The story tells of Jerry Lundegaard who decides to pay two thugs to kidnap his wife with the promise of sharing the 80,000 dollar ransom 50-50. Things go wrong and the thugs end up killing 3 innocent bystanders: a police ranger and a couple on vacation. They decide they want the full $80,000 and refuse to give his wife back otherwise. This is on top of the bank and car dealerships demanding money from Lundegaard. The heroine of the story is Marge Gunderson - the heavily pregnant, coffee drinking police officer.
I believe the Coen brothers added the character of Marge to bring a lightness and comedic relief to the story. Coen brothers films are very rarely without a stock character like Marge, but she seems to embody the 'American Spirit' of doing what's right (along with eating fast food for nearly every meal).
The shots of the snow in Fargo, North Dakota gave the film a feel of isolation, as in these shots all you can see is white. One point I noticed was that the snow was always immaculately clean (apart from the blood). There were tire tracks but no dirt or mud was present. This gave the film an almost farcical feel, as if the little town of Fargo was in fact unreal.
At one point Lundegaard is looking around in the snow. The camera all of a sudden becomes his point of view and pans around back and forth standing in one spot, showing that the expanse of a barbed wire fence on the left is exactly the same as the stretch to the right, making it seem like a never ending road.
Many times the camera ends up in the passenger seat of a car, even if both seats are occupied by characters. The swapping out of characters for cameras give the shots a more personal feel, as if the audience is sitting across from Marge or Shep (the Native American crooked garage worker). The camera spends a lot of time following cars, in the back of cars, on the front of cars and once on the floor of the car. It gives the audience the sense that in Fargo this is the only way to get around. Cars are a key theme in the film, with Lundegaard working at a car dealership, Shep at a garage, the crooks steal a car and Marge with her police brawler.
Fargo North Dakota is supposedly the home of the giant Paul Bunyan, and his pet Babe the blue Ox. The directors use this symbolism by adding a huge statue of Bunyan at the entrance to the town, as if he looks on to all the crime and judges, silently and still. The camera has to pan up to look at his face, which is terrifying in the dark and quiet of the snowy night.This harmless statue is one of the shots that makes the audience the most uneasy, which shows how much power an inanimate object has when put in the right setting. As well as this, the characters converge at the dive bar 'The Blue Ox', a reference to Babe. This again adds to the farcical feel of the town and shows that the people of Fargo stick at home, as if all the corruption stays and festers in Fargo.
I found the use of cars, the magical imagery of Bunyan and Babe and the camera angles in the cars, snow and bars all contributed to the mount of tension, remorse at the death and the love for Marge elicited by the Coen brothers in this film.
In the end, Carl (Steve Buscemi) the corrupt murderer returns to the town to hide over $1,000,000 in the snow before returning to his accomplice and he never goes back for it (he never leaves their hide out again). The Coen brothers began the film with 'Based on a true story, as the events happened', and never told the audience what happened to the money in the end, and it was said that a Japanese woman actually flew to America, traveled to Fargo, North Dakota to try and find the money and died trying.
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