From their very first feature film, 1984’s Blood Simple, the Coens have demonstrated an uncanny ability to find dark humor in any subject, no matter how tragic or absurd. Whether reimagining Hollywood à la Nathanael West in Barton Fink (1991), plumbing the depths of Depression-era noir in Miller’s Crossing (1990), or investigating the folk music movement in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), this fraternal duo, who jointly write, direct, and produce, has consistently managed to draw laughter from material otherwise too sad or hopeless to endure. Conversely, in outright comedies such as Raising Arizona (1987) and The Big Lebowski (1998), the Coens have explored undercurrents of pathos and sadness that other filmmakers might have downplayed or ignored. In every case, they have appropriated genres with abandon in order to unveil the complexities of the human psyche.

In Fargo the Coens came up with the perfect combination of form and content, creating a black comedy of unusual scope and resonance. Viewed by some as a scathing attack on the American Midwest (while defended by the filmmakers as a homage to the region of their birth), Fargo deftly integrates the banal and the bizarre, the tender and the horrific. With Marge Gunderson and Jerry Lundegaard (Frances McDormand and William H. Macy), the Coens have created characters of striking depth and emotion while at the same time presenting archetypes of midwestern stoicism and reserve. In Fargo, as in all of their works, the Coens have demonstrated great affection for their characters without shying away from the potent stew of seeming contradictions that we humans are.