Screenwriters: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Year: 1984
Budget: $1.5M
Some movies just drag you towards them no matter how many times you've watched them, while some make you run from them because they are either bad, or if they are not bad, you just don't care.
When it comes to BLOOD SIMPLE, it forms a unique relationship with you. It's a force to be reckoned with. It absorbs you because the frame in which it's shot is like a sinkhole in the water, pulling your senses in, and by the time you're half way through the film, you're lost in that artistic vortex of the Coen brothers' magnificent piece of art.
Every time I watch it, not only does it feel like the first time, but it also shows itself as it truly is—like some sort of animal that lurks in the shadows until the right moment to strike. Both Don Wiegmann's and the Coen Brothers' editing is so precise and exact that it almost feels like a noose around someone's neck.
It's a violent film, yes. It deals with murder, infidelity, and treachery. I must quote the two brothers' own 2007 masterwork, No Country for Old Men, when I say that there are no clean getaways. However, more on that later.
I waited for some years to see this. When I look back and consider it. Why I waited is beyond me. It's not like I've never enjoyed a dark thriller. This kind of work has always pleased me. I mean, I was constantly watching movies like Mean Streets and Scarface. I'm not sure why, then, I sinned as a teenager by not contracting Blood Simple sooner.
It's great that I watched the film, and I'm watching this bloody masterpiece for the twentieth time as I write this. It sounds like a love song, but this love is from a bygone era, when clear streams of rivers cut through verdant hills, butterflies soared over lilies, and birds sang their springtime melodies. However, Blood Simple pours down upon the otherworldly landscape, turning it all red in color, and then it seems as though the sun has set—permanently, perhaps, as though it will never rise again.
Blood Simple is a film that'll always be one of my all-time favorites, and not just because it's great, but because it's as if it was specifically written and directed for me.