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March 1996, Week 5

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Subject:
From:
jajasoon tlitteu <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 30 Mar 1996 01:53:34 -0600
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>I'm assuming everyone has seen Fargo.  What do you think of what will now
>and forever be known as "the Radisson sequence"?  A colleague argues that
>it is atypical of the Coen oeuvre in that one can usually account for every
>detail in their meticulously constructed, peeled-eye-ball universes.  Is it
>an extraneous bit of fluff meant to showcase Joel's wife? Or does it fit
>with the twisted middle-American milieu?
 
I just saw it for the second time tonight and I watched it with a keen eye
to placing this sub-plot into the larger film.  All I can come up with is
that it shows how beneath the most innocent and "nice" (the key word for
Minnesota culture) person lies danger, deception, and sickness.  It also
could tie into a city/country thing - when Michael Yamahita (I think that's
the character's name) moves to the city, he loses his innocence, but this
doesn't necessarily seem consistent with the rest of the film.  There's
also the potential for the race issue - the two non-white characters in the
film is this Asian-American mentally ill lecher and an American Indian
criminal.  This is certainly consistent with the more critical jabs the
film aims at Minnesota culture, where whiteness is assumed and racism is
prevalent but repressed (like everything else).
 
My personal call is that it's a wild card, like many of the scenes in
Barton Fink.  I don't agree with the above colleague's opinion that all
Coen brothers' films are so meticulous - Barton Fink contains many elements
which seem inconsistent with a uniform reading of the whole film (like the
Michael Lerner character's militarism, the final scene, etc.).  The
Radisson sequence functions to throw us off base, keep us guessing, and
make our skin crawl with the way our emotions can flip flop - we think he's
a creep, we feel sorry for him, we think he's a really big creep.
 
But does it work?  You're darn tootin'!
 
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