Rate The Last Movie You Saw

They say big things have small beginnings, but, while that's true in the case of Blood Simple, the start of the Coen brother's now-legendary decades long career, it's also true that this small beginning is a great one as well, taking a familiar Noir tale of adultery and murder, and filtering it through a sweaty, Neo-style sensibility, crafting a tight, tense work of profound, creeping paranoia, Texas (and Coen brothers)-style, and creating an enviable foundation for everything the iconic duo of filmmakers have made since.


It tells the story of Abby & Ray, a neglected housewife and an average joe bartender respectively, who impulsively strike up an affair while driving through a torrential downpour somewhere down in Texas. Naturally, Abby's husband Marty isn't too thrilled when he finds out about her infidelity, especially since it's with one of his own employees, but when he hires a sleazy, untrustworthy private eye for a "not strictly legal" job as an act of revenge against them, he accidentally sets off a increasingly insane chain of events, one where the dead seem to keep coming back to life, no one ever really trusts each other, and absolutely none of the characters can think straight, through both the real and imaginary pools of blood continually serving to obscure their vision.


So, when looking back on this film, it's striking how much Blood Simple set the stage for the Coens' later modern classics, with echoes reverberating throughout Fargo and their magnum opus No Country For Old Men, and, while it may not have 100% of the substance of some of their later efforts, Simple still has just as much STYLE, with cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld's tense, unnerving tracking shots, composer Carter Burwell's haunting, piano-centric score (which marks the first of his many collaborations with the Coens), and the pacing working to bring things to a slow (pot)boil, being agonizing in the most pleasurable sense of the word, if that makes sense.


And finally, Simple excels through its sheer, palpable atmosphere, which has one foot in the "real world", due to the copious amount of sweat constantly dripping off every character, whether it's from the Texas heat or their addled, fearful states of mind, while also accurately capturing the feeling of being trapped in a dream, albeit a bad one you can't even fully grasp, let alone escape from, as one bad mistake inevitably leads to the next, eventually leading you into an early grave. Add on top of that some sharp dialogue, a great cast all-around (including Frances McDormand herself in a strong debut performance), and traces of the Coens' signature black humor, and Blood Simple is anything but "the same old song"/film, as far as I'm concerned.

They say big things have small beginnings, but, while that's true in the case of Blood Simple, the start of the Coen brother's now-legendary decades long career, it's also true that this small beginning is a great one as well, taking a familiar Noir tale of adultery and murder, and filtering it through a sweaty, Neo-style sensibility, crafting a tight, tense work of profound, creeping paranoia, Texas (and Coen brothers)-style, and creating an enviable foundation for everything the iconic duo of filmmakers have made since.


It tells the story of Abby & Ray, a neglected housewife and an average joe bartender respectively, who impulsively strike up an affair while driving through a torrential downpour somewhere down in Texas. Naturally, Abby's husband Marty isn't too thrilled when he finds out about her infidelity, especially since it's with one of his own employees, but when he hires a sleazy, untrustworthy private eye for a "not strictly legal" job as an act of revenge against them, he accidentally sets off a increasingly insane chain of events, one where the dead seem to keep coming back to life, no one ever really trusts each other, and absolutely none of the characters can think straight, through both the real and imaginary pools of blood continually serving to obscure their vision.


So, when looking back on this film, it's striking how much Blood Simple set the stage for the Coens' later modern classics, with echoes reverberating throughout Fargo and their magnum opus No Country For Old Men, and, while it may not have 100% of the substance of some of their later efforts, Simple still has just as much STYLE, with cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld's tense, unnerving tracking shots, composer Carter Burwell's haunting, piano-centric score (which marks the first of his many collaborations with the Coens), and the pacing working to bring things to a slow (pot)boil, being agonizing in the most pleasurable sense of the word, if that makes sense.


And finally, Simple excels through its sheer, palpable atmosphere, which has one foot in the "real world", due to the copious amount of sweat constantly dripping off every character, whether it's from the Texas heat or their addled, fearful states of mind, while also accurately capturing the feeling of being trapped in a dream, albeit a bad one you can't even fully grasp, let alone escape from, as one bad mistake inevitably leads to the next, eventually leading you into an early grave. Add on top of that some sharp dialogue, a great cast all-around (including Frances McDormand herself in a strong debut performance), and traces of the Coens' signature black humor, and Blood Simple is anything but "the same old song"/film, as far as I'm concerned.