Cinematic knowledge: Fargo

So I've seen the Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men, which were the entirity of Joel and Ethan Coen knowledge.

In many ways titans of American film, 1996's Fargo is a two Oscar winning, multi Oscar nominated feature length depiction of the phrase 'desperate times call for desperate measures'.

William H Macy is Jerry Lundegaard, a nervous and insecure car salesman in lots of debt. He needs money, fast. So he hires two hitmen (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare)to pretend to kidnap his wife. They are to demand a ransom, which Lundegaards' wife's rich Dad is to cough up for, and Lundegaard is to pocket the remaining money, once the hitman have been paid off.

It goes wrong, of course. And people die, of course. Bu it's a curling, twisting and comic in a way that only watching a man lose first his dignity, and then everything else important to him in life can be.

The Coen's are so classy, though. And they make a hero of the small-town heavily pregnant policewoman Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) into a hero. But more poignantly, her simple approach to life, her persistent rather than killer questions, her love of roadside diners and all you can eat buffets and ending up the victor in the film, are an ode to good, honest living.

The script mocks hillbilly pronunciation and attitudes, but ultimately there seems to be a degree of respect paid to the virtues of living an honest life, without deception or deceit.