The Coens Go Noir

Movie: The Man Who Wasn't There
Director: Joel Coen
Producer: Ethan Coen

By: Carly Berard (Lawrencerock.com Movie Editor)

People smoked more in the forties. There were also more shadows. These are two important facts that I learned while screening the Coen Brother's latest feature, The Man Who Wasn't There. In this outing director (Joel) and producer (Ethan) serve up a classic film noir - Coen style - with snappy dialogue, beautiful camera work and all the plot twists and turns that are synonymous with the genre (and the brothers). Filmed in glorious black and white, The Man Who Wasn't There follows the trials of Ed Crane, a simple barber with a not so simple life. Faced with both his wife's infidelity and a chance investment opportunity, Crane sets out to change his life of quiet desperation with a little blackmail scheme that (surprise, surprise) doesn't go quite as he planned.

Though there are many laughable moments, this is not a comedy. Rather it is a detached character study that unfolds as slowly and methodically as its main character. The Coens are known for coaxing great performances out of their big-name leads and Ed Crane as played by Billy Bob Thornton is no exception. Perhaps because of his chamaeleon-like ability or because the role that catapulted him to national attention in Sling Blade was so out-there that everything else seems like a departure, Thornton's Crane is an utterly original creation. Subdued and laconic, Ed narrates this movie with few words and fewer emotions, greeting even the most dire situations with cool equanimity and dispassionate resolve.

Coen regulars Frances McDormand, Tony Shalhoub and Michael Badalucco join Thornton as Crane's wife, lawyer and brother-in-law, respectively. Sharp as always, McDormand is spot-on as the brassy and ambitious department store bookkeeper who supplements her passionless marriage by having an affair with her boss, Big Dave. Offsetting Thornton's man of few words, Badalucco plays the chatterbox first chair barber who Ed must tolerate each day at work and Shalhoub inhabits a role that will remind many of his fast talking movie producer in Barton Fink, this time as fast talking supper-lawyer - all the way from Sacramento - Freddy Reidenschieder. The Coen's stunt casting of James Gandolfini in the role of Big Dave seems to have been more for the weight that his well-known TV persona brings to the screen than the way the character was actually written. One might have preferred Coen alum, John Goodman in the role of Big Dave, but we can only dream... Rounding out the cast (literally and figuratively) is veteran character actor, Jon Polito, who the Coens so often call on when they require a shifty weasel to meet their needs. From his sniveling movie producer in Barton Fink, to his sniveling gangster in Miller's Crossing, to his sniveling detective in The Big Lebowski, Polito now gets the opportunity to extend his range even further, playing the sniveling would-be huckster, Creigton Tolliver.

All of these characters come together in a picture perfect reconstruction of a 40's flick that is as much satirical as it is reverential. Part send-up, part homage, one wonders if it's possible to mimic something without simultaneously mocking it. The Coens, as per usual, do both. Ed's world is one of Studabakers and cigarettes and phrases like, "heavens to Betsy" and "out of doors." Even the haircuts ring with post-war charm: the buzz, the wave, the contour and -- sometimes-- the executive contour. Though this world mirrors that of1940s cinema it could only have been borne of our era. The Coens delight in telling the story in this style but do not confine themselves to it, for this is a 40s movie reinterpreted, reconstructed for a twenty-first century audience, complete with the f-word and road head. (to use the parlance of our times...) Filmed by acclaimed cinematographer, Roger Deakins, this style is most evident in the bravura camera shots and dramatic lighting that invoke such classics as Double Indemnity and Citizen Kane. Many of these scenes are outright works of art with Thornton cast in dark silhouette during a conversation with McDormand, brightly lit in the background or Shalhoub's Reidenschnieder pacing back and forth during a jail room speech, walking across stark bars of light that give the illusion that he is the one locked up. Many of these shots are so good in fact, one thinks, "Ah, this is the part of the movie where the Coens are showing me their technical virtuosity and stylistic vision, and yes it certainly is impressive and oh wait, what's going on?" The lighting is gorgeous and the camera work masterful but it shouldn't be more engaging than the movie as a whole, should it? It's not that the Coens' art direction is too good, it's just that you can see them trying. And it's distracting. If only the story were a little tighter, then perhaps the whole thing would gel better. As it is, one gets the feeling that the Coens decided it would be fun to do a film noir then thought of a story to let them do it, rather than the other way around.

Unlike the cinematography and lighting that seem to overshadow the plot, the music in 'Man expertly underscores the pacing and mood of the film which is as deliberate and evenly paced as the Beethoven sonata, "Pathetique" which wafts through the entire movie - first arousing Crane's attention when he happens upon young Birdy Abundus (Scarlett Johanssen) playing a department store piano. Opera enthusiasts will recognize the music that plays during the opening scene in the barber shop as the duet from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (sly reference to Figaro's occupation as the Barber of Seville?) and movie enthusiasts will recognize it as the piece that Tim Robbins' character plays for the inmates in The Shawshank Redemption (also shot by Deakins). Like the inmates, Ed too is imprisoned, confined to the monotony of his mundane existence. Giving voice to the existential angst, Carter Burwell returns to the Coen team to score this film though many of his original pieces sound recycled from former movies. The music that plays during the courtroom scenes, especially, sound almost identical to Burwell's "Puppet Love" theme from Being John Malkovich. Though familiar, it works, adding a much needed sense of affirmation to the film's very slow pace.

Mirroring the music in this film, Ed finds himself plodding along, ever calm as his life spirals out of control. Like Jerry Gunderson in Fargo, Ed has turned to blackmail to end the quiet misery of working for his wife's family business. Unlike Gunderson's loud desperation, which is played out physically (by the always brilliant William H. Macy), Ed's struggle is completely interior. Though he relates that he has never felt much like a barber and does not define himself as such, it is the way that the rest of the world perceives him. Indeed, most of the people he interacts with know him not by name but profession, only. They don't know the "real Ed" but we do, for the Coens have given us a front row seat to his inner-life. In one crucial scene when Ed goes to Tolliver to take him up on this "dry cleaning" business, the man has forgotten completely who he is. Our anti-hero is thus forced to jog his memory by referring to himself as, "the barber." Because Ed's very identity is subsumed by the hollow veneer of his occupation, he gives the impression of not being present in his own life. Get it?? He's a man...but he's not *there.* Is there a message here? A moral? Riedenschneider tells the court at one point that, "Ed Crane IS modern man." Is this a commentary on modern society? Is it the American Dream gone horribly wrong? Oh, the alienation! The isolation! The an-o-mie!

The film ends in a place that you won't be able to predict, yet somehow seems logical, fitting and even a little cliche. Once again the Coens have managed to weave together great acting and a quirky plot with ideal scoring and radiant visuals. Not all of the parts weigh equally and the Coens don't quite pull it off, but as always it is certainly interesting to watch them try. Ultimately the film rings a little hollow but given its subject it's somehow fitting.