***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, James Gandolfini, Jon Polito, Tony Shalhoub, Michael Badalucci, and Scarlet Johanssen.
Directed by Joel Coen, written by Ethan & Joel Coen, & photographed by Roger Deakins.
2001 R
The Coen Brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There” has all the trappings of a 1940s noir like “Double Indemnity” (1944) or “The Maltese Falcon” (1941), including being filmed in gorgeous and sharp black-and-white. But “The Man” is as genuine a noir as the Coens’ previous film, “O Brother Where Art Thou,” (2000) was set in the real Depression-era South. Both films, to an extent, recreate the period in which they are set and the filmmaking styles of those times, but both filter their subject matter through a modern lens. Everything in “O Brother” is there because it’s what we, in our somewhat exaggerated and ignorant minds, imagine the South to be like in the 1930s, just in the same that Roswell and aliens crop up in “The Man Who Wasn’t There” because, hey, it’s 1949, and that’s what we expect. A real noir from the 1940s would not see itself as having to encapsulate all the silly pop culture we recognize as being of its time.
Like other Coen Brothers’ movies, most notably “Barton Fink,” (1991) “The Man Who Wasn’t There” does not so much have a plot as a series of scenes of gradually increasing oddity out of which a plot forms. In this case there’s the title character Ed Crane (Oscar-winner Billy Bob Thornton), a barber second chair that is convinced his life does not matter. He doesn’t have any opinions or views, other than that his wife (Oscar-winner Frances McDormand) might be having an affair with her boss at the department store (James Gandolfini) and this bothers him a little. Crane doesn’t so much talk as smoke, and then smoke some more. In an interview, the Coens describe him as having “a very low metabolism.” He’s a good barber but wants to do something else, not because he dislikes cutting hair, but because he dislikes his life in general. Along comes a shady investor (Jon Polito) who needs a ten thousand dollar investment to begin a dry cleaning business. In a moment of affecting the outside world, Ed wants in, and to get the money he blackmails Gandolfini with an ingeniously ironic letter: if you don’t give me ten thousand dollars, I’ll tell Ed Crane you’re having an affair with his wife. That’s when things start to go awry.
Although there is a growing web—or circle—of blackmail and murder in “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” it’s not of the diabolical ingenuity of , say, the Coens’ “Blood Simple” (1984). “The Man” is more about Ed’s existential query of what, if any, is my place in the universe, if I have absolutely no effect on those around me? Should I attempt to become more, or should I resign myself to this station in existence? The crimes in “The Man Who Wasn’t There” appear early and then the protagonist wanders away from them for a time, involving himself with a pretty young pianist (Scarlet Johnnsen of “Ghost World”), as if his entire existence is too negligible for him to be attached to anything of such depth and meaning as murder. “The Man” seems aware of the abstraction of these concepts and how open they could be to ridicule and, in response, introduces the character of Tony Shalhoub (so effective as the diabolical Minion in Robert Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids”), as the Cranes’ defense attorney. In the course of various trials and interviews he makes brain-twisting comments such as “this barber is modern man” and “don’t look at the facts, but the meaning behind the facts, which have no meaning.”
An entire essay could be written on the craft of “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” It is impeccably and hypnotically directed, and while its pace may be too deliberate and precise for some viewers, when seen as a reflection of its protagonist’s mentality, the slowness is inevitable, and allows the audience to soak up Ed’s listless world. The film’s dialogue and narration follow the Coens’ carefully-crafted style of off-kilter weirdness, including a scene in which two police officers inform Ed that his wife has been arrested and seem more embarrassed than anything else. Thornton is a strong center as Ed, and gives a performance of amazing range and subtlety, considering his character’s only method of expression is different ways of smoking.
The real star of “The Man Who Wasn’t There” is cinematographer Roger Deakins, whose crisp and evocative black-and-white photography is crucial to creating the film’s atmosphere. Venetian blinds, jail bars, and human forms cast spectral shadows across anonymous suburban settings throughout the course of the film, all rendered even more vivid by oily clouds of cigarette smoke. In a DVD interview (shot in color, no less, and looking especially tawdry and plebian after watching the feature), Deakins gives credit where it is due to “Schindler’s List” (1993) for keeping black-and-white films alive. For all the pseudo-intellectual stuff I’ve spouted about “The Man,” I cannot overstate how successful it is as a visual journey. It’s one of the best-looking films of 2001, and certainly one of the most absorbing.
Finished May 5, 2002.
Copyright 2002 Friday & Saturday Night