passive aggressive open insults to him as he loves his daughter but resents her choosing to marry a meek man with limited means and personality. Over the years I think the bullying and belittling built up so much on him mentally that he choose an idiotic course of action instead of talking to his wife and realising that they already have everything they need to be happy and to just ignore him but he had too much pride and pride always goes before a fall
when this film came out, I had a friend from the area around Fargo. He kept insisting the movie was ridiculous because "we DON'T talk like that!" He was quite adamant about it and was insulted. Then about six months later, he went home to Minnesota for a vacation after being away for twenty years. He came home quite abashed and admitted that yeah, they really do talk like that. He just hadn't heard it in a long time. :D
As a life long Minnesotan, I can vouch for the fact that the accents were fairly close to how many people sounded in northern Minnesota 50 years ago and earlier, but today even in Brainerd, Bemidji, or Duluth you don't hear that accent much anymore.
The locally-hired actresses who play the truck stop prostitutes Marge interviews also served as Frances McDormand's voice coaches. Having gone to university in the 1970s with a number of people from this area, I thought the film exaggerated a bit on the vocabulary tics but got the general accent down.
The Woodchipper used in the movie is in the Visitors Center off I-94 in Fargo, ND. It has a mannequin leg sticking out of it so you can get your picture taken "feeding" it in
They certainly are up there, maybe along with P.T. Anderson. And i hope they keep doing it. I heard Ethan is currently taking a break. He had not been involved in the Tragedy of Macbeth either.
Along with Scorsese, they are the most consistent American filmmakers by a large margin when you count the number of films they've done. Only one debatable miss IMO.
@@dx315 Had Clooney and Zeta Jones in it. Called "Infernal Torture" or something. She looked so good in it that I couldn't dislike the movie, heh. I still preferred that one to Ladykillers, but yeah, both of those weren't even mid-tier Coens
"Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter" is a film about a lonely Japanese girl who watches a VHS of "Fargo", thinks it's a true story, and travels to Minnesota to look for the money Steve Buscemi buried. Amazing performance by Rinko Kikuchi (of "Pacific Rim" fame). Based on an urban legend about a real Japanese girl who traveled to Minnesota in the early 00's.
damn... beat me to it. wanted to blow thier minds with this story, oh well congrats to you. btw how did you leave a comment 8 days ago, are you a time traveler??
@@lilevil2045 I believe the comment 8 days ago is because it is released to patreon members early and they commented then. You just see the comment now but the time stamp is correct.
There’s also a “Fargo” TV series. Each season they tell a different story and they’re all “true stories “. Which they aren’t lol. I think they do that to make the viewer more vested in the story. The series is great also I’d highly recommend watching. Also Fargo is in N Dakota
If you don't count the multiple murders, the creepy schoolfriend, the kidnapping and the woodchipper scene, this is the most wholesome Coen Brothers movie ever. Great review again guys.
Paul Bunyan was a mythical lumberjack character in the western U.S. He was tired and dragged his axe behind him one day and accidentally create the Rio Grande river. So much bigger than life, so they can't even make a crazy statue big enough to do the stories justice. Correction: That was the Grand Canyon with the Colorado River running through it. Even bigger.
Never heard about the Rio Grande River. He supposedly created the St. Lawrence River and Mississippi River, as well as the 10,000 Lakes of Minnesota, the Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon and Mt. Hood.
I've always thought the seemingly throwaway Mike Yamagita scene (and later reveal that he was full of shit) was meant to demonstrate to Marge and to the viewer that, despite her ability to quickly read people and crime scenes, she can easily be fooled when her guard is down. It does seem to briefly shake her confidence.
hmm I've assumed that scene just follows the theme, without it the movie could be seen to be about money and evil it causes but Mike expands the scope to "some people are miserable, make bad life choices and you shouldn't get dragged down with them"
or perhaps that with a bit more positive spin, I think there's a line in the end not included in the reaction that ties it together, something liek "we got it pretty good"?
I once saw a theory (and I wish I remember where) that this was a 'film blanc', with every film noir trope inverted. In that analysis, Mike Yamagita was an inversion of the 'Lady in Red' temptress archetype.
The Fargo series is set in the same "universe" as this movie, and season 1 actual answers the "what happened to the money" question. It's a great thing to react to after watching this.
i still don't understand how people could think that season 1 is not the best one, in my opinion it's still one of the best seasons of all shows out there...
Frances McDormand is a fantastic actress. If you want to see more of her I highly recommend Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri! Its another crime drama that also stars Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell.
The blond kidnapper is Swedish actor Peter Stormare. The region of the US, where the film is based is Minnesota, North and South Dakota where many Scandinavian immigrants settled in the 19th and early 20th century. This accounts for the accents (They also settled in places like Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin).
The scene with Mike Yanagita was in there to get Margie to second guess her initial interview with Jerry. After she discovers Mike was lying to her, she's starts to realize Jerry was lying too and goes to interview him again, where he essentially cracks.
I'm from northern Minnesota- I've been to Fargo, Brainerd, Minneapolis, etc many many many times - nobody has an accent like this. Yes, there is an accent but this movie is like a cartoon version of it.
You guys misunderstood the ransom. He didn't change how much he was asking. He lied to the kidnappers and told them it was 80k so he only had to give them 40k. He didn't want them to know he was asking for 1m. That's why he tried to make sure he was the one giving them the money. So he could set the rest aside and just give them the 40k. And then Steve Buscemi was screwing over his partner. He took out the 40k theybwere promissed and stashed the rest for himself.
All the reactors I've seen have missed this detail, and I can't fault them for it. When I first watched this movie more than 2 decades ago, I missed it too. I didn't pay attention to the dollar amounts and assumed it was a straightforward ransom. Knowing that he was trying to cheat the kidnappers too is the explanation for why he was so upset when his father in law insisted on dropping off the money in person. And even though his wife would've died anyway, his inability to stand up to his father in law in that moment is the trigger that got Wade, the parking attendant, and eventually Buscemi killed, and also got Stormare and himself arrested.
Fargo? Oh yaaaah! 5:06 Funny you'd say that George. People complained that Steve Buscemi talked too much in this movie, and that's the whole reason why the Coen brothers cast him in the Big Lebowski as a character who constantly gets told to shut up. In the original Big Lebowski script there was no Donny.
margie and norm are so adorable, life goals right there. and margie in particular is just an amazing character. this also just made me think of "my cousin vinny" another great movie with great accents and a "best actress" win, like mcdormand here.
At the end of the movie is the usual disclaimer about "no one in the movie bears any resemblance to a real person." The thing at the beginning, claiming that it was all real, was part of the comedy.
The Coens have a slightly trollish sense of humor sometimes, so they may have given multiple explanations about the "true story" lie at the beginning of the movie, but one of the first ones I heard was that they felt audiences would find the twists and turns in the story to be too absurd unless the audience believed it had actually happened. Later, when they made O Brother Where Art Thou?, they talked about how it was a riff on Homer's The Odyssey, and then later confessed they'd never read the whole thing. I'll say this every time you guys do a Coen Brothers movie, but I really hope you guys consider doing some of the non-headline movies. The big ones left are O Brother, No Country, and Raising Arizona, and they're all great. However, their remake of True Grit, The Hudsucker Proxy, Blood Simple (this one is very much in the same vein as Fargo), Miller's Crossing, The Man Who Wasn't There, Burn After Reading, and A Serious Man are also all great and deserve reactions as well (and that's not to slight the few other movies they made I didn't list, just that there are a couple that might not make for great videos). They're truly among the best living filmmakers and I would love to see you do nearly their whole catalog without relying on polls, since people haven't necessarily seen some of these others and they deserve the exposure.
You guys HAVE to watch the Fargo series! It's at the top of my list for things I would love to see you watch, along with everything else Cohen Brothers.
By the way, the movie isn’t really based on true events, but it was claimed to be so in order to get people more interested and involved in the story; very smart filmmaking technique on the part of the Coen brothers.
It's not that smart, it's just lying. It doesn't take a genius to know that people will be more invested in something if you tell them a murder mystery was based on a true story.
The Coen brothers grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis, but they were Jews in a largely Jewish city surrounded by a sea of Scandinavian Lutherans, so they would have felt like outsiders among these polite yet stoic people with funny accents, and I think that shows in how they portray the characters.
The relationship between Marge and Norm is one of my favorites in cinematic history. Also, Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus from Rogue One, and Dr. Logan and Bub from Day of the Dead. So many people rave about Gomez and Morticia, Romeo and Juliet, or Jack and Sally. Marge and Norm are the every person, couple next door. They are the anchor of this movie.
Harve Presnell had a superb Baritone voice and was one of the few people in the musical Paint Your Wagon that could actually sing. He was also in one of the most moving scenes in Saving Private Ryan ( as the general reading out Lincoln's letter)
Frances McDormand won the Oscar for this role. She's from the US and was raised near Pittsburgh but her adoptive parents were Canadian so the accent probably came naturally to her. She's been married to Joel Coen ever since shortly after the Coen's first film which she starred in. I'll throw in YET ANOTHER recommendation for the series which is great, especially the first season which answers the "what happened to the money" question. It's run for four seasons, each one tells a different story but all of them are connected very loosely. There's often several years between seasons as the show runner doesn't do another one until he's come up with a story to tell.
I love this movie so much. By the way, the Coen brothers invented the true story thing because they thought that they would finally win the well-deserved Academy Award if they made a movie about a "real" case. Whether they won it because of that is of course speculation, but they got it anyway. :) You should definitely check out the TV show as well. It has four seasons, but each season has its own little story, so they're not directly connected. Especially the first season is great and reminds in its style very much of the movie. Also the series has been nominated for a total of 228 awards, having won fifty-one of those nominations, inlcuding some Golden Globe and Emmy Awards.
The accent thing is prevalent in some North Central states with heavy Euro ancestry, they sound very Canadian or visa versa. I think you may enjoy a short series called Mare of Easttown.
The scene when William H. Macy tries to escape always cracks me up! The way he tries to weasel his way out, the screams and cries he makes! He's such a loser but you can't help but want to kinda hug and punch him at the same time!
I have family & friends from that area of Minnesota/North Dakota, and they had no idea this was a comedy for the rest of us. Their weird accents and mannerisms are so funny, but they seemed 100% normal to them. Sayings like "Ah geez", "Oh ya?", "The heck d'ya mean?" are super normal to them.
I'm certain you would greatly enjoy another wonderful film with a superb performance from Frances McDormand, and stellar support from Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson; 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'. I would love to see your reaction, you're both great fun and Simone's intros are absolutely legendary, hilarious, and too adorable for words! Thanks so much guys, you're fantastic! 😀
"Based on a true story" is so often ignored by viewers of the film. Minnesota had a plague of treasure hunters looking for the money from this film. Fargo is in North Dakota, by the way. It is on the border of Minnesota and the area is Fargo/Moorhead, with Moorhead Minnesota being on the Minnesota side.
I also loved seeing him in "Magnolia" and "Mystery Men." He always does excellent work, but it was a bit easier to like those characters than this one.
The accent is common to the north in the US. It's common in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I don't know any other states, but those 3 are famous for it
Oh Simone you little beauty.. what a way to kick off a film reaction. Fargo's a damn fun if bizarrely dark movie. I love the back and forth between Buscemi and Stormare.. brilliant writing.
The accent's in this are done so well. It's such a great, Northern Midwestern Dakotan, Wisconsin, kinda accent. When I lived in Michigan, there was some of this, I caught, but, ya, there is a difference, not like I can say anything. I'm from Maine, I've been told I have a bit of an Irish/Scottish sounding accent. Lol. Especially if I get frustrated or stressed/angry.
Fargo is a city in North Dakota. Home of the North Dakota State University Bison! The great thing about this movie, it really doesn't have anything to do with Fargo.
Dan Cortese. Josh Brolin. Kevin Costner. Stephen Baldwin. Kerry Washington. Michael C. Hall. Martin Short. Miles Teller. Tom Holland. Jenny McCarthy. Anna Kendrick. With Eric Roberts And Crispin Glover as Randolph
Friend of mine came from that region and I remember when this movie came out he asked us if he actually sounded like that and everybody at the table said "Yaaa". 😁
As someone who moved from the south to Minnesota in the 90s I cannot overemphasize how accurate this movie seemed (and still seems) to me regarding Minnesota culture and accents (with those pauses) Minnesotans deny it. But it is dead on accurate and is one of the funniest movies ever.
The tv show was/is really really great. The only reason it somewhat flew under the radar was due to it being released at the same time as true detective season 1 which took most of the hype. I feel like the humor and everything would be just for you guys :D
I'm sure you've found out already but that "true story" bit is a troll, ja. No idea why the Coens did it, but ja, it didn't really happen. If you don't know it, I highly recommend the tabletop RPG "Fiasco". 3 to 5 players, no GM, do-it-yourself Coen brothers story about people with great ambitions and poor impulse control.
@@CineBingeReact Brief anecdote: I saw _Fargo_ opening weekend with a bunch of friends, and of course we also believed it really happened. But the thing is, one member of our group showed up five minutes late and didn’t see the “true story” text at the beginning. When we all got back to the lobby, he said something like, “the filmmaking style really feels like a docudrama,” and we, in our ignorance, all yelled at him, “that’s because it was real!”
@@CineBingeReact In the behind the scenes feature on the Fargo DVD, Frances McDormand, who is married to Joel Coen, commented on the "true story" aspect. She said it was so typical of Joel and Ethan to do that, basically by making the audience believe this was a true story, it altered their perception of the film. So basically, it was a lie intended to manipulate the audience... but to what they felt would be a more enjoyable experience. Genius.
I had to go to Fargo back in December for work - this wasn’t filmed there due to some weather or something, but they got the aesthetic down pretty good. Lots of snow, lots of open fields filled with snow, and lots of very friendly, cheery people.
Officially my favorite CineBinge intro! hahahahaha Now that you've seen Steve Buscemi die at least twice, maybe you'd like seeing him in a different role as the bass player in a metal band. "Airheads" (1994) stars him, Brendan Frasier and Adam Sandler. It was actually the first thing I saw him in and it blew my mind to see him in anything else for a while.
I was over there after the movie came out still on dvd, the new thing, was North Dakota, very close to the Canadian border, visiting a friends family, i told them you guys sound like the guys in the movie, they said no, they said same as you, but i saw them do every one of those, yaaaaa, no joke i'm from Liverpool, England, are accent is one of a kind, trust me, they were the same.
LOL The film's called "Fargo" which is the name of the capitol city of North Dakota, though the actual story takes place in Minnesota. The two states do share a border.
Back in the glory days of suburban malls, there was a novelty store called Spencer's that carried all kinds of movie stuff, but not normal movie stuff. One item was a snow globe of Margie kneeling beside the car in the snow. They also had one with the wood chipper.
So much "oh jeez." One of the most perversely funny moments comes when Buscemi's character shoots Wade, and as Wade sags to the ground, he goes, "ooooh, jeeeeez"
Frances McDormand recently won her third Best Actress Oscar for Nomadland. She is the only actress to ever have won three. Her first was for this film; her second for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Another great video!!! This is easily my favourite Coen Brothers movie. I first watched this film with my mom shortly after it came out, and we basically had the same experience you did trying to figure out what the tone of this film is. Frances McDormand (Margie) won an Oscar for this performance, and well deserved as well . . . she is so awesome!. She also happens to be the wife of Joel Coen.
This is a morality tale illustrating the value of commonplace, ordinary, everyday love when compared to the pettiness, emptiness & pointlessness of the pursuit of money. A superb film in all aspects.
Great reaction! One of my all time favorite movies! Another movie from the same year is Sling Blade, written and directed by, and starring, Billy Bob Thornton. You all should check it out sometime.
As a side story, there was an actual lady that died looking for that suitcase after watching this movie, froze to death. The problem is of course, there was no one alive to tell the story of the suitcase, that was either creative license, or, the suitcase was found and it was inferred. Love that film. Yaaaa good movie.
As a few others have mentioned, they also made a TV show that takes place in the same universe and is thematically similar (though with different characters). The first season also explains what happens to the money that was buried in the snow.
I scrolled through all the comments and didn't see it: the duck stamp contest that Marge Gunderson's husband is competing in is a real thing. It's a literal art contest - the only federal art contest - that the US Fisheries and Wildlife Department holds every year. The Dept. picks a limited number of duck species and artists compete to paint the most realistic depiction, which is chosen and made into a stamp. The winner gets publicity and media attention, and proceeds of the stamp sales go to conserving wetlands. There's actually a really charming documentary about it called _The Million Dollar Duck_ (if I'm remembering the name right). It's one of those weirdly compelling things you briefly wonder why you're watching, then suddenly realize you've seen in its entirety. Eta: there's a Disney movie with that same title. It's the documentary from ~2016 I'm talking about, not the Disney.
The Cohen brothers wrote the part specifically for Steve Buscemi. Steve showed up a couple hours early on the first day of shooting. The Cohen brothers asked hi why he was there so early. He said he had read the script and all the other characters referered to his as being "funny looking". So he showed up for what he expected to be some heavy makeup job. Maybe a fake nose, or ears or chin.... It was up to the Cohen brothers to let Steve know there would be no makeup to make him look "funny looking". He was just fine as he was. LOL
Paul Bunyan is an American folk hero. The biggest lumber jack ever, and he had a giant ox (Babe Blue Ox). There are a series of tall stories (probably not true).
I grew up in northern Minnesota. The hilarious thing is that the people up there do not think they sound like this and will actually say "Oh Geez, we don't sound at all like dat." When many of them actually do. The accent comes from a long-standing heritage of Norwegen, Swedish, and Finnish immigrants who initially settled here and then of course the proximity to Canada. There is a stoic nature to many of the people there. This is very very loosely based on a true story. Fargo is actually in North Dakota. The story actually takes place in Brainerd and the Minneapolis St Paul twin city area. It was shot mostly in Minnesota too. I read somewhere that the Coen Brothers (Minnesota boys themselves) felt calling the movie "Brainerd" just did not have the oddly exotic sound that Fargo did. Which is hilarious considering how un-exotic either place is.
