Review of Fargo: Special Edition

Introduction

So far exclusive to this region comes a long-awaited and fully-fledged Special Edition of the Coen brothers’ Oscar-Winning Fargo, with a remastered picture and full of extras.

Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hatches a desperate plan to get cash that he badly needs. He plans to hire two petty criminals to kidnap his wife and take a share of the ransom that his rich father-in-law will inevitably pay up. But what seemed to him like a foolproof plan quickly goes wrong when Carl and Gaear, the two kidnappers, are caught by a highway patrol cop with the wife trussed up on the back seat. In a panic they shoot him, starting off a chain of events that go from bad to worse.

Video

The picture is presented in anamorphically enhanced 1.85:1 widescreen and is in very good shape - surely better than the apparently terrible first version of this film on DVD. There is a high level of detail and so the image appears crisp. The print is also in very good condition, although there is some film grain in scenes, but nothing significant enough to spoil your viewing. All this goes to enhance the fantastic minimalistic visual experience created by the film’s cinematographer Roger Deakins – all in all a very good mark is deserved here.

Audio

The soundtrack on this disc is in Dolby 5.1, but don’t expect to hear a great example of this sound format. The rear speakers have little to do except produce the music (excellent score by the way) and the fronts are almost as inactive. This is not to say it is a bad mix; the dialogue comes across strongly through the centre speaker and the music can be heard clearly, which pretty much satisfies me when I watch heavy-dialogue films.

Features

After the previous bare-bones release and the MGM R1 version with a solitary ‘trailer’ as an extra, this disc contains a pretty exciting set of extras that makes up for the long wait for the arrival of the SE to DVD.

The commentary track is unfortunately not by the Coens, but is instead by the cinematographer Roger Deakins. Luckily this track is not as technical as most of the others I have heard when it`s recorded by a member of the crew; Deakins goes a little into the creative side too, and retains his initial enthusiasm throughout. To somewhat make up for the lack of a ‘creative’ commentary you can also watch a trivia track along with Deakins’s track. When this feature is activated, a piece of trivia pops up on the screen at a fair rate throughout the film.

The 30min documentary entitled Minnesota Nice is probably the best extra, although suffers from too many clips from the film being interspersed with the interesting bits. Luckily there is quite a lot of substance to these interesting bits, with the Coens and the cast talking about the making of the film and the difficulties in production. Another feature to compensate for the lack of a director’s commentary is a 20min long interview of the Coens on The Charlie Rose Show. As always Rose asks useful questions and the brothers make good subjects, giving in-depth answers and telling more anecdotes about experiences on set.

To round off this set of features is a feature called the Coens Brothers Family Tree, which lets you see all the collaborators of the brothers, an article on the film by the American Cinematography magazine, a photo gallery and some trailers.

Conclusion

Despite some great plotting in their films, what I remember most vividly about their movies are the characters. The four central characters here are just as memorable – Jerry is tenderly portrayed as a desperate man who finds himself in way over his head, whilst the two hapless kidnappers, played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, are fantastic comic creations. Frances McDormand is also excellent as the moral centre of the film, the small-town cop who picks up the case. This DVD is excellent – one of the best releases of the year so far – and it’s always nice to see the UK and Europe getting a great release ahead of stateside. Great picture, good sound, some quality extras and one of the best films of the ‘90’s add up to a must-have DVD.