What does the title Blood Simple mean?
Blood as a noun means "blood", as an adverb it means "extremely, very", and simple as an adjective means simple, and also means stupid. Taken together, it has two meanings:
One of them means that the whole incident in the film is "too simple", satirizing the blindness of the characters in the play;
The second refers to the "bloody stupidity" in the play. The stupidity of the satirical characters is infinitely magnified in the progress of the event, until it leads to a bloody murder.
opening and closing
The opening and closing clips take less than a minute to complete, and private investigators complete the task of pointing out the topic.
First of all, the private detective narration said something:
The world is full of disgruntled people. In fact, everything is impermanent. Whether you're the Pope of Rome, the President of the United States, or the Person of the Year, unexpected things happen. ... in the USSR they had their own network of connections and everyone could pull each other, at least in theory. But I only know about Texas, where nothing is asked for.
There are unpredictable situations in the sky, and disasters and blessings for people. This is the so-called "everything is impermanent". In the face of "unexpected events", people in the world complain a lot, passively form a group, and pin their hopes on the outside world. And the private detective's idea is that "the way is his own", he thinks he can control everything, even if it is unexpected. Is the fact as he said, everything is in his own plan? It seems not necessarily.
At the end, the drop of water in front of the private detective's dying moment undoubtedly made him feel the powerlessness of being fooled by fate. Compared with the opening remarks, it constitutes a heavy satire on the characters in the film. Even if he manages his business step by step like a private detective, he will end up like this, not to mention the other three.
repeat pattern
The film uses a lot of repetition and variation to achieve satirical effect, such as the pearl handle pistol, the detective's lighter, four dead fish tied together, the slogan on the wall of the bar "all employees must wash their hands before starting work", the rotating fan , the cul-de-sac in front of Lei's house, the window without curtains, and a few lines, etc., are all impressive. Further analysis will be made below.
Aspect comparison
"Blood Labyrinth" is a perfect example of a crime genre and a comedy genre.
As far as the events in the film are concerned, derailment, revenge, murder, and serial murder are typical crime film routines, no matter which one will make people laugh out loud. But this obviously doesn't apply to a film like "Blood Labyrinth," which, through the Coen brothers' structured and stylized interpretations, has been given a layer of dark humor.
Irony is at its best in this film, so how did the Coen brothers do it?
narrative
First of all, it is necessary to do a more detailed combing of the plot and story in the film.
The whole film has 19 scenes in three acts plus prologue and epilogue.
In the first act, Marty, who found out that his wife was cheating, went to take revenge, but was kicked back by his wife and fled in embarrassment. At the 30th minute of the whole film, the first climax of the film was reached, that is, before the private detective accepted the request of Marty, who became angry. Go murder Abby and Ray.
In the second act, the private detective shoots Marty and puts the blame on Abby in order to protect himself. The unknown Ray is misled into thinking that it was Abby. In order to cover up his crime, he decides to dispose of Marty's body. The film reaches its second climax in the eightieth minute, when Ray confesses to Abby that he buried Marty alive.
The third act only takes up the last ten minutes. The private detective following him desperately shoots Lei, but he is again negligent and trapped in the bathroom. In the subsequent climax, Abby shoots the private detective, but finds out that the murderer is not Marty. .
The whole film basically organizes the progress of the plot in chronological order, taking care of the actions of the four people one by one from an objective narrative point of view, except for the fact that the private detective did not murder Abby and Ray according to Marty's request. Through the invisible handling of this key event, the progress of the story completely deviates from the expectations of the audience and even the characters in the play, and from then on, the story progresses with repeated unexpected but reasonable "accidents".
The so-called "accident" is not "coincidence". If a story is propelled by coincidence alone, it can only make the audience aware of the mediocrity of the creator, and the lack of authenticity and practicality of the story. The effect of the story design of this film is not "coincidence", but "unexpected and reasonable".
Let's take a look at the " reasonable surprises " in the film:
1. The detective shoots Marty and puts the blame on Abby (the detective says "a hard money")
2. Ray came to the bar after the detective left (Ray said "you owe me two weeks' salary")
3. Marty, who was seriously injured and comatose, was "resurrected from the dead" (the detective shot in the trachea in a panic)
4. The detective drops the lighter on the bar table
5. Abby receives a silent phone call (the detective wants to know if things are going according to plan)
6. Morris hears Marty's phone message (Marty says "I made a call")
7. The detective's smashed safe is found by Abby (the detective is staring at Marty's safe)
8. Ray was killed (the detective followed after)
9. The detective is trapped in the bathroom (the detective thinks Abby is unarmed and not a threat)
10. Abby finds out the murderer wasn't Marty (Abby's Nightmare)
Each of the above-mentioned accidents caused a dramatic turn in the plot, forcing the audience to adjust their expectations of the story and leading the story to its final climax. However, each accident has been paved in the previous plot, thus dispelling the contingency of the event to a large extent.
Since the above events cannot be explained by "coincidence", what is the significance of these key events that drive most of the story? What does the film want to express with these "accidents"?
One possible explanation is that the film wants the audience to realize that the apparent "accident" in the story does not exist, and everything has a cause and effect.
According to this logic, the next question is, if so, why did these "accidents" happen? What caused these "accidents"? To answer this question, we need to deeply dissect the characters in the play.
Role
Unlike the single protagonist of the classic story design, the film has four main characters (Marty, Abby, Ray, private detective).
The design of the multiple protagonists focuses the narrative on the conflict on the outer level of the individual—that is, the interaction between the outer individuals. Limited by the objective narrative perspective, we can only know the characters from the external words and deeds. Under the seemingly passive actions, the characters' real and stubborn desires are hidden.
Let's analyze the behavior of the four people one by one :
Marty: Hire a private detective to investigate his wife's extramarital affairs, revenge for his attempted revenge, and send someone to murder his wife and lover in anger.
Abby: Dissatisfied with her lack of fun husband, maintains an ambiguous relationship with Morris, and is committed to Ray, first mistakenly thought that Marty was killed by Ray, then mistakenly thought that Ray was killed by Marty, and finally killed the detective by mistake .
Ray: I have a crush on Abby and have a relationship with him. After the incident is exposed, I go to Marty to ask for the unpaid salary. In order to cover up the crime for Abby, Marty is buried alive, and she is disheartened and determined to leave because she suspects Abby is acting on the scene. After discovering that the murderer was someone else, he went to warn Abby.
Detective: Followed and secretly photographed Abby for Marty, shot Marty and put the blame on Abby for the reward and wanted to protect herself, and then went to assassinate Ray and Abby in order to cover up the public and recover the money from the safe.
From this, we can infer the characteristics of these four people :
Marty: gloomy, rude and savage (taxidermy at home), low emotional intelligence, lack of sexual attraction, weak (can't control his wife, borrows revenge)
Abby: Romantic (pejorative), blind passive, weak ("I love you too")
Ray: Unspeakable, low self-esteem and suspicious ("I'm not getting in your way"), weak (hesitating in the face of dying Marty)
Detective: Greedy ("I'll do it for a fair price"), Cynical (mocking Marty), Weak (blaming Abby for self-defense)
After a little comparison, it will be found that the characteristics of these four people in the film are all negative, and there is one thing in common that unites them - " weakness ". Whether it's the angry Marty, the money-minded detective, the dissolute Abby, or the low-spirited and suspicious Ray, they all show the cowardice of ordinary people when they face the dark side of their hearts:
Marty stared at the incinerator, and he planned to throw Abby and Lei into the incinerator to destroy the corpse.
Facing Marty, the detective was terrified, for fear that the deception would be discovered, and shot Marty in the trachea in a panic. For a long time, he did not dare to put down the gun in his hand, but in the end he did not dare to fire another shot to ensure that Marty was really dead;
Whether Abby is facing Marty's threat in a nightmare or facing Lei's pressing step by step in reality, she will only show her weakness timidly and duplicitously and say "I love you too";
Facing the terrified Marty who had come back from the dead, Ray hesitated with a shovel, not knowing what to do with this dying man.
The negative traits of the four are constantly magnified by "weakness", and are driven by it to commit irreparable mistakes :
Marty is gloomy and rude, and has no taste at all. She is flirting with people in the bar and can't come to the stage. She goes to retaliate, but gets kicked in the lower body and runs away. She still suffers a series of sexual ridicules with injured fingers. All of Marty's problems are sex, and weakness leaves him powerless about it. The anger at his own incompetence was constantly suppressed, and the result was that he finally made up his mind to kill with a knife.
The only thing a detective can't forget is money. Money is his only rule. For money, he can endure the insults and contempt of Marty when he pays. For money, he can commit murder in disregard of the law. its own weakness. It is because he wants both money and life that he keeps taking risks to cover up his crimes.
Abby is slutty by nature, but she can't bear the consequences, and can only rely on men to handle everything, and eventually becomes the most blind and ignorant person in the film.
Lei is introverted, inferior and suspicious, always swinging between his admiration for Abby and morality. He often suspects that Abby is just playing tricks on himself. He is equally weak only when he encounters Marty's resistance. Finally, he is finally inspired to kill in his heart. Desire, buried Marty alive.
Based on the above analysis of the narrative and characters, we can go back to the question posed at the beginning: Why did the Coen brothers use a satirical way to tell this crime story in this film?
Obviously, this film is intended to show how ordinary people are gradually destroyed by the dark side of their hearts, that is to say, this is a story about "cocooning oneself". The Coen brothers are keenly aware of the dark side of everyone's heart, and use its weakness to magnify it into a complete story. The use of satire is in line with the film's own critical stance on the characters in the film.
So how did the Coen brothers achieve this effect?
The key lies in those "reasonable surprises", that is to say, the film keeps repeating this pattern: the characters keep falling into the traps they have set. All the "accidents" that happen to the characters are self-inflicted, and with the use of repeated props - elements such as pearl-handled pistols, lighters, dead fish, etc. - the film reminds the audience to pay attention to the mistakes the characters keep repeating unconsciously. It is precisely because of this design that the film's unique "black humor" style was finally formed.
This article is a viewing note I made after watching "Blood Labyrinth", please contact the author for reprinting .
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