by Allan Fish
(USA 2001 112m) DVD1/2
He just cuts the hair
p Ethan Coen d Joel Coen w Ethan Coen, Joel Coen ph Roger Deakins ed Roderick Jaynes m Carter Burwell (and Ludwig Van Beethoven) art Dennis Gassner cos Mary Zophres
Billy Bob Thornton (Ed Crane), Frances McDormand (Doris Crane), James Gandolfini (Big Dave Brewster), Michael Badalucco (Frank), Richard Jenkins (Walter Abundas), Scarlett Johansson (Birdie Abundas), Jon Polito (Creighton Tolliver), Tony Shalhoub (Freddy Riedenschneider), Katharine Horowitz (Ann Brewster), Christopher MacDonald (Macadam salesman), Jennifer Jason Leigh (inmate),
It’s seen as a film noir homage and reworking of the world of James Cain, of shady characters, rough justice poetically dispatched by fates seemingly laughing at what Rick Blaine said the hills of beans the problems of a few little people add up to. In some ways they would be right, it does owe something to The Postman Always Rings Twice, but it owes aspects to many other sources. In actuality what we really have here is an art film, and a spellbinding one which dares to have as its protagonist a virtual blank, a non-entity who by his own words is just a barber.
Meet Ed Crane, second barber at a small family barber’s shop in 1949 California – Santa Rosa to be precise – who becomes increasingly aware that his wife Doris is having an affair with her boss, Dave Brewster. At first he doesn’t really seem to care until one day one of his customers, one Creighton Tolliver, tells him of a business proposition surrounding the then burgeoning possibilities in dry cleaning. Ed needs $10,000 to become silent partner in the enterprise, and so hits on the scheme to anonymously blackmail Dave into getting the money. He gets the money only for Dave to find out about the nefarious scheme and confront Ed. There’s a big fight and, pretty much in self-defence, Ed kills Dave. To his surprise, it’s his wife who’s fingered for the murder as she’d been cooking the books of the store – at Dave’s behest, but the police doesn’t know that.
And believe it or not we’re only about half way through the film. After their earlier homages (Miller’s Crossing, The Big Lebowski) we now expect the plot to go off in a strange direction around two thirds of the way in, and the Coens don’t disappoint with a subplot involving possible alien abduction and Ed’s rising obsession with the teenage daughter of his friend. That sudden take off into unexpected realms may not sit well with many who watch the film, but in truth the bigger stumbling block is the passivity of the chain-smoking Ed. He literally is like a phantom; late in the film he remarks that “it was like I was a ghost wandering down the street”, but we’d figured that out a long time before. It’s a leisurely film, a sedate film which moves along at its own pace, like a tumbleweed drifting down the main street, only accompanied by the haunting strains of Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ and ‘Moonlight’ sonatas. Oh, and an introductory burst of Mozart’s familiar ‘Sull Aria’, drifting over the eponymous prison in The Shawshank Redemption, and here not by chance as Ed’s narration comes from what we later find out is his cell on death row.
Thornton may dominate with sublime understated skill but the performances are all pitch perfect, from McDormand’s wife to Gandolfini’s irrepressible fraud, from Shalhoub’s city-slicker lawyer to Polito’s folically challenged gay salesman, and from Johansson’s level-headed piano playing teenager to Badalucco’s eternally fat-chewing barber. The script is structured to perfection, the designs and music integrating as seamlessly as Gassner and Burwell’s earlier work for the Coens, while Deakins’ crisp black and white photography is sublime. There are the usual Coen motifs in there – not least the bouncing hubcap – but it’s in the ending that we’re given perhaps the biggest homage and to a film far from the world of California and film noir; it’s set in 1949, is narrated by someone about to be executed for a murder he didn’t commit having got away with one he did. Sound familiar? No last minute pardon here, though.
“It’s seen as a film noir homage and reworking of the world of James Cain, of shady characters, rough justice poetically dispatched by fates seemingly laughing at what Rick Blaine said the hills of beans the problems of a few little people add up to. In some ways they would be right, it does owe something to The Postman Always Rings Twice, but it owes aspects to many other sources.”
I’d love to hear my pal Tony d’Ambra’s position on this statement, if he’s seen this particular film. I like it more now than when i first saw it in the theatre, though I must say I’m startled at this positioning. Still I suspect there may be another Coens higher. That’s quite a textured b & w screen cap from the DVD. Glistening.
I was supposed to have revisited this after a discussion here with Jamie, who is a big fan, a few months back, but I haven’t. I can’t really stomach the “pitch perfect” nihilism. I think Rick Blaine would have hated this movie, and Casablanca is as far away from James M. Cain that you can get both geographically and in artistic sensibility.
The Coen’s have really ripped-off Wilder’s Double Indemnity here, not The Postman Always Rings Twice, but they are not in the same league as Wilder and Chandler. They have cooked-up all the ingredients of classic noir bar one – an engagement with the true ethos of noir – human emotional entrapment. Noir is not emotionally sterile.
I concur with Tony. This work is stifling, and an inferior rip-off of far greater films. I like the boys, but not for this one.
I don’t think this film is emotionally sterile in the least, in fact it’s an exact 180 from that. How else can you explain the bath tub sequence, where Ed shaves his wife’s legs and all the Birdie piano sequences? All very emotionally stimulating to me, and the character(s) involved.
And this isn’t even taking into account that maybe that isn’t what the movie is about– it’s like finding fault with Camus ‘The Stranger’ for lack of emotional melodrama.
I won’t say more as many know my appreciation for this film– it might get the top spot of the decade for me.
Oh and, as Sam (somewhat) points out, the photography is beautiful in this one. To me this (or ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES…) is Roger Deakins best work. He should have won the Oscar for this one easily.
My favorite shot is the one of the lawyer (played so well by Tony Shalhoub) standing in a spotlight in the prison cell only his chest down visible. ‘The headless lawyer’ as it were, it’s beautiful.
I think the key to appreciating this film is that we are seeing classic film noir in the vein of DOUBLE INDEMNITY as filtered through the Coen bros.’ universe where emotional detachment is king. It’s kinda like how BARTON FINK is their wild take on THE DAY OF THE LOCUST. Personally, I found THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE to be a fascinating film, esp. the injection of the 1950s science fiction subplot which seemed to come out of nowhere but, for me, worked. Also, they got a fantastic performance out of Billy Bob Thornton, an actor I normally can’t stand (BAD SANTA excepted), in what can only be described as minimalist marvel of restraint! This is certainly not a film for everyone but I think it’s the best thing they did in that entire decade.
Aside from the tremendous black and white cinematography, this film stunk like yesterday’s garbage. The plot is cryptic and tedious, the characters and the actors playing them all look tired and uninspired. The few that actually show some spark come off so over the top that you cannot take them at all as characters but, maybe this is the point, CHARACATURES. I love the Coen’s work, I admire even their most off the wall stuff but, this, for lack of a better term, BORED ME TO TEARS. I looked at Allan’s NEARLIES a few seconds ago, and I can pretty safely acess that there will be, at least, one more Coen Bros. film coming. If I’m correct, its most definately superior to this monumental snorer. Like Sam, I’m startled by this numerical position. I don’t know what Allan, or anyone sees in this flick… IMO
I wouldn’t quite go that far Dennis, but I’ll admit the spark is missing. It may well be the suffocating nihilism that Tony rightly points out. Still, I admire your candor and enjoyed your excellent take down.
But hey, reading what Jamie and J.D. say (not to even mention Allan) I am questioning my own sanity here. Jamie might have it at #1? Wow.
Yeah, I like it that much… and I’m wondering if since Dennis has offered a negative review of a film I like if I should return on Monday complaining of weekend migraines, conniption fits, and general malaise at a differing review then mine? Is that par for the course Dennis? LOL, zing!
I kid I kid of course. I do really love this film though, it’s the most total of the Coen’s worldview, all others of theirs just scratch the surface compared to this.
Poor Dennis got so bored even talking about it that he misspelt caricatures.
I remember when this movie shared one of the top awards at Cannes with “Mulholland Drive”, and later wondered how the hell these two films were graded anywhere even near the same curve.