"_______ is a comedy?!" is going to be a common sentiment throughout this countdown if people are already questioning the eligibility of Fargo. It's almost as if -- gasp! -- movies can be multiple genres at once. Who knew? I've enjoyed Fargo more with each viewing, and found its humor more amusing each time, but would still only rank it somewhere in the middle of the Coen Bros. filmography. I prefer the TV show, personally -- or at least the first three seasons, as I still haven't gotten around to the Chris Rock season. The Coens have a strong chance to be the most represented directors on the countdown.
I didn't get the sense anyone was questioning its "eligibility", more that people, myself included, expressed some surprise. And really what I, personally, was saying is that one shouldn't be surprised that it was as "low" as it was when many may simply not think of it as a comedy or at least enough of a comedy to bump something like
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or such, what I would call a "pure comedy", when you've only got 25 slots to work with. I agree with you (I think I basically said as much a page or two ago), for what it's worth, that movies cross over all the time and that
Fargo does to be sure. In my personal feelings it's a brilliant, clever, and fun film with great wit, probably a "black comedy", but I cannot let it bump one of the 25 greatest comedies ever made, especially when it could qualify for multiple other lists. I hold no one else to this opinion.
Me personally, a couple-few things were true for my ballot.
1. I wanted to be completely honest with myself (and, transitively, the rest of you). No including anything for any other motivation than if I could only watch 25 comedies before I die, and I didn't have to please anyone else and nobody was watching and nobody was judging, what would they be.
2. (And this speaks to this conversation) If I felt like it was
more reflective of another genre than it was of comedy, it was out. There are simply too many great "pure comedies" to exclude them in favor of movies that are great but are only really partially comedies. That automatically excluded most
Horror-Comedies, for example, even though they are one of my favorite (sub-)genres.
3. It had to be funny, on purpose, for most of the film. If the focus of the film drifted into other areas like melancholy or melodrama or thrills or such, they got bumped to the back of the line and would have to be so funny in their moments that they could overcome the "pure comedies" That also included movies that make you grin or chuckle or get a wry smile pretty often versus just straight-up make you laugh throughout. This exlcluded a lot of
Rom-Coms, for another example, because a lot of them spend far more time on the Romance than they do on the Comedy. The ones that did that were out. The ones that focused on the comedy, like
His Girl Friday, for another example, could be in.
4. No games. That meant that I couldn't allow myself to include anything just to make my list cute or clever. This harkens back to No.1, really. It is for this reason I couldn't bring myself to play the One-pointer game. I felt, to adhere to No.1, which was the most important to me, that using a slot to play a side-game, was no good. This does
not mean I have any issue with the One-pointer game, it just means it wasn't for me.
I think that's pretty much the rules I set for myself. No "only one movie per filmmaker" or any of that crap. If my top 5 had all been
Monty Python movies in my head, if
Mel Brooks had 3 of the top 5 in my mind, if my favorites, deep down, were all really
Screwballs from the 30s and 40s, then that's what would be on my list.
But again, I hold no one else to any of this.