The year is 2024, and that means the collective filmmaking careers of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen are now 40 years old. Their longstanding style and trademark traits officially began with 1984’s Blood Simple, a tight and shifting thriller that the duo has built upon the longer they’ve been a Hollywood force.
THE STORY: On a rainy Texas night, a car is shared by two lovebirds. Ray (John Getz) is a local bartender and Abby (Frances McDormand) is a simple housewife. Wait, what? Abby is in an unhappy marriage with an individual named Marty (Dan Hedaya)…who happens to be the owner of the bar Ray works at. Suspicious, Marty gets visual confirmation of his wife’s infidelity upon hiring private investigator Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh). This furthers Marty’s emotional tailspin.
After flat passive-aggressive threats and one failed kidnapping, the owner has had enough and wants to send the cheaters to an early grave. He hires Visser to do the job, giving him $10,000 for his troubles after completing. Despite ridding himself of his spouse and subordinate, Marty’s troubles have only just begun.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR: In a way, Blood Simple feels like an adult variant of the kids game “Telephone” with actions instead of phrases. Switching perspectives isn’t the easiest to execute in a movie, but in the Coens’ debut, this is what they manage to pull off. Each act follows the point-of-view of the leads, starting with Marty, then Ray, and finally Abby. Structuring the feature in this way allows Joel and Ethan to slowly add more detail and information reveals to the plot, ones that we naturally see but the main characters are working through and trying to stay one step ahead of. Not all of it is seamless, and two characters particularly in Visser and Meurice, albeit both entertaining (especially Visser as a chaos agent) in their own right, are underwritten or present to only connect a dot or two. Still, the duo build up enough momentum that comes to a head during a climactic final act.
You can see so much of the bedrock of the brothers’ careers being erected in Blood Simple. Ambient, neo-noir atmospheres (with a huge assist from then-solely-a-cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld), bungled crimes/plans of said crime, the interest in those who still hold on to the last vestiges of the Wild West, and a captivating McDormand in her debut. Those low-angle camera shots and illuminating headlights are constantly present. Last, but certainly not least, flourishes of the trademark quirky black humor are visible, often courtesy of Walsh, though Hedaya and Getz deliver a few of their lines with a wry tone. I’ll never think about a marriage counselor again without Blood Simple coming to mind.
A GREAT MOMENT: Avoiding specific spoilers, but there’s a scene midway through Blood Simple that, as the kids say these days, is pure vibes. In the referenced moment, we’re following Ray as he’s driving to an undetermined location, somewhere far away into nowhere. What happens during the ride throws Ray and viewers for a loop, setting the events in motion for a frenzied finale.
There’s very little dialogue in this scene; the Coens choose to let the dusty Texas desert and endless road do a lot of the talking. That, and the titular track of Blood Simple composed by Carter Burwell—making his feature debut. Burwell’s piano-heavy piece is haunting, almost trance-like, with a sense of inevitability that inhabits much of the movie.
THE TALLY: Most people’s first anything is rarely what they’d put in their memoir as their crowning achievement. For Blood Simple, the Coen’s have gone on to say in the years and decades following release that they’re not too proud of it. Fair, but in yours truly’s humble opinion, they’re too hard on themselves. It’s What to Watch, and it’s currently streaming on Max (as of this writing.)