The Coen Brother’s BLOOD SIMPLE at The Tivoli Wednesday Night – ‘Classics in the Loop’

“If you point a gun at someone, you’d better make sure you shoot him, and if you shoot him you’d better make sure he’s dead, because if he isn’t then he’s gonna get up and try to kill you.”

BLOOD SIMPLE screens Wednesday May 24th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as the finale of their  ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

The Coen Brothers’ startling debut, BLOOD SIMPLE is about a murder that is anything but simple.1984 is when it all began for Joel and Ethan Coen and it’s the kind of thing they still do well to this day. The story centers around seemingly normal people getting in way over their heads with dangerous crime. There are dozens of prolific directors who could have made this story into a pedestrian crime thriller, but it always helps when the story idea comes from the person who directs a movie. That way they have more incentive to make the film watchable and more freedom to add their personal touches. BLOOD SIMPLE works on many levels, and it would have been easy to see that these two were bound for great things.

The story deals with a seemingly prosperous nightclub owner who hires a scummy private eye to prove is wife is having an affair with one of his bartenders. Dan Hedaya paints this businessman as a jealous and brooding type, but also a man who will openly hit on women who come into his club. Not being able to stomach his wife’s affair, he hires the same detective to murder them for a fee of ten thousand dollars. That hardly seems like a big enough fee to entice a man to kill two people. Especially when a crime like this would seem very easy to solve. But this detective, played with dripping scumminess by M. Emmet Walsh, agrees. Somewhere along the line, he decides that it would probably be easier to commit just one murder. To give away any more plot would be foolish and unnecessary. Just sit back and watch the film and allow the details to soak in…

BLOOD SIMPLE is barely over 90 minutes, but it never feels rushed. The direction allows these characters to come to their own conclusions and try to figure things out on their own. There is not much time wasted on needless exposition or explanations. Things happen. People react to them in terms of what they think must be the reason why. And most of the time they are dead wrong. And the film shows us just how hard it might be to kill someone if you aren’t used to doing it.

BLOOD SIMPLE has a great cast. Dan Hedaya is shady while remaining essentially sympathetic as the bar owner; John Getz and Frances McDormand are very good as the paranoid lovers; while M. Emmett Walsh is best of all as the amoral private eye. Also of particular note is the music by Carter Burwell. The central moody theme is particularly wonderful. In summary, it’s a superb crime-thriller, plotted expertly with a deadly precision. BLOOD SIMPLE is one of the great films from the 80’s. so don’t miss your chance to experience it Wednesday night on the big screen at The Tivoli.