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"Fargo" TV series from the Coen Brothers

Started by surreal, March 12, 2014, 02:04:13 PM

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Quote from: Old Thrashbarg on April 24, 2014, 10:17:53 AM
Better than No Country For Old Men, A Serious Man, True Grit and Inside Llewyn Davies? I haven't watched this yet, but if it's better than all of those then I'll have to get round to it pretty quickly.

He's talking pish.

Garam

This show passes the time, but if you think it's better than No Country or A Serious Man then we must part ways. Doesn't come within spitting distance.


It's a nice stretched out homage. I can't imagine ever watching it again. Nowhere near as cinematic as the Coens' stuff, too reverential, too afraid to make its own leaps. Dialogue's shockingly bad occasionally. May as well have just hired William H Macy for all the difference Freeman's made to the character. Billy Bob as the midwest's Chigurh and Odenkirk as the bumbling chump are keeping me watching. Was disappointed at what Glenn Howerton's role turned out to be. Hitmen aren't a patch on Buscemi and Stormare yet, but we'll see. I doubt it.

It's perfectly watchable, and has some nice performances and I'm curious to see where it all goes, but...

1. I wouldn't be watching it if it wasn't called "Fargo".
2. It doesn't benefit from being compared with Fargo.

Ant Farm Keyboard

I'm not impressed. They got a great cast, who does their best, but it's another victim to the prestige cable program syndrome, that already affected the US version of The Killing.
They don't have anything to tell apart from mere variations on the story told in the film, with similar references to other Coen films to fill the extra time.

The huge issue is that the Coens themselves are highly referential filmmakers, particularly in their crime entries, and these references tend to highlight the difference between the bigger than life figures in classic film noir and their own mediocre and imperfect creations who get involved in similar situations. If, instead of referencing slapstick cinema, or 40s noir, a callback brings back to mind something that took place in another Coen film, it just becomes a game without real stakes.
For instance, the Coens tend to use the gratuitous, often off-screen, death of an innocent character to express that the situation went out of hand and embody how trivial evil ultimately became (the ending of Burn After Reading in particular). Here, people die because they're fodder, as people are supposed to die violently in a picturesque fashion during a Coen film.
So, it becomes mindless aping and appropriation, while it was precisely the mistake the producers of Justify didn't make. They took a short story from Elmore Leonard, and filled up the details on the characters, so they could become the starting points for original stories in line with the spirit of Leonard. The writers for Fargo would have rather showed Boyd Crowder being involved in the film business in a storyline lifted out of Get Shorty.

Sony Walkman Prophecies

I forgot about No Country For Old Men. It isn't better than that. But it is better than all the others, especially A Serious Man which was a badly rendered homage to their own style.

shiftwork2

I caught up with the first episode last night and I enjoyed it.  I'm not quite sure how I'd describe it, the tone and locale of the film used as a backdrop for an unrelated story?  But it's closer to the film than that and feels like someone has dreamt about Fargo (the film) and written it all down - re-imagined characters, virtually re-played scenes with different outcomes, a couple of thematic elements reversed.

Looking forward to Sunday.

Lost Oliver

I'm really enjoying it but as others have said, you can't really compare it with the film. There were moments when it pushes me in that direction only for me to remember how good the film was and then I found myself thinking about the film instead of watching what was happening on the screen.

I'm thinking in particular of the scene in the restaurant with the cop and her friend and the parallel to the meal in the film. Just how bloody brilliant was that in the film? Mike and Marge! Jeeze! That scene just came out of nowhere and was hilarious...

See? I'm thinking about it again.

"I always liked you so much!"

I don't know. I'm not really feeling the latest episode. I've been kinda off and on about this. All the characters feel very broad and silly. They don't feel human.

Johnny Townmouse

Yeah, this was a filler episode which I don't believe you can get away with in a short-run series. It's heading annoying silliness - something I dislike about the Coen Bros also. It's starting to feel tonally more like Scrubs when it would benefit from being more Twin Peaks.

Garam

the characters in Twin Peaks were all wacky and annoyingly silly too though. Detective dangling from the pole, the eye patched woman's obsession with cotton balls, the transvestite cop, &c &c

I've given up on this show cause I think it's a bit crap, like almost all tv drama.

Old Nehamkin

Yeah, I'd say Twin Peaks had a lot more broad, wacky comedy than Fargo does.

Don't think I'd really call this episode filler either. It wasn't particularly explosive but it still advanced the plot in several important ways- billy-bob initiating his blackmail plan against the supermarket king; the cop becoming certain of Martin Freeman's involvement and his connection with billy-bob; her and Colin Hanks teaming up; the evil henchmen making themselves known to freeman and then spotting him with that dead guy's wife, etc.

Certainly an episode mainly concerned with setting up future events but not one designed to deliberately stall the action of the plot as yer true "filler" episode is won't to do.

Johnny Townmouse

Interesting - I thought that episode made virtually no progress in terms of meaningful plot (even allowing for the lie about the car reveal, and the blackmail story), especially given the leaps made in the first episode. I don't personally feel this is a show that can get away with settling into the domesticity of the story as it starts to become tedious and the characters' zaniness, at least to me, feels forced. On that subject, it is interesting that Twin Peaks could be considered as having broader comic characters in it than this. The surrealism is virtually always tempered with bleakness and darkness, rather than Fargo which simply juxtaposes.

Ant Farm Keyboard

Seriously, this show is a greatly acted and beautifully shot pretentious piece of shit.

If the US reviewers were not too busy sucking, as usual, FX's dick, except on Sunday, when it's HBO's turn to have its skin flute played by a playful tongue, they'd realize they're just watching an expensive YouTube reenactment/mash-up of all your favorite Coen Bros. scenes.

Fargo, the film, was all about the banality of evil. How one man's choices can have him be responsible for a tragedy in the process. Fargo, the TV show, is about a few smart people (with the good ones in no position of authority) and a bunch of idiots doing stuff. And Martin Freeman killed his wife by his own hands in the pilot, and is now a comic relief to whom stuff happens. We have two totally independent plots, one over the series of murders in the town (that don't concern Bob Odenkirk too much, it's not as if his own chief had been just brutally murdered, because he's a cooky character), the second one about a blackmail attempt.

Plot holes abound. It supposedly takes place in 2006. Billy Bob Thornton was arrested and got necessarily a mugshot in the police records (at least, they record his fingerprints). As the story takes place in the dimwitted state of Minnesota, the mugshot can't apparently be taken on digital camera, be sent as an e-mail attachment to the cops in the small town, and printed, so Molly could show it to various witnesses. No, because the two middle-aged male lieutenants got a talk with Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton who's a great actor, which means that no rules apply. And Molly has only her "Zapruder" picture to cry on.

I wouldn't point out such a thing in a common drama. But Fargo attempts to be prestige drama, with all the signs of affectation (talented cast, anti-heroes, non-network violence, quirkiness) and a sense of self-importance put together to referentiality to the Coen cannon that actually strangles any attempt to do something original or interesting. It's The Killing all over again.

chand

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on May 07, 2014, 11:17:18 PMFargo, the film, was all about the banality of evil. How one man's choices can have him be responsible for a tragedy in the process. Fargo, the TV show, is about a few smart people (with the good ones in no position of authority) and a bunch of idiots doing stuff. And Martin Freeman killed his wife by his own hands in the pilot, and is now a comic relief to whom stuff happens.

Agree with this, Macy's character was stupid but he was pushed into a corner, tried to do something stupid to get out and lost control, whereas Freeman just brutally murders his wife for being a nag. He's a lot harder to care about.

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on May 07, 2014, 11:17:18 PMWe have two totally independent plots, one over the series of murders in the town (that don't concern Bob Odenkirk too much, it's not as if his own chief had been just brutally murdered, because he's a cooky character), the second one about a blackmail attempt.

This, though, is fine. First of all, a TV series can have more than one plot. Secondly, both Billy Bob Thornton's character and now Freeman's character are involved in both plots, and the series also follows the police so it's bound to bring both together. I don't see how they're 'totally independent'.

Odenkirk's character isn't unconcerned by the murders as far as I can tell, he just thinks Molly is wrong because he's over-promoted and lazy.

phantom_power

I am enjoying this. It isn't amazing TV but I am not sure it is trying to be. I think it does a good job of taking the tone of the film and making a new, engaging plot. I like most of the main characters, especially Hanks, the female cop and Thornton. I don't agree we are supposed to be rooting for Freeman's character. He is clearly a man who has been bullied all his life until he finally lashes out and to a degree we are supposed to sympathise with him but I don't think he is the hero in any way, any more than Macy was in the film. It is the police we are rooting for, again as in the film.

backdrifter

I'm loving it too.

Personally I have a lot more sympathy for Lester than Macy. Macy coolheadedly decided to have his wife kidnapped (cruel and dangerous) for personal gain. Lester cracked at the end of the shittiest day of his shitty life. A worse act but much less intentional.

Ep4:
Spoiler alert
Also are we really meant to believe that some guy runs out of gas and finds the buried cash from the movie a decade later? That this really happened I mean. I'm too scared of spoilers to research it.
[close]

Ant Farm Keyboard

Spoiler alert
The opening scene is a flash-back that takes place a few days after the events of the movie, which makes the show a sequel of sorts to the film. The aspect ratio was different, it wasn't Oliver Platt but a younger actor, there was a title, etc. The character spots the ice scrapper (with apparently some blood nearby) that Steve Buscemi had left as a mark. Then, we switch to 2006 Oliver Platt.
It doesn't help that we get one more time the bogus claim that "the events depicted took place in Minnesota in 2006" one minute before the "Minnesota 1987" title, the precise time and place during which the film takes place.
[close]

Another plot hole:
Spoiler alert
the locusts have been witnessed by dozens of employees and customers in the shop. The news will spread. How hard would it be for somebody from one of the various local pet shop to realize that a guy bought their entire stock on the same day and make the connection?
And, even if Stavros is in a semi-hallucinatory state due to the drugs he was given and starts to believe that he's the target of the ten plagues (including death of the beloved dog???) due to some divine vengeance, why phone him on his mobile seconds later? Nothing screams "organized blackmail" more than a voice scrambler on a phone call. This should kick the guy back into reality, especially as other people can now attest he didn't have a vision.
[close]

I know this is partly fridge logic, but that's my main issue, overall. The Coens are able to carry such complex and improbable plot points, because the writing is always sharp, and when a character acts in a rather illogical way, from my point of view anyway, it's usually prepared in the script by some eccentricity that would make them oblivious to a particular situation, which is precisely the one that happens at the time. The show establishes that Billy Bob Thornton is super smart and has a few turns in advance over his opponents, but the blackmail plot depends on the complicity of the very unreliable Glenn Howerton.

Thornton's character is basically No Country For Old Men's Anton Chigurh for TV. Chigurh is a psychopath with a superiority complex, who describes himself as an instrument of Fate, but gets called on his bullshit by his last victim. And he was also a methodic man who leaves nothing (apart from the coin toss) to chance or to anybody else. He's hired by some organization but has zero trust in them.
Compare this to "Malvo" who has the same apparent laconic and undefeated evil mentality, is responsible for the death of three people in the pilot alone (including one for his own pleasure), considers other people as puppets or playthings, has a solution ready for every situation, but is also a trusted link of a criminal organization who grants him alibis and a full identity every time he has to do business in a different town. When you're a sadistic who takes pleasure in seeing other people being weak or hurt (provided they are bad or flawed), and when you kill them on a regular base, what's the pleasure of doing "mere" blackmail as a side-job when you're asked (by the organization) to stop that said blackmail?

Quote from: backdrifter on May 08, 2014, 01:47:35 PM
Ep4:
Spoiler alert
Also are we really meant to believe that some guy runs out of gas and finds the buried cash from the movie a decade later? That this really happened I mean. I'm too scared of spoilers to research it.
[close]

It's not supposed to be a true story. The original Fargo wasn't a true story. The Coens have explained this, saying it was based on some urban legends at best. The TV show just starts off by saying it's a true story because it's Fargo and that's what the film did. There's no thematic or interesting reason for it to say that it's a true story other than just blindly following the leader.

So I wouldn't worry about any of the reality to it. It's not trying to be believable, it's just a dumb holdover from the original.

Ant Farm Keyboard

More and more people say that the show is getting terrific, while I have the absolute opposite impression. I cringed last week during the parable, which was clearly lifted from A Serious Man.

Spoiler alert
Last night's episode had Billy Bob Thornton's plan to dispose of Glenn Howerton being established as cruel, cynical and brilliant, while it was once again far from being really clever. The SWAT team didn't check who the tenant of the house was, or the back of the house, they just went in head first from the front, shot the man standing in the shadows and overlooked the automated gun that was at the window. And they stated it was definitely suicide by cops...

There was also no reason for Allison Tolman (Molly) to remain silent when Gus asked for identification, especially as she made her way back to the place they found the body.

And the deaf contract killer who teamed up with his friend/brother is another script contrivance. How could a guy make his way into this business? Any life threatening situation in this line of work (such as a shoot-out) would require some degree of reaction that he can't clearly provide.
[close]

Old Nehamkin

Losing patience with this a bit now. Billy-Bob's character is still quite fun but I really wish he and everyone else would cool it with the heavy-handed animal metaphors. And if
Spoiler alert
Molly
[close]
is really dead then that is an absolutely shit waste of the character.

Moribunderast

Yeah, I wondered if I just wasn't in the mood for this last night but it's interesting to see others feeling as I am. I too have been confused to see the growing support for this show as I feel it's gotten more plodding and unnecessary as it's gone on. There's just no emotional depth to it - no true stakes. Were we meant to be affected by the
Spoiler alert
death of the store owner's son and father? Given the son had been written as nothing more than comic fodder, he was no great loss.
[close]
There's some decent characters and some good performances but in a TV landscape now full of small-town murder stories, this one hasn't done much to distinguish itself.

I must really have checked out as I didn't even remember that
Spoiler alert
Molly was shot
[close]
and that seems like the kind of big, "game-changing" event one should have been shocked by.

Doesn't help that I'm currently binging on Season 2 of Hannibal, which makes everything bar Good Wife and Louie seem pointless by comparison. I'll stick with Fargo 'til the end of the season but it's starting to feel a bit like a chore.

Ant Farm Keyboard

Molly
Spoiler alert
isn't dead. The character is mentioned as being still involved in the investigation in the summaries for the remaining episodes.
[close]

Old Nehamkin

It's a frustrating show. There are elements of it that are great- I think it looks very nice, I really like Billy-Bob and his cartoonish supervillainy, I like Molly, I quite like Colin Hanks, I like Martin Freeman, I like Bob Odenkirk, I like(d) the two hitmen, but the writing just feels lacking. Like it's straining to be something deeper and more profound than the writers are actually capable of. It somehow feels confident and unsure of itself at the same time, if that makes sense. I dunno, maybe I was in the wrong mood when I watched the last couple of episodes but I'm sort of losing enthusiasm for it.

Moribunderast

I think you raise a good point re: the "profundity". They've had some monologues recently that are obviously trying very hard but they just miss the mark. They're trying to write like the very best cable dramas but just can't hit those notes. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, even Boardwalk Empire are capable of throwing in little monologues that confuse, entice and thematically surmise a situation - the writing in Fargo seems like it tries to do the same thing without understanding how or why, just that it's a staple and a box to be ticked.

That reads a little harsh and perhaps unfair. It's not a TERRIBLE show, probably not even bad, it's just that, for what it wants to be, it's lacking.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Well it's going to be a hard job living up to the style of screenwriters as revered and idiosyncratic as the Coens. I think the problem is that they're trying too hard to contrive quirkiness in another persons very specific voice and never quite hitting the mark.

The specific sensibility and private sense of humour shared between two brothers who have grown up and worked together their entire lives is a hard nut to crack.

Lost Oliver

Sorry lads, I'm not having this anymore. There's no way it really happened.

Ant Farm Keyboard

Quote from: Moribunderast on May 22, 2014, 02:07:49 AM
I think you raise a good point re: the "profundity". They've had some monologues recently that are obviously trying very hard but they just miss the mark. They're trying to write like the very best cable dramas but just can't hit those notes. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, even Boardwalk Empire are capable of throwing in little monologues that confuse, entice and thematically surmise a situation - the writing in Fargo seems like it tries to do the same thing without understanding how or why, just that it's a staple and a box to be ticked.

Breaking Bad had been compared to the films of the Coen Brothers, particularly Fargo, since day one:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2008/01/no_country_for_old_meth_dealers.html

The show had the dark humor (or more accurately a twist into a classical crime story that allows some humor), the unconventional location that's reflected into the protagonists sensibilities, a middle-class setting, an anti-hero that gets little respect from the others, a jovial cop who's much way smarter than he looks, etc. Even the Western (or spaghetti Western) references in the direction are something the Coens could have tried.

So, I can understand why they wanted to turn Fargo into a TV show. Fargo, the film, has been an inspiration for clever basic cable shows. Rather than putting together a Breaking Bad derivative (which many networks would like to do), they produce a continuation set in the universe of Fargo.
It's been a rewriting of Fargo, but it's been a cheap knock-off that also takes elements from other Coen films without understanding what they mean in a particular context.

For instance, the Coens are actually obsessed with the idea of Fate and God, whether it's just dumb luck or there is a transcendence that prevails on existential matters. And this is something they share, among others, with many other secular Jewish writers. The debate is central within A Serious Man, Burn After Reading takes place in a world without values and authority (the CIA is as clueless as a gym employee), where it's every man for himself (apart from the one or two sympathetic characters, who also end up being killed randomly), and No Country For Old Men had Javier Bardem regarding himself as the Hand of Fate, while Kelly McDonald calls him later on his bullshit and manipulations. Fargo and Raising Arizona depict humanity at an almost entomological level, with only kindness and empathy managing to give some sense to existence. "Sometimes, it's a hard world for small things", which is also a Night of the Hunter rewrite.
But this question is truly central to the Coens' scriptwriting in general. Is there a higher meaning in the actions they invented for their characters, which would make their stories morality plays in some way? Their recent efforts have actually chosen some very partial resolution for their protagonists. The narrator in True Grit still doesn't know what to make out of what happened decades after the events. Llewyn Davis won't get answers either to the many mysteries or events he witnesses, he's just in the stream of things, like everybody else.

So, there's this TV show named Fargo. Glenn Howerton is a physical trainer just as Brad Pitt was in Burn After Reading. He's also an idiot. Without any redeeming feature, actually. Howerton is fatuous, he has no friends, and he wants to get his $45,000, because he's just a ridiculous ass, and that's a caricature that the Coens try to avoid. Brad Pitt was also an idiot, but he didn't actually act out of malice, he just wanted to help his good friend Frances McDormand. The character was integrated, he didn't appear out of thin air.
Billy Bob Thornton (formerly a barber who wasn't there) is a misanthrope full of contempt and a manipulative psychopath, who pretends to be a man of church. And, yet, for some reason, he's also greedy. Typically, he shouldn't care about money, but about principles. Money is, after all, a social convention. His character should reject its importance, as all what matters is to prove his own superiority above common mortals. But he's got a paying job, he wants to get $1m through blackmail, and he also kills Sam Hess in the pilot because he has judged he was a bad man who brought nothing to the world. I agree it's great to see Thornton in a TV show, he's a terrific actor, but his character is completely bogus.

This is why the TV show isn't as good as it assumes to be. They just take situations out of Fargo (and the other Coen films, plus now some other quirky stuff, for instance Magnolia), change a few details and come up with a new plot. But they don't ask what they mean, or why the Coens wrote these in the first place. The parables in A Serious Man are not either true or false. They're an exchange between two persons who have different degrees of faith, with the protagonist searching for answers, and receptive to the story but ending up even more clueless after hearing it. In Fargo, the TV show, Colin Hanks just needed some moral advice, and they make his neighbor a Jew specifically so he can speak in parables, because the parable looked cool in A Serious Man. That's second-hand coolness here.

What makes you think Billy Bob's character is greedy? Nothing about his character to me is greedy. I think this is just what he feels he's meant to do. He was going to
Spoiler alert
do what he did to Dennis regardless of how much money he wanted.
[close]
I think he just likes to create chaos, and mess with the status quo.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the last episode. I was in the show enough and I believed the actions were happening. It's convenient, obviously, but so what? If it doesn't feel believable to you, then that's a different matter, but I feel the series of events was built in a way that I just enjoyed the ride.

I enjoyed it. Honestly,
Spoiler alert
the son's death thing could have been done a bit better, but I was fine with the fish falling from the sky. I'd honestly not give a shit if they never explained that. That said, I do want to know how Billy Bob got out of the basement in the first episode, unless they do actually go the supernatural route and he's some form of Devil figure, or manifestation of death or war.
[close]

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on May 22, 2014, 10:52:00 AM
Breaking Bad had been compared to the films of the Coen Brothers, particularly Fargo, since day one:

Very interesting post, cheers - and yeah, Breaking Bad wears its Coen influences on its sleeve; Even naming season one episode "A no rough stuff type deal" after a line from, appropriately, Fargo. There's the slightly fantastical, force of nature characters in the form of The Cousins - who at one point meet the Gun dealer, who, if he wasn't a loving homage to a typical Steve Buscemi Coen Bros. character, I'll eat my hat.

Breaking Bad was clearly inspired by the Coens, but the creators own voice is strong and clear enough for it to stand alone, whereas Fargo the Series is a cosmetic reproduction of Coen quirks, largely ignoring the grounding aspect their characters often have.

I really enjoyed the last two episodes actually. I cringed in the latest episode at the
Spoiler alert
Speech to the deaf man which was basically aping the classic Marge Gunderson patrol car speech
[close]
but other than that, I found it great gleeful, pulpy fun, with just really fun twists and turns.
Spoiler alert
Though I still did really like the deaf man's performance
[close]
. It feels like with these last two episodes, it's started to create it's own feel rather than the film. The moments when it does try are glaring, but I've definitely enjoyed the last two.

The scene at the start of episode 7 between Odenkirk and Lester was one of the most enjoyable and great scenes of the entire show. Both are giving genuinely great performances there, even though the entire situation has grown so ludicrous, it still rings true to the characters they've built up, and that's what makes it so cathartic and hilarious, because he's basically just
Spoiler alert
handing him amnesty and we know the truth, and the elaborate plan has all slid into place and it's great
[close]
.

It's all very convenient, and isn't realistic, but it's still authentic with the world they've put up.
It's not impossible that this series of events could happen. Just wildly improbable, and personally, I can buy improbable, especially if it makes for an absurd and wildly fun twist and turning rollercoaster ride.

I enjoyed these last two episodes a lot.

I don't want
Spoiler alert
Maggie to win
[close]
and I always find this mentality really fascinating. When you're positioned to root for the two opposing characters, and you generally root for the bad guys. Because the cards are stacked against them, and they never win. It's what makes the thriller so exciting. It's like something as simple as Rope or something.

Anyway, I'm sure people will be unconvinced, but I've made peace with what the show is, and think it's very good at it. Though I'm confused that there's ten episodes. Feels like the next episode was being set up to be the logical ending. I started off the series having no idea where it was going to go, and now I thought I understood where it was going to go, but I guess there must be some more twists and turns stretching this out for at least three more hours.