Fargo - Act Three

(SPOILERS:  Fargo)

Time to wrap up my analysis of Fargo (written by Ethan and Joel Cohen) by examining Act Three.  Remember, I’m working from the screenplay available here.

The first thing we look for in Act Three is the aftermath of the Act Two Break.  In this case we see Jerry trying to clean up the crime scene.  He doesn’t really have a plan anymore, but he’s trying desperately to get out of the hole he’s dug.  He goes home where his son alerts him that his father-in-law’s lawyer is trying to reach him.  This serves two purposes:  a reminder of the human toll of Jerry’s actions and an emphasis of the danger Jerry’s in.  How does Jerry react?  He goes to bed.

We then see aftermath in the form of minor characters’ reactions to recent events – the ever-tightening noose of the investigation and Carl burying the money.

Next we get the epiphany.  It’s a bit unusual here in that the realization comes to the antagonist.  Marge learns the old school chum she met was lying to her.  This prompts her to go back to the dealership and talk to Jerry.  His story doesn’t quite add up, after all – maybe he's lying, too.  This is the moment that will lead to Jerry’s undoing.  He can’t answer her questions and flees.

Now Marge begins to figure out what’s really going on.  This leads to the resolution when she finds the missing car and arrests the surviving kidnapper.  Carl and Jerry’s wife are dead.  And the final bit of the conclusion is Jerry being pulled over and arrested.  The dramatic question of “Will Jerry succeed in his kidnapping plan” set up in Act One has been answered definitively in the negative.

Lastly there’s a little denouement where we see Marge and her husband living their nice little domestic life.  This gives us a positive note to end on, that life is good for those who value family over money and have strong ethics.

The things that are most interesting to me about Fargo are the “wrong” Act Two Break that I discussed in the post on the movie’s Act Two and the hope and fear of the film.  This is an example where we are rooting for the antagonist.  We have ambivalent feelings for Jerry, though.  We don’t really want him to get away with his plot, but neither do we want to see his wife or father-in-law killed.  So the outcome of the crime is somewhat bittersweet for us.  Which makes the denouement important in mitigating the unpleasantness of the story.  It’s always important to think of the feeling you want the audience to have when they leave the theater.

Ultimately what makes Fargo work is the quirky characters and the unusual setting.  It has a certain verisimilitude derived from its specificity.  And though it is an indie film, it still mostly follows traditional three-act structural principals.  Most importantly, it has a very strong dramatic question, set up in the catalyst and answered in the resolution, that defines the scope of the film and pulls the audience through.

Perhaps not the clearest example of structural principles, but evidence that strong structure is important even in more “artsy” films.

Fargo – Act Two

(SPOILERS:  Fargo)

Now that I’ve spent the last few posts going through the various elements often found in Act Two, it’s time for me to catch up with my analysis of Fargo (written by Ethan and Joel Cohen).  Let’s look at what happens in Fargo’s second act.

Special World

The special world for our hero, Jerry, is the world of crime.  So we see him discovering what it means to live in this world – he negotiates with his father-in-law to get the ransom money and deals with the impact of the crime on his son.

Fun and Games

Since this is a crime story the fun and games section pays off those elements.  First we see the kidnappers get pulled over and shoot a cop.  Then we see Marge investigating the crime scene.  I think the important thing to note is how rich these scenes are.  The Cohen brothers make sure to give us fully realized set-piece scenes full of twists and witty dialogue and good crime stuff. 

And they use their location – the wintry North Dakota – to full effect.  This is part of the premise of the movie as well.  We see how the snow and bitter cold affect things – tracks in the snow that tell a story, Marge’s car needing a jump, etc.  We’re also treated to some of the cultural quirks of Fargo (the location) such as ice fishing and the stamp contest.

Allies and Enemies

The main enemy introduced early in Act Two is the antagonist:  Marge.  Most of the other players have already made appearances in the film at this point.  This is kind of unusual.  More often we meet the antagonist in Act One and their henchmen somewhere near the beginning of Act Two.

Midpoint

The midpoint in Fargo is when the kidnappers call Jerry and demand the entire amount of the ransom (they were supposed to split it with him).  In the very same scene, a representative from the auto company calls and threatens to turn the matter of the missing cars over to the legal department if they don’t receive the info they want by the following afternoon.  This scene adds a slight twist with the changing plans and a ticking clock with the threat from the rep.  It also reinforces what’s at stake for Jerry.

Subplot Wrap-Up

Following the Midpoint we spend a lot of time focusing on two subplots.  The bigger one is Marge reconnecting with a school friend who turns out to be a little unhinged. The other is Carl the kidnapper leaving the house where they’ve holed because he's sick of his partner.  Both of these sequences allow us a deeper understanding of the characters.  Meanwhile, Marge’s investigation is slowly closing in, building toward the Act Two Break.

Act Two Break

The Act Two Break is when the payoff goes awry.  Jerry’s father-in-law is killed and Carl is wounded.  The whole plan has collapsed.

This is troubling to me.  This would be a good Act Two break if in the end Jerry was going to get away with his plan.  But in the end Jerry is going to fail.  According to traditional three-act structure, the Act Two break for this story should be a point where it looks like Jerry might succeed.  But in Fargo, the Midpoint, Act Two Break and Resolution are all moments of Jerry’s failure.

So is it possible I'm wrong and this isn't really the Act Two break?  Well, anything is possible...  But this sure looks like an act break to me.  The tension of the story changes.  Jerry's plan is in tatters - there's no apparent way for him to get the money he needs.  It moves from a story about trying to execute a crime to a story about avoiding arrest.

The problem with the Act Two Break being the same as the Resolution (in terms of success/failure) is that it should result is a predictable story with no twists and turns.  And if you think about it, Fargo is pretty predictable as far as the crime plot is concerned.  There is never a moment in the film where Jerry’s plan seems like it’s going well.  He does nothing but fail from beginning to end.  There’s never really a surprising plot twist – we could certainly anticipate the events of the Act Two Break well in advance.  At the Break I thought, "boy, I don't see how Jerry's going to get away with this."  And then, sure enough, he doesn't.  Yet the movie was a critical and commercial hit.  And perhaps more importantly to me, I liked it.  What does this mean?

I think it means the movie succeeds in spite of its predictability.  I always tell my students, "people go to movies for a lot of reasons but it's never to see a good act break."  What makes the Cohen’s such great filmmakers is their original, quirky characters and dialogue.  Fargo is one of the best examples of that. Would it have been better if there were a moment where Jerry seems to triumph over his adversaries – a scene where it looks like he might get away with it and where Marge looks like she’ll lose the trail?  Yeah, maybe it would have.

But I go back to that saying that I heard from the late, great Frank Daniel:  “The only rule in screenwriting is don’t be boring.” 

Fargo definitely isn’t boring.

Fargo Act One

(SPOILERS:  Fargo)

(Note from Act I Part 2 post – I should have mentioned that the end of Act One in Zombieland is when Columbus meets Wichita.  This is when he enters the special world of romance.)

As I go through my in-depth look at structure, I’m going to concurrently analyze Fargo (written by Ethan and Joel Cohen).  So today let’s examine Act One.  I’m looking at the script itself (which can be found here) instead of the film.

The first thing we need to discuss is the main character.  It’s Marge Gunderson, right?  But wait… she doesn’t appear until more than a quarter of the way into the movie.  How can this be?  It can be because Marge is actually not the main character.  The main character is Jerry.  Marge is the antagonist.

One of the unusual about Fargo is that the antagonist is the likable character and the protagonist isn’t.  We’re rooting against the protagonist.  This isn’t unprecedented – gangster and crime movies work this way sometimes, and this is a crime movie.  Usually though the antagonist would be introduced earlier.  So now that we know Jerry’s the main character, let’s analyze!

Opening

Fargo opens with an image of a car towing another car through a snowstorm.  This is a nice image to set up the North Dakota winter environment that is such a big part of the appeal of the movie.

Character Introduction

Immediately following that we are introduced to our main character, Jerry, as he checks into a motel under a false name.  But he screws up and writes his real name in the register before realizing and crossing it out, then filling in the fake name.  Our first impression is that he must be up to something but that he’s not very good at being deceitful.  Over the next few scenes we see that he’s awkward and unassertive and easily intimidated.

Prologue and Domino

There is no real prologue or domino in Fargo.  You could say Jerry’s money troubles are the domino, but they’ve happened before the start of the story.

Catalyst

Here it gets kind of interesting.  The catalyst comes really early – when Jerry goes to meet the men he’s hired to kidnap his wife so he can get ransom from his father-in-law.  Here we have our main character and his dilemma – Jerry’s concocted a dangerous plan to get money he needs.  We learn that he can’t let his family know about his debts.  And we’ve established that the…

Dramatic Question

…of the movie is “Will Jerry succeed in his kidnapping plan?”  The story will be over when we’ve learned the answer to that question.

Status Quo

We get a tiny sense of what Jerry’s life is like before the catalyst, but Fargo takes the unusual step of putting most of the status quo section after the catalyst.  We follow up Jerry hiring the kidnappers by seeing Jerry at home.  We meet his family.  See that his father-in-law really doesn’t respect him.  Just a bit later we see him at work trying a half-hearted and obvious scam on a customer.  He’s a pathetic, unscrupulous guy.

This is not such a bad variation on the typical structural order.  Jerry is not a guy we’re going to be that interested in normally.  By showing the catalyst up front we get the audience hooked into the crime story.  Then we’re able to follow Jerry back to his “normal world” and see what that’s like.  Generally the earlier you can get the catalyst into the story the better.  Usually that’s not until about page ten, but if you can do it on page three, why not?

The important thing is to find a way to show the character’s normal life so that we understand how the story affects him.  And Fargo manages to pull that off despite the early catalyst.

Character Want and Need

It’s clear what Jerry wants:  money.  It’s also pretty clear that his need is to get some moral backbone.  He’s in trouble and unhappy both because he’s done unethical things and he won’t stand up for himself.  Jerry’s not going to arc much in this story – another unusual choice.  But we still need a powerful want to pull us through and the contrasting need gives us character depth.

Build to Act One

Okay, so the catalyst is early in Fargo and then we get some status quo time to set up who Jerry is and what his life is like.  After that we start to build toward the act one break.  There’s a scene where Jerry gets a call from a loan officer who says he needs serial numbers of cars Jerry’s used to guarantee the loan.  We realize the cars don’t exist.  That gives us the stakes and a ticking clock.  We’re focusing Jerry’s problem.

We also have a surprising moment where Jerry’s father-in-law indicates he might be willing to give Jerry the money he needs for his parking lot project.  Jerry tries to call off the kidnapping plan.  But he can’t get through to the kidnappers and early in act two we’ll learn there was a misunderstanding and Jerry’s father-in-law isn’t going to save him after all.  This serves to both eliminate alternate possible solutions and show Jerry resist his “call to adventure.”  We know that the kidnapping plan is a last resort.  And he’s going to need that last resort.

Act One Break

The end of act one is when Jerry’s wife, Jean, is actually kidnapped.  This is a point of no return.  Jerry can’t call off the plan anymore.  He’s going to have to see this through to the end.

We also have a special world here.  Though he’s done some underhanded and even illegal things, Jerry really isn’t a hardcore criminal.  Once his wife is kidnapped he’s entering a new world of violent crime, a big departure from his tawdry used car salesman lifestyle.

Fargo obviously does some unusual structural things.  It was an independent film, after all.  But it still has the core story elements of a character who has a dilemma that creates a dramatic question that defines the movie.  And it introduces this character and dilemma early on, then clarifies what’s at stake.