Film Analysis: Blood Simple

The modern tag arguably associated with pessimists is the saying, “things will get worse before they get better”. The tag connotes certain conditions man has over his own life, but it still reserves that he has some level of free will; there is still the choice of betterment through trial by fire. Joel and Ethan Coen adapt the motto with a fatalistic approach; “things will always get worse”. In their debut feature film, Blood Simple, the Coen brothers streamline the theme with the coined term “blood simple”, which stipulates that when people become immersed in violence they regress into idiocy. The colliding ideas create the effective theme that underlines Blood Simple. The subjects of “blood simple”, the idea that things will always get worse, and the illusion of free will act as regressive steps on a spiral staircase that embodies the omnipresent theme; when one experiences “blood simple” things will fatefully get worse.

Ray (John Getz) finds bar owner, Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), lifeless on a chair after closing hours. As Ray cautiously approaches Marty, Ray’s foot ironically fires an abandoned gun on the ground. This marks Ray’s figurative killing of Marty and the commencement of Ray’s “blood simple”.

The Coen brothers create an ironic bipolarization between the action on screen and the pacing of the film. The directors deliberately make Marty’s fifteen minute death sequence methodical and slow pace by using long takes, diegetic sounds, and ample visual coverage. Ray, who isn’t as meticulous as the film itself, sloppily wipes Marty’s blood with a windbreaker creating a bigger mess. The second time around, Ray attempts to clean the mess he made but to no avail as a stripe of blood falls unnoticed from his blood soaked towel. Even at the film’s slow and methodical pace, Ray still manages to mess up and regress into idiocy. It is as if the film’s slow pace is giving Ray all the time in the world to clean the mess properly, yet Ray has become too inefficient and sloppy to take advantage of the benefit.

Ray’s regression into idiocy because of “blood simple” is further emphasized as he discloses, after the ordeal, that he had once been in the military service. His seemingly military indoctrinated stolidity, which is highlighted in the beginning of the film, degenerates into cowardice and foolishness. As a military alumnus that had probably been trained in the art of killing, Ray, through multiple failed attempts, is cowardly unable to kill Marty. Instead Ray buries Marty which makes the soil a faux buffer between him and Marty; Ray didn’t kill Marty, the soil that Ray through onto him did. Addtionally, Ray foolishly buries Marty in a farm that will surely be plowed and even forgets that Marty has the six-shooter in his possession. Ray’s drunkard –like mannerisms exemplify the effect that “blood simple” has on a person.

The fifteen minute death sequence also exemplifies the idea that things can only get worse. As Ray cleans up the bloody mess at the bar and attempts to displace the body, he assumes that Marty is dead. The present state of affairs is understandably dire, yet things still get worse. The situation is further mired for Ray once he realizes that Marty is actually still alive. Ray violently stops the car and bolts out onto a naked field. Ray looks back at his car with disbelief and fear. Ray’s responsibilities have now doubled; he has to murder Marty and rid the evidence. Ray reluctantly and carelessly follows suite. After Marty is buried three feet under, the sun reveals to Ray that he had disposed a dead body meters away from a farm house. Ray looks at the house with weariness and becomes content with fate’s black humor. He realizes that the corpse will most likely be unearthed and that he will need to move far away which brings up numerous logistical problems and responsibilities. As a consequence of the many fateful and unexpected problems, Ray accumulates more unwanted responsibilities. This, coinciding with the “blood simple” that is deteriorating Ray’s better judgment, creates a dismal imbalance that results in an ever worsening situation for him.

The idea that things can only get worse connotes that man does not have control over his own life, thus there is no escape from destiny. In a fairly early sequence when Abby (Frances McDormand) is staying at Ray’s for the first time, the Coen brothers edit the film in such a way where by Abby, Ray, and Marty all gaze at their own respective ceilings at the same time as if praying to God in unison (ironically they live in the dubbed godless West). They’re all looking for an escape from their problems. Abby is looking for an escape from Marty, Ray is looking for an escape from his loneliness, and Marty is looking for an escape from his irritating jealousy. They are all given their respective answers from the seemingly indifferent ceiling and each character acts on its proposals. Abby sleeps with Ray, Ray accepts Abby, and Marty goes to Ray’s house to violently purge his irritation by hurting Abby. The ceiling never provides real answers though, only illusions of free will to the naïve. Each character thinks they are controlling their own lives by escaping a dire fate, but in actuality they are only speeding up the process.

When the characters aren’t looking, the ceiling devilishly changes forms. When Marty reaches into the safe to grab Loren Vicer’s (M. Emmet Walsh) money for allegedly completing the hit on Ray and Abby, the ceiling is prominently shown above Marty’s head. The shadows of bars flooded in red light stretch across the ceiling. A similar up-angle shot is used when Ray enters the back room to find Marty dead with the ceiling having the same description. Ray and Marty respectively think that their plans had allowed them to escape their fate, but the ceiling creates a cage around the characters suggesting that they cannot escape it. The red light also suggesting that a fateful death will occur within these inescapable cages.

The ceiling fan also outlines the cyclical and repetitious mobility of the characters. The characters will always end up where they started as the spinning fan exemplifies. The fan lazily cuts through the air creating a slow repetitious staccato which is a repeated in the form of the windshield wipers in the beginning of the film to the paroxysmal gun shots Loren Viscer fires through the wall at the end of the film.

The repetition signifies that events will be repeated. The windshield wipers thump against the car right before Abby and Ray have sex at a motel; the same sound is repeated by the ceiling fan at Ray’s house right before Abby and Ray sleep together again the following night. Moreover, each time Marty is figuratively and literally killed, staccato thumps of varying intensities are attributed to each respective scene. The sound of the ceiling fan cutting through the air when Viscer and Ray kill Marty turn in intense staccatos of bullet fire preceding Abby’s slaying of, who she thinks is, Marty at the end of Blood Simple. Since there is repetition, there is precognition which undermines the idea of free will; the characters in the film are bound to their fates.

A prominent theme in Blood Simple is that things will fatefully get worse through “blood simple”. From the subjects of “blood simple” to the illusion of free will, Blood Simple takes multiple ideas and converges them into one cohesive theme. Some criticize that Joel and Ethan Coen purport themes that are insincere and pointless. For Blood Simple the opposite is true in that the theme’s purpose is to prove a larger existential point; the idea of free will within a film is impossible because character’s choices are already predetermined and dictated by the god like director.