Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		5.0

Fargo Blu-ray Movie Review

Revisiting the Wood Chipper

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 2, 2014

As part of its 90^th Anniversary celebration, MGM is releasing remastered versions of some of its most acclaimed holdings. The latest film to receive this treatment is the 1996 Coen Bros. black comedy of homespun Minnesota crime, Fargo, which won Oscars for its screenplay and lead actress Frances McDormand. Fargo has been previously reviewed on two occasions at Blu-ray.com. Since the new version adds no new extras and appears to contain the same soundtrack, this review will focus on the remastered HD video.

From Greg Maltz's review of the 2009 Blu-ray edition:

A film about greed and violence that is sometimes classified as a comedy proved to be Joel and Ethan Coen's first major breakthrough to mainstream audiences. Earning seven Academy Award nominations and winning two—Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress—Fargo shows the darkest and brightest sides of humanity against a backdrop of barren fields of snow. But it is nothing as lofty as the Coen brothers' exploration of good, evil and individuality that made Fargo a blockbuster success. The immense draw of the film is attributable to brilliant writing and a quirky cast. The Coens' odd portrait of Americana is delivered in seductively quotable lines about someone "goin' crazy out there at the lake" and "a no rough-stuff type deal" and the ultimate deadpan line about an "accomplice in the wood chipper." With its unique characters and infectious "you betcha" dialog among Nordic descendants, Fargo smacked a home run with audiences around the world. Now MGM has issued the dark comedy in high definition, with excellent picture and sound. It's the third Coen brothers' movie to be released on Blu-ray, following No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading.

The story of Fargo is by now well known, and has been thoroughly studied and analyzed since the film's release in 1996. The narrative has all the more gravity after the words appearing at the beginning of the film: "This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred." Turns out, that is not true. The crimes are loosely based on separate incidents that occurred elsewhere in the country, but as for the characters, setting and narrative, they are purely the invention of the Coen brothers who grew up in a suburb of Minnesota. Why did they lead off by promoting Fargo as a true story? The answer lies in some of the bonus content, in which the brothers theorize audiences would care more about real characters than about fictional ones. But with the brilliant acting and eclectic assortment of colorful personalities featuring Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) and Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi), it's debatable whether there is any advantage in billing the action as a true story. Contrary to the Coens' own theory, their fictional characters command attention and in this case, fiction may be stranger than fact. The script is that masterful.

It centers around a staged kidnapping plot gone horribly awry, and the seven-months-pregnant police chief who tries to make sense of a string of murders and end the crime spree. The film shows the desperation and greed of the men on the wrong side of the law in contrast to the good-natured, tenacious Marge. From the premise to the closing moments, the motives, language and landscapes are so alien to the average viewer that the overall effect of watching it is almost like going on a vacation. Fargo is a trip. Even forgetting about the plot and taking the scenes one by one, they are shocking in their conception, offbeat humor and deceptively simple design. Right about the time you see bug-eyed Showalter tell the gargantuan Shep Proudfoot (Steven Reevis) to "smoke a f—kin' peace pipe" you realize that the action and delivery might just be most brilliantly unconventional of any film. When Marge interviews the prostitute who slept with Showalter, the dialog is pure Coen magic that starts out quirky and becomes borderline outrageous. But almost every scene has such moments.

The way violence unfolds is also executed with a raw vision that is trademark Coen brothers. For example, the highway multiple homocide at night starts out conventionally, but the camera unrelentingly shows every detail as the scene builds in intensity, culminating in the brutal murders. Cinematographer Roger Deakins serves up the characters and long snowy plains of Minnesota and North Dakota in simple strokes of artistic grandeur. The Coen brothers show only what they need you to see. And Deakins ensures that the photography and composition are technically impeccable, as he did when collaborating with the Coens in No Country for Old Men or as a consultant for Pixar in Wall-E. The extraordinary imagery, plot, script and acting all boil down to Marge's actions and observations prior to the closing moments when she calmly renders her judgment on the violence that tore apart her precinct. "For what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don't you know that? And here y'are. And it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it." Movies just can't get more poignant than that.


From Jeffrey Kauffman's review of the 2011 Coen Bros. Collection:

This is the film that unequivocally established the Coens as a mainstream success story, and it couldn't have happened due to a more peculiar, weird, and idiosyncratic movie. Everything people had been loving (and hating) about the Coens was superbly amplified in Fargo, including lovable eccentrics, plots that require a flowchart to keep track of, and an off kilter sense of humor that leaves many wondering out loud, Are they kidding? The Coen's anarchic sense of humor is present even in the film's title: while there's a major plot element that takes place in North Dakota, this is just as much a film about, well, Minneapolis. But even more than that sleight of locale, can a film that seemingly kills characters every few minutes really be funny? The answer is a resounding "Yes!". Fargo's two main characters are hapless car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), whose frantic attempts to get himself out of serious debt put him squarely in the sights of very pregnant Fargo policewoman Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand). In between these two bookends is a typically dense Coen Brothers concoction of kidnapping, ransom, idiotic criminals and even more idiotic would-be criminals.

Fargo is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious, probably tonally the most ambitious and, perhaps surprisingly, the most successful of all the Coen Brothers' outings. Any given scene can include both horrendous violence and uproarious laughter, not always drawn from the squeamish nervousness of seeing that violence play out. A perfect example is the kidnapping scene, where Peter Stormare's vicious thug attempts to say "unguent" while the hapless wife of Macy's character runs around with a shower curtain wrapped around her head, making her incapable of escape. This is also the Coens' finest film in terms of naturalness and pure heart, as exemplified by Frances McDormand's astonishingly brilliant turn as Marge, the no-nonsense cop who makes up in native smarts what she lacks in sophistication and big city glamour. In fact Fargo is a riot of brilliant performances, from Macy's milquetoast Jerry to Harve Presnell's grunting and growling turn as Jerry's father-in-law to two standout triumphs by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare as the increasingly desperate kidnappers. The Coens' writing genius is fully on display here, with a coterie of characters, all of whom are perfectly defined, and a plot that, while incredibly complex, is always easy to follow while never being predictable.

Fargo Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The prior Blu-ray of Fargo was no slouch in the video department—Greg Maltz ranked it at 4/5, while Jeffrey Kauffman gave it a 4.5/5—but the remastered Blu-ray bests it in several respects, starting with the famous opening shot of Jerry Lundegaard's vehicle emerging from the white darkness of snow and clouds as he approaches his fateful meeting with the two kidnappers. On the old disc, the white field flickered at the sides, but on the new one it remains rock steady, providing a solid background for the spare credits that appear as Carter Burwell's score warns of impending disaster. The aliasing and video noise that occasionally showed up in forests and other scenes with fine edges are gone altogether, and additional detail is now visible in darker scenes, e.g. the exterior of the King of Clubs when Jerry drives up to it, the interior of the cabin where Carl and Gaear hide Jean Lundegaard or the roof of the parking garage where the fateful ransom drop occurs. The grain is much finer, but whether this results from a superior scan or an absence of electronic sharpening (which was lightly applied to the earlier disc) is impossible to say.

The color temperature has been subtly altered for the remastered disc, with a distinct shift toward the warmer end of the spectrum. This may seem an odd choice for a story set in the frigid winter of Minnesota, but to my eye the initial disc had too much of a bluish cast, which rendered flesh tones somewhat unnatural, especially indoors. On the remastered disc, faces look more natural, while the vast expanses of snow ensure that the arctic weather remains a constant presence. (Of course, to determine which color scheme is accurate to the source, one would need an authoritative reference, such as an answer print.)

Technical difficulties prevented me from measuring the average bitrate, but according to the Blu-ray cover, it is approximately 31 Mbps, which is roughly the same as the original disc.

Fargo Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The remastered Blu-ray appears to use the same DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack as the previous disc.

From Greg Maltz's review of the 2009 Blu-ray edition:

From the opening sound of the evocative instrumentation by Carter Burwell to the characters' voices to the blast of gunshots and open-throated engines, the DTS-HD MA audio track of Fargo is a pleasure to hear. Like the picture quality, it's a significant upgrade in definition and refinement. The soundstage up front is narrow but deep, and very little use of surrounds is apparent—just a touch of ambience in the music and some of the louder effects like car engines. Treble is a bit bloated here. Watch the scene where the kidnappers break into the Lundegaards' home. The sound of breaking glass has good presence and definition, and the piercing cries of Mrs. Lundegaard are more open, airy and not nearly as thin and digital-infused as the compressed Dolby Digital audio from the DVD version. In fact, voices throughout Fargo on Blu-ray feature better detail and tonality than ever before. When Jerry scrapes the ice off his windshield after the meeting with his father in law, the contributes to the overall impact and isolation of the scene. Another notable sound is the violin in Burwell's compositions that perfectly tie together the film's bleak landscapes, unbelievable plot and quirky characters. But ultimately, every sound in the DTS-HD MA track is a pleasure to hear and the only thing holding it back from the highest rating is a more dynamic surround mix. Frankly, that would not have seemed natural with this film, so the focus on the front three channels is perfectly suitable.

Fargo Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras are identical to those of the previous disc. See the reviews by Greg Maltz and Jeffrey Kauffman for further discussion.

Fargo Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Unlike with, say, the original Robocop, the improvements offered by the remastered Fargo aren't so dramatic that I would encourage everyone to run right out and replace their existing copy, especially since there are no new extras to sweeten the deal. But anyone who is buying their first Blu-ray of this Coen Bros. masterpiece should certainly acquire the new version, and Coen fans should consider adding the new disc to the Blu-ray.com price tracking tool to await the inevitable bargain. With those caveats, recommended.