Fargo
(1996) 98 mins.
written by Joel & Ethan Coen
directed by Joel Coen
 “There’s
more to life than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that?”
In his classic, The Divine Comedy, the poet Dante, records being guided by Virgil, the muse of human reason, on an allegorical journey to recognize sin, to renounce it and to reach the light of God by visiting hell, purgatory and heaven. When they finally arrived at the pit of hell, Dante described it as a huge frozen lake, a bitterly cold, ice-covered place, guarded by giants. So, too, do the Coen Brothers in their 1996 ironic, icy road study of greed, lies and murder. The evil deeds of Fargo parallel the sins of Dante’s Inferno with visceral accuracy. The hellish Northern hemisphere of Dante’s spiritual world matches the snowscape between the Twin Cities and Fargo. In between lies Brainerd, home to Paul Bunyon, the mythic giant who stands guard over the grotesque spiral of blood sins perpetrated by Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) and his team of hired thugs, Carl and Gaear (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare.) If we travel with Dante or Sheriff Marge Gunderson (Frances MacDormand) along the frozen brink of hell, we discover the reality of what goes on beneath the cover of snow and ice. Jerry’s attempt to commit a crime under the guise of normalcy and virtue is fraudulent and malicious. Worse yet, it is so utterly stupid. The evil of Fargo comes not from hell, but from the characters’ bumbling dabbling with darkness. Evil finds a foothold when a human being ignores the voice of conscience and cuts a corner – usually off someone else. The snowballing consequences soon acquire an incontrovertible momentum. In Fargo, evil isn’t overcome by good, but rather ends up rolling to a stop, on the bodies of those who had unleashed it. Film essay by Sr.
Rose William Pacatte, fsp
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