Not every great director starts with a bang.

Francis Ford Coppola toiled in the Roger Corman B-movie mines before striking gold with ‘The Conversation,’ ‘The Godfather,’ and ‘Apocalypse Now.’ James Cameron got his feet wet on ‘Piranha Part Two: The Spawning’ en route to the ‘Terminator’ franchise.

However, ‘Blood Simple,’ the Coen brothers’ first film, immediately showcased the duo’s ability to conquer any film genre they choose.

‘Blood Simple,’ recently released on Blu-ray for the first time along with ‘Raising Arizona’ and several other early Coens features, finds the brothers marinating in classic film noir. The 1984 thriller is so bleak you’ll all but beg for comic relief, but the few laughs found here catch in your throat. These brothers have always played by their own rules.

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This week we’re getting four Coen brothers classics on Blu-ray in a handy box set, as well as released individually: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo, and Miller’s Crossing (though Fargo has already been made available).

The Coens specialize in bizarre crime movies, and each of these movies has its own, unique feel and tone.  Their first film, Blood Simple, is a a humorless, Texas-fried noir with an atmosphere that would inform their later adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. Even the opening of the Coens Oscar-winning comeback recalls their debut, where one of the characters monologues in a morose tone over various shots of the desolate Texas landscape.  The story would serve as the skeleton for many of their future films, a crime that is thrown into bloody chaos by a villainous loose cannon.  Said rogue is played in this film with cool menace by M. Emmett Walsh, a sleazy private dick hired by a jealous husband to murder his cheating wife and her lover, not realizing the detective has plans of his own.

Blood Simple was a quiet, somber affair, especially compared to the hilarious antics of their kidnapping caper Raising Arizona, which features Nicolas Cage doing over-the-edge crazy the best way he knows how.  The camerawork is reminiscent of their pal Sam Raimi’s debut feature, Evil Dead, in which the camera zooms along in a terrifying yet comedic manner (fun fact: Joel Coen was an editing assistant on Evil Dead).  Many consider this to be one of their best movies, and I certainly think its up there, as it is relentlessly entertaining and as colorful as movies get in terms of action and character. 

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Brendan Frye: “Your muscle seemed plenty cool putting his fist in my head. I want him out.”
The Pin: “Looky, soldier…”
Brendan Frye: “The ape blows or I clam.”

Fast and clever dialogue is one of the best things about hard boiled noir films of the past.  Tough guys didn’t need to be big and buff; all they needed was a quick tongue to get them out of the stickiest of situations.  Very few films are able to recreate this today.

Brendan Frye (in a sticky situation): “Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.” (more…)