Posted: 11/21/2001

The Man Who Wasn’t There

(2001)

by Parama Chaudhury

The Coen Brothers’ latest is a homage to class film noir…but it ain’t no Fargo.

Graduate students in economics study something called “the optimal stopping problem,” which asks how and when a person decides the deal’s a good deal and stops trying to make it better. I’m going to lobby for a course like this for filmmakers. You can teach them how to shoot a good picture, how to choose music, how to edit, and how to direct the actors. But unless they know when to STOP, it’s all in vain. The Man Who Wasn’t There will be my main piece of evidence in the congressional hearings on the necessity for the optimal stopping course.

The title of the movie and the fact that it’s shot in black and white (albeit, a very lustrous black and white) sets the tone. At least the Coen brothers want you to think that it’s noir. OK. I can totally see Frances McDormand as a slightly slutty, tough-nut-to-crack 1940s dame. In this case, her character, Doris, is married to the man who wasn’t there, second chair in the town barbershop, Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton). She’s also carrying on with her boss, Big Dave (James Gandolfini). Little town in California, fedoras drawn low over the men’s eyes, no non-white people in sight - we’re all set for noir. And sure enough, a little blackmail here, a little murder there, and here we go!

The problem is, the Coen brothers don’t leave well enough alone. The movie’s atmosphere starts off just right: Thornton’s almost attractive but mostly monotonous voice narrating, the shadows playing hide-or-seek like any good black and white movie, and a sense of impending doom. There is little melodrama in either the acting or the construction of the scenes. You ease into the movie and let the jazz play on. As the action starts and the happenings in Santa Rosa take sharp twist after sudden turn, the tone remains even, unimpressed. This is the essence of noir: cool. Thornton’s apathetic barber adds to this ambiance. Adultery is a little disturbing, you seize the opportunity for blackmail when it comes your way, and murder, well, murder can justified as self-defense.

The fact that the stills look like glossy 5-by-7’s, without that dusty, slightly faded appearance that makes noir so seductive, and that justice is dealt randomly already makes The Man Who Wasn’t There different from the run-of-the-mill noir. Quirks of fate, especially in black and white, are most entertaining in small doses. We really don’t need flying saucers, teenagers ready for oral sex, the electric chair, and, oh look, more shaved hair floating in the soapy water. What were they thinking? The deft handling of Blood Simple shows that the Coens understand what makes good noir. And that should have helped them figure out how to add a twist to, update or spoof noir. The bottom line in this genre is “less is more” - and as a critic, I believe that following the basic rules of the genre makes any genre-bending experiment even more effective. The Coen brothers had a good idea and they ran with it. The problem is that they ran too far.

An Oscar contender? Sure. The Coens remind us, unlike many contemporary American filmmakers, that this is a visual medium, and adept cinematography - the crown of a boy’s head, the long shadows from the baby grand, the single ray of sunshine coming through the tiny window of the jail meeting room - can tell a pretty good story by itself. At times, Thornton looks like he’s taken a trip on a time machine: he’s really a modern man, transported to the 1940s, and that’s why he’s so dazed. But even though he becomes a little Forrest Gumpish towards the end, he remains the man who wasn’t there and the center of our attention. The casting is superb, with McDormand and Gandolfini playing important roles but wisely, leaving the spotlight on Thornton. Tony Shaloub as the fast-talking Heisenberg uncertainty principle-spouting city lawyer, Freddy Riedenschneider, is immensely entertaining. The piano-playing teenager, Birdy Abundas (Scarlett Johanssen) couldn’t have been more perfect.

But if the Coens had managed to stop when the going was good, this would have been much more than an Oscar contender. It would have been one of the best American movies I’ve seen in a while. It would have been a thought-provoking treatise on the fundamental loneliness of American life, which American Beauty portrayed on an modern suburban canvas, and the pretense of noir would have made it even more compelling than American Beauty. So close, yet so far.

Parama Chaudhury is a graduate student, an ex-writing instructor and a budding freelance writer, based in New York City.

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