Blood Simple was taken in 1984 and is considered the first feature film of the Coen brothers. This seemingly simple and rude film, but the plot logic is strange and rigorous, made the Coen brothers famous in the first battle, and has since become the standard bearer of independent films outside of Hollywood mainstream films. Thirty years old may not be considered young and famous, but the pervasive depressive, dark and even ridiculous atmosphere in the film, simple and smooth shots and editing, compared with the director's age, are extremely mature and sophisticated. A large part of the attractiveness of independent films is that more of the film retains the director's or the producer's many personal styles, and is less constrained by the sometimes almost unreasonable demands of the investor and the producer. The films of the Coen brothers are undoubtedly run through by their unique dark style. Many of the stylized elements that were popular among fans in their later films are quite obvious in this debut film.
Rather than being an experimental work, this is more like the long-planned ambition of two geniuses.
The story of the film is made up of the relationship of several characters.
Abby, the heroine of the unbearable bar owner's husband Julian Marty, has an extramarital affair with Marty's bar employee Ray. A private investigator took a photo of the two's affair in a hotel and found Marty asking for payment, and suggested that he could help him "solve" the problem. An angry Marty blasted away the detective. In the evening, Ray approached Marty to resign and asked for two weeks' salary. Marty refused angrily. In the morning, I went to Ray’s residence and tried to abduct his wife, but instead he was screwed on his finger and kicked to his genitals. He was disappointed. Marty is furious, finds the detective and asks him to murder Abby and Ray.
What happened next was different from what the characters in the play and even the audience expected. The detective did not kill Abby and Ray, but forged a photo of the death of the two, found Marty cheated of the payment, and killed Marty with Abby's pistol stolen from Ray's residence. Unwilling to get paid, Ray came to Marty but found that he was shot. Seeing Abby's gun, he was sure that Abby had killed Marty. For the lover, he cleaned the scene and took Marty to the outskirts for burial. The detective who found that he had left the lighter on the scene went back to search and found that Marty’s body had disappeared, lest the matter would be revealed, he planned to pry open Marty’s safe to take the money and kill Abby and Ray. He was almost caught in the process of prying the box. Abby who came in suddenly broke. Ray returned to open the safe and found the fake photo of the death of two people. He knew that Marty had hired the killer and realized the danger between himself and Abby. Abby, who didn't know everything, believed that Ray killed Marty for money, and thought that Ray had gone crazy after the murder.
At this point in the plot, I have to stop. The amount of information is slightly larger, take a breath.
Many people hailed this Blood Simple as the "Resurrection of Hitchcock." But in fact, it is not difficult to find that one of the fascinating parts of the Coen Brothers films is also different from Hitchcock and many other suspense films. There is no "conspiracy" in the film.
Traditional suspense films attract the audience by creating suspense with confusing cases. There is a murder or a theft, and it is often difficult for the audience to guess who the murderer or criminal is. In the constant speculation, reasoning, and anticipation, the film reached a climax, the truth came to light, and it was very enjoyable. What the awesome Hitchcock is best at is mental games with the audience. He constantly misleads the audience with the behavior of the characters or other details, and finally gives people an unexpected feeling when he reveals the answer. In a sense, these films are based on conspiracies.
The reason why the Coen brothers’ film is not conspiracy refers to the fact that all shameful criminal activities seem to be presented to the audience from a third-person perspective by the director, placing the audience in a position of “all-knowing” and allowing the audience to master a lot. Details and plans that the characters in the play do not know. From this perspective, some of the Coen brothers' films are "extremely motivated." Just like in Blood Simple, Marty and the detective discuss the details of the murder of the two in the car; use a set of moving cameras to follow the detective into Ray's home; Ray handles Marty's body. There is no unknown "suspect" hidden in the dark in other suspenseful films. Instead, the director confesses all the details to the audience. The Coen brothers' brilliance, and perhaps the most distinctive feature of the movie, lies in this. This kind of sparing no effort to inform the film did not reduce the "suspense" taste of the film, but only transformed the suspense from "Who is the criminal" to "What will they do next?" smell. It seems that every character is avoiding the ending he feared in his own way, but is brought to the bloody ending by a more powerful and unknown force. Without the final insights of other suspense movies, the audience is guessing every minute what will happen next, and when the next event happens unexpectedly, after being surprised, the audience will find that according to the hidden lines before the film , Foreshadowing, this is a natural necessity.
It seems absurd, but it is reasonable. The polish of the script shows the skill.
The use of the film lens is quite sophisticated. There is no exaggeration or dazzling technique, every shot is crisp and concise. Except for a few moving shots, most of the film consists of simple fixed shots. The back and forth editing of the characters during the dialogue, the timely insertion of some facial expressions, close-ups with symbolic objects (lighters, dead fish, car lights, fans), it seems that every shot is extremely simple. But together, they are so genius and weird. Including the geometric composition and shadows brought about by the German expressionist films inserted by the Coen brothers, they can be considered just right. There are many times in the film a fan rotating overhead, which symbolizes the character's confusion and inner struggle. The fan seems to be screwed together with the thoughts of the characters and the audience; Abby lies on the apartment bed, the huge shadow of the window shelf Projected on her wide-eyed face, the panic and helplessness in her heart was simply torn out and spilled on the screen.
The camera is like a calm and emotionless bystander, slowing down all these evils. Even in the most stressful part, the camera is still not rushed or slow, as if saying to the audience, "What do you think?" This feeling is like, when you know that a bomb is about to explode in the room, And when he was looking for it in a hurry, the companion next to him leisurely smoked a cigarette. This seemingly untimely calmness made people nervous and uneasy.
Most of the scenes in the film were shot at night. The most memorable scene was the action Ray took after he found Marty's body. In the extremely short-lived Empress Zhang, he quietly processed the blood stains on the ground, burned the rags, and dragged Marty into the car, preparing to take it to the wild for burial. But when he parked the car on the highway, he found that Marty was not completely dead and was still struggling to escape. Weak Marty took out the gun in his pocket, slowly aimed at Ray, pressed the trigger several times, and when he found that there were no bullets, Ray only slowly took the gun from Marty's hand without saying a word and inserted it into his pocket. inside. Under such a calm appearance, it was the incomparable fear and frenzy in Ray's heart. There was no trembling, no loss of control. The director just gave a few shots of Ray shoveling the soil and burying Marty alive. Each shovel was slammed into the soil. After burying, he struggling to slap on the filled dirty pit. The catharsis of this emotion, the creepy association, is like the lifeless soil, the flesh and blood of Marty.
No one is innocent in the scenes of the Coen brothers. Marty's angry revenge plan seems to be the beginning of everything, but the audience will find that it was Abby's infidelity before that. The detective's greed caused him to kill Marty, and decided to kill Abby and Ray who might reveal his crime. The reticent Ray seems to have always been an innocent, implicated character, burying the corpse, and also under the protection of Abby. Until he found out that Marty was not dead, his cowardice, panic, and fear caused him to kill Marty with his own hands and bring sin. The character's stubbornness, thinking that he has the blind confidence in absolute control of the event, led to everyone's ending.
This "universal evil" of the characters seems to echo the calm, pure narrative without scrutiny. When everyone is sinful, there is no such thing as kindness.
This is by no means a film that explores the good and evil of human nature. Perhaps the Coen brothers did not intend to dig deep philosophies like many European directors, but made the film deeply. He just split a wonderful story, a little bit, unreservedly showed the audience, as for the humanity and thinking inside, let's watch it for yourself.
Master, sometimes you just need to tell the story well. Those who blindly show people all kinds of esoteric ideas may be philosophers, but more often, they are pyramid schemes.
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