CULT CINEMA
Fargo 15
USA | 1996 98 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Joel & Ethan Coen
STARRING
Frances McDormand | William
H. Macy | Steve Buscemi
12 October 2026 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £10.25|£6.25 (under 26)
inclusive of fees
Joel and Ethan Coen were not in great shape when they started work on Fargo. MIller’s Crossing and Barton Fink had won critical approval but no box offfice success and The Hudsucker Proxy, a 1940s-style screwball comedy, achieved neither. Something tougher and more contemporary was needed. The pair wrote their own script for Fargo. An opening caption describes the film as ‘a true story’. Many people have tried to find its sources, without success. Most likely it is pure fiction.
The film is set in the wintry wastes of Minnesota, the pair’s home state, immaculately shot by British cinematographer Roger Deakin – the palette is mostly white and grey — and was written before being shown to Frances McDormand, Joel Coen’s wife. She plays a dogged and underrated detective, Marge Gunderson. McDormand worked on the character with her screen husband, John Carroll Lynch, learnt how to fire a gun and took notes from a pregnant police officer.
Many of the inhabitants of Minnesota are of nordic descent. Marge’s sing-song accent and folksy mannerisms are examples of what is known as ‘MInnesota NIce’, although, as the critic Anthony Lane observed, ‘her character—seven months pregnant, polite to a fault, smart yet slow—is only a breath away from caricature.’ But she is also decent and vulnerable. Whether stumbling or wandering into the den of a killer, we feel the jeopardy. This gives this film an emotional heft lacking in other Coen Brothers films.
The male lead, William H. Macy, was originally considered for a small role, having been known mainly for his collaborations with David Mamet. He had to fight for the role of Jerry. It was his breakthrough, although according to Wikipedia it did nearly condemn him to being typecast as ‘a worried man down on his luck’.
The film cost $7m to make and took $60m around the world on first release. Despite some carping (John Simon of the National Review wrote ‘the Coen brothers' Fargo is their best film so far, which isn't saying very much’) it was also a critical success, and in 2014 spawned a TV spin-off.