It's fun to reassess established directors by looking back at their first films. Last year's theatrical reissue of Blood simple, with some editorial tinkering done to bring it back in line with the Coen's original intentions, confirmed that many of the celebrated filmmakers' most familiar themes already in firm place. It showed us the camera tricks of frequent Coen cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, such as the floating viewpoint that shadows a german shepherd down a hallway, or follows the tennis shoes of bartender Meurice (Samm-Art Williams), or cruises down a bar-top, lifting up like a rollercoaster to avoid colliding with a passed-out patron.

The reissue also gave us all a chance to see everyone's favorite Fargo police chief in her first role: Frances McDormand is arrestingly good as the harried spouse of the weasley bar owner. Dan Hedaya, he of the permanent five O'Clock shadow, got everyone's attention with this role, as did M. Emmet Walsh, whose weary, grudge-holding, Russia-obsessed detective is tone-perfect. As he negotiates with Hedaya, the insects buzzing in his hair seem to be feeding off his insanity. Murder's fine with him; it's just people's tendency to 'go simple' afterwards that gives him grief. A lot of movies, from Arthur Penn's The Chase on, have tried to convey Texas as some alien planet where the heat makes lovers more desperate and villains more venal. Blood simple pegs the mood with the first look on every actor's face.

Coen & Coen have us in their grip from the beginning. Carter Burwell's music syncs up with the windshield wipers of the lovers' car, not with nervous strings as in Psycho, but instead a droning Texas beat. Lean scripting limits the locations to a bar, a couple of residences and some incidental exteriors, but the wide-open highways and plowed fields keep claustrophobia from closing in. Once the setpieces settle into place (the final 2/3 of the show are non-stop tension scenes) we're too busy watching every detail on screen, and every facial twitch of the characters to be concerned with production values.

It's clear going in that this is going to be a movie about killings and doublecrosses, and the Coens exercise a very Hitchcockian concern with incidental details that pays off nicely. There's the pearl - handled revolver. The envelope with incriminating photos. The cigarette lighter. Marty's fishing catch, rotting on his desk over the course of several days, like the uncooked rabbit in Repulsion. The safe. The hammer. A shirt with bloodstains. The back seat of a car with bloodstains. We watch these props and objects intensely, while four characters all try to deal with a mystery for which none of them have a complete picture. Each acts in concert with their disposition and nature: the slimy boss and his counter-extortion plan, the unethical detective with the cackling laugh that covers up an inner rage; the runaway wife desperately in search of someone trustworthy, and the bartender who becomes an accomplice to murder after the fact under a completely false set of assumptions.

Neatly tricked out with expressive camera angles that stylize scenes without becoming too artificial, Blood simple looks too good to have been shot as an independent quickie. The Coens' instincts seem to have burst full bloom without need for development, as this thriller has a sure touch with character, plot, and sharp first-person storytelling. The violent, funny, and unpredictable chain of mayhem and misunderstandings has the feel of a demented episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Show, except with one ironic twist undermining another for 97 minutes straight.

Universal's DVD of Blood simple is a distinct improvement on the grainy theatrical prints seen back in 1984. I was told that for the reissue last year, the Coens were able to reinstate some editiorial differences that their original distributor had made them remove, for clarity's sake. But they've gone a bit further than that with the addition of a 'Forever Young' preface, a talking-head introduction that confused everyone in the theater. In this strange sixty seconds of film, a gentleman identifies himself as Mortimer Young and lets us know how happy he is that this masterpiece has been restored for mankind: "digitally swabbed" and with the "boring parts taken out and replaced with other material". It's plenty weird, an in-joke or a rib that we aren't quite in on.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Blood simple rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: feature commentary with Kenneth Loring of Forever Young Films; trailer, production notes
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: September 3, 2001