The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame

A video essay and an intimate philosophy session with Orson Welles. Not really a documentary but more of an art piece. Orson Welles trying out a new form of film making and storytelling. A re-editing exhibition done by Welles himself.


Can't go into plot or what it's about at all, you really have find out / interpret this one yourself.
There are a few things I can go into and really loved about this 'artwork';

It's packed with beautiful artful shots and locations like 1970’s Ibiza and the epic Chartres cathedral in France. Really enjoyed Orson Welles narrative voice here. He's right up there with some of my favorite narrative voices like; Morgan Freeman, Cate Blanchet, Sir David Attenborough, Frederick MacMurray (Double Indemnity) and Dick Powell (Murder my Sweet) to name a few. There are many great quotable lines and pearls of wisdom spread throughout the whole thing.

The Last Picture Show director Peter Bogdanovich said about this film;

"If you fight it and expect a linear kind of thing then you're not going to enjoy it.
If you're a willing participant it takes you someplace great."

I agree with Peter here, and I can say i'm one the viewers that experienced this as great.
Very curious which artful mofo nominated this and how she/he knew I would like it.

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Haven't seen it yet but that has CR written all over it

Yes, that was my initial reaction too, but he surprisingly nominated the excellent Galaxy Quest for me .

I liked it much more the second time but I'm still less of a fan than most others.

Seems like it would be me, but nope. I admired F for Fake but it's more experimental art, so it's cool but hard to rate against movies.

There’s plenty of foreign films available to pick from the various lists provided, but if your particular pick isn’t included in it, I’ll remind you of the HOF thats regularly held where you could always nominate it.

I rarely participate anyway. @Citizen Rules and I host the 80s teen HOFs.

the narrow margin ruled. the platonic ideal of the lean and mean b-noir. a moving train is just about the best setting in all of cinema and richard fleischer uses it well, cleverly evoking the claustrophobia of the narrow, pseudo-labyrinthine corridors in which characters are constantly opening doors of which they can never be certain who is on the other side. and the kineticism of the constant forward motion. the whole film is an exercise in building tension economically, and fleischer has plenty of filmmaking tricks up his sleeve, such as the way he uses reflection at the end or the propulsion of the train itself. there's a particularly memorable cut in which the sound of marie windsor filing her nails turns into the sound of the train chugging along the tracks. the way he uses the car driving alongside the tracks to play with perspective and location at the climax is also masterful. he also films one of the more visceral hand-to-hand brawls i've seen from the 1950s. the whole cast really brings it, with mcgraw giving just the right amount of intensity to his take on the no-nonsense detective, and windsor is quite good as the subversion of the femme fatale. haven't seen a lot of reviews mention jacqueline white's performance, but she's quite charming and i think is just as good as anybody here. great movie, it's been on my radar for a while, but i probably wouldn't have gotten around to watching it for a long time so i'm glad it was nominated.

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Yahoo! I watched another one...and here's what I thought...

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Although I loved The Narrow Margin, I thought it was an odd and random choice for Inmate. It turns out the person who nominated it knew what they were doing.

I also loved Colonel Blimp and I thought it was a great choice for CR.

Shows how much I know

I have you to blame? Ha
I had really planned on watching this for years, so glad to have had the motivation. Odd movie though, you loved it? I wouldn't have guess that.

I think it made it onto my 40's ballot but I don't remember for sure. Either way, don't blame me! Nobody has guessed me correctly yet, but I know it will happen.

OK

Oh and I just realized that I was the one who picked The Narrow Margin for Inmate. I figured when in doubt go with a noir.

Before Fargo, I had yet to see the Coen Brothers on their true comedic side. Fargo being my fourth, the other three have been Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men, and the Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Ballad has comedic touches, and I did laugh a couple times, but Blood Simple and No Country are the Coens at their blackest and grimmest.

And to see that style mixed with their delightful comedic writing makes for a masterpiece. Every character in this film just oozes with personality and uniqueness, a delightful flavor that makes everyone pop out to you. In another thriller with the same story directed by a lesser director, I might have forgotten the characters, gotten confused about the plot, and gotten - frankly - bored.

But the Coens are brilliant. At barely over an hour and a half (including credits), there is no dilly-dallying. We get concise, wonderfully constructed scenes that flow perfectly. There are a ton of characters to balance, but it is balanced effortlessly. The dialogue is snappy! The scenes are concise! Am I starting to sound like a broken record? Yes! But that's okay because this was amazing!

Set aside the ingenuity and stunning polished craft itself, and you get a marvelous analysis into themes the Coen Brothers seem to touch on a lot - the morality of crime, making decisions, fate and how it plays into our lives, and the often inevitability of death. While it's a "light" movie, there are seriously dark and gripping themes underneath the surface. At the heart is the moral dilemma that Jerry Lundegaard faces. He's a nice enough guy, sort of nervous, fidgety. He's not "evil" by any means. Yet he causes all the bloodshed in the film, whether intentionally or not.

There are scenes when we sort of sympathize with Jerry, and other moments when we want someone to just shoot him already. However, did he need the money? Was his plan that "evil"? And does it matter when innocent people died from it? As I said, Fargo masks all these themes in "Minnesota nice" and "Yah"s and huge midwestern buffets. But it also doesn't give us easy answers to its underlying questions about morality and mortality.

This cinematographer dude, pretty damn good. Wonder if he'll ever win an Oscar?? But yeah, Deakins is the man, proves his genius once again with sweeping, long distance shots of icy Minnesota, and fantastic use of blood in contrast with the snow.

Also, I would PAY to have Marge/Frances McDormand come interrogate me for a couple hours... one of the sweetest, most likable Coen characters out there!

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This is in my Coen top three for me. Number one is whichever of the three I've seen most recently. Right after I saw it for the first time I recommended it to my Ma. Told it was fantastic and really funny. She watches it, really likes it but didn't think it was funny. Then she starts telling a friend of hers about it and as she's relaying the story she starts laughing and says to her friend "Maybe it was funny. I have to watch it again." Now she gets the humor. It's dark. It's one of those great films that has you laughing at all the wrong things/moments.

I’m one of the few who has never liked Fargo since it was first released on vhs more then 20 years ago. I’ve watched it multiple times over the years in an attempt to see if maybe it ever clicks for me but after about 4 watches I’ve decided I just don’t like it. 🤷

Very happy to hear you enjoyed it, ahwell!! I was hoping it would have been up your alley for enjoyment.



This is one of my favorites for the Coen Brothers, even the TV series was excellent.
LOL
Now THAT is a typical Coen response FROM a Coen film!

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I'm surprised you didn't like it better. I've only seen it once so I can't comment on the technical aspects of it. But I can comment on what you said:

I would think a fancy cinamatography style that looked incredible would be ill suited to the subject matter. It should IMO look like a documentary with hand held camera and close range shots. But like I said I haven't seen it in ages, so I'm only speculating.
I don't remember the score, but I would totally agree that a movie like this should have an understated score, or mostly no scoring at all.

That's weird, it should not be on 100 Cheers list. Did you happen to have the DVD with extras, if so I highly recommend watching them as the full story of the racial genocide in Rwanda is something that's very important and yet most of the world doesn't know about it.

Fargo # 211 on my all time list, top 3 Coen movie with The Man Who Wasn’t There and No Country for Old Men, also big fan of the series which is starting again April 19.