Blood Simple
Short description
Blood Simple is set in a small Texas town, where Julian Marty owns a bar and suspects his wife Abby of being unfaithful. Abby has become involved with Ray, one of Marty's employees. Marty hires a private detective, Loren Visser, to find out what is going on, and once the affair is confirmed he arranges for the lovers to be killed. Visser takes the assignment, but his own interests soon pull the scheme away from what Marty intended, setting off a chain of misunderstandings and violence.
The film is the feature debut of Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote the screenplay and produced it together. It is the first of 21 films Joel Coen has directed and the first of 22 for Ethan Coen, with Raising Arizona following in 1987. The cast includes John Getz as Ray, Frances McDormand as Abby, Dan Hedaya as Julian Marty and M. Emmet Walsh as the detective. The production had a budget of 2 million USD and took about 4 million USD worldwide, a solid return for a low-budget independent crime film. On IMDb it holds 7.5/10 from 113,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.2/10 from 1,684 votes, and a film critics' rating of 8.5/10 from 113 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- Holly Hunter was initially considered for the role of Abby, but when she landed a role in a New York play, she suggested her roommate, Frances McDormand, audition. This was Frances McDormand’s first film role; she later married Joel Coen, starred in five Coen brothers films, and even won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in 'Fargo'.
- Maurice’s answering machine features the voice of Holly Hunter, who was asked to record at least a short line for the film.
- The director's cut of the film is shorter than the studio version.
- For the re-release and special DVD edition of 2001, the Coens shot an introduction in which the fictional producer Mortimer Young (head of the fictional company "Forever Young Films," which restores damaged film footage), played by George Ives, talks about working on the film.
- Holly Hunter was initially considered for the role of Abby, but when she landed a role in a New York stage play, she suggested her roommate, Frances McDormand, audition.
- On Sam Raimi's advice, directors and screenwriters Joel and Ethan Coen made a two-minute trailer for the film they intended to shoot, and they used this trailer to solicit potential sponsors. Over the course of a year, they raised $750,000 and were able to start working on the film.
- According to cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, lead actress Frances McDormand was rarely shown storyboards, because the artist preparing them inexplicably (for an unknown reason) drew her character exclusively nude, even though neither Sonnenfeld nor the Coens had asked him to do so.
- M. Emmet Walsh (who played a private detective) received his entire fee for the film daily. He was paid every day right on the set.
- A teaser (a short promotional video) for this film was shot long before the start of filming the actual movie. It featured Bruce Campbell, covered in blood, crawling along a road, just like the character Dan Hedaya would play in the film.
- M. Emmet Walsh had to be persuaded to pick up a hat in the film's finale. The actor had a long list of reasons why his character shouldn't do it, and the Coens couldn't refute any of these arguments. After several unsuccessful attempts to convince the actor, Joel Coen simply asked Walsh to do him a favor, to which he replied: “The fact that I’m even filming in this goddamn movie is a favor.”
- In the script, M. Emmet Walsh’s character was named “Loren Visser,” but in the film itself, he is never referred to by name (only on his lighter can you see the inscription “Loren”), and in the credits he is listed as “Private Investigator” to avoid confusing viewers.
- The film's title alludes to Dashiell Hammett's novel "The Dain Curse," in which the term "blood simple" denotes the traumatized psyche of people after prolonged exposure to an atmosphere of fear and violence.
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