Scene Description Spotlight: “Fargo”

When is a kidnapping scene funny? When it’s written and directed by the Coen brothers, like in the 1996 Academy Award-winning movie Fargo. The film’s plot per IMDB:

Jerry works in his father-in-law’s car dealership and has gotten himself in financial problems. He tries various schemes to come up with money needed for a reason that is never really explained. It has to be assumed that his huge embezzlement of money from the dealership is about to be discovered by father-in-law. When all else falls through, plans he set in motion earlier for two men to kidnap his wife for ransom to be paid by her wealthy father (who doesn’t seem to have the time of day for son-in-law). From the moment of the kidnapping, things go wrong and what was supposed to be a non-violent affair turns bloody with more blood added by the minute. Jerry is upset at the bloodshed, which turns loose a pregnant sheriff from Brainerd, MN who is tenacious in attempting to solve the three murders in her jurisdiction.

Here is the kidnapping scene as written in the script:

CLOSE ON TELEVISION

A morning-show host in an apron stands behind a counter on a
kitchen set.

HOST
So I separate the — how the heck do
I get the egg out of the shell without
breaking it?

Jean Lundegaard is curled up on the couch with a cup of
coffee, watching the television.

HOSTESS
You just prick a little hole in the
end and blow!

Jean smiles as we hear laughter and applause from the studio
audience. She hears something else — a faint scraping sound -
and looks up.

HOST
Okay, here goes nothing.

The scraping sound persists. Jean sets down her coffee cup
and rises.

From the studio audience:

AUDIENCE
Awoooo!

KITCHEN

We track toward the back door. A curtain is stretched tight
across its window.

Jean pulls the curtain back. Bright sunlight amplified by
snow floods in.

A man in an orange ski mask looks up from the lock.

Jean gasps, drops the curtain, runs and runs into -

- a taller man, also in a ski mask, already in the house.
We hear the crack of the back-door window being smashed.
The tall man — Gaear Grimsrud — grabs Jean’s wrist.

She screams, staring at her own imprisoned wrist, then wraps
her gaping mouth around Grimsrud’s gloved thumb and bites
down hard.

He drops her wrist. As Carl enters, she races up the stairs.

GRIMSRUD
Unguent.

CARL
Huh?

Grimsurd looks at his thumb.

GRIMSRUD
I need …unguent.

UPSTAIRS BEDROOM

As the two men enter, a door at the far side is slamming
shut. A cord snakes in under the door.

MASTER BATHROOM

Jean, sobbing, frantically pushes at buttons on the princess
phone.

The phone pops out of her hands, jangles across the tile
floor, smashes against the door and then bounces away, its
cord ripped free.

With a groaning sound, the door shifts in its frame.

BEDROOM

Grimsrud has a crowbar jammed in between the bathroom door
and frame, and is working it.

BATHROOM

Jean crosses to a high window above the toilet and throws it
open. Snow that had drifted against the window sifts lightly
in. Jean steps up onto the toilet.

The door creaks, moving as one piece in its frame.

Jean glances back as she steps up from the toilet seat to
the tank.

The groaning of the door ends with the wood around its knob
splintering and the knob itself falling out onto the floor.

The door swings open.

Grimsrud and Carl enter.

THEIR POV

Room empty, window open.

Carl strides to the window and hoists himself out.

Grimsrud opens the medicine cabinet and delicately taps aside
various bottles and tubes, seeking the proper unguent.

He finds a salve but after a moment sets it down, noticing
something in the mirror.

The shower curtain is drawn around the tub.

He steps toward it.

As he reaches for the curtain, it explodes outward, animated
by thrashing limbs.

Jean, screaming, tangled in the curtain, rips it off its
rings and stumbles out into the bedroom. Grimsrud follows.

BEDROOM

Jean rushes toward the door, cloaked by the shower curtain
but awkwardly trying to push it off.

UPSTAIRS LANDING

Still thrashing, Jean crashes against the upstairs railing,
trips on the curtain and falls, thumping crazily down the
stairs.

Grimsrud trots down after her.

This is a classic example of how the Coen brothers write, where the humor in the scene arises not from a comic tone in the scene description, but rather through the actions of the characters themselves. The scene description is written with a “just the facts, ma’am” approach:

A morning-show host in an apron stands behind a counter on a
kitchen set.

Jean Lundegaard is curled up on the couch with a cup of
coffee, watching the television.

Jean smiles as we hear laughter and applause from the studio
audience. She hears something else — a faint scraping sound -
and looks up.

The scraping sound persists. Jean sets down her coffee cup
and rises.

Straight from the top of the scene, a clean dry tone established in the description. But track the actions of the characters:

She screams, staring at her own imprisoned wrist, then wraps
her gaping mouth around Grimsrud’s gloved thumb and bites
down hard.

He drops her wrist. As Carl enters, she races up the stairs.

GRIMSRUD
Unguent.

Jean’s reaction is to bite “hard” the thumb of her kidnapper. And Grimsrud’s reaction is immediately to seek some topical treatment for the wound.

Jean, sobbing, frantically pushes at buttons on the princess
phone.

The phone pops out of her hands, jangles across the tile
floor, smashes against the door and then bounces away, its
cord ripped free.

Note the comedic contrast of Jean sobbing and trying to make a phone call on her “princess phone” to the unseen kidnappers making their presence felt by yanking the phone from her hands, smashing “against the door.”

The door swings open.

Grimsrud and Carl enter.

THEIR POV

Room empty, window open.

Carl strides to the window and hoists himself out.

Grimsrud opens the medicine cabinet and delicately taps aside
various bottles and tubes, seeking the proper unguent.

Carl bites on the ruse that Jean went out the window. Meanwhile Grimsrud could care less about the job he’s been hired to do, rather he’s obsessed with finding an “unguent” for his injured thumb. But —

He finds a salve but after a moment sets it down, noticing
something in the mirror.

The shower curtain is drawn around the tub.

He steps toward it.

As he reaches for the curtain, it explodes outward, animated
by thrashing limbs.

Jean, screaming, tangled in the curtain, rips it off its
rings and stumbles out into the bedroom. Grimsrud follows.

It’s only because Grimsrud is messing around in the medicine cabinet that he notices “something in the mirror.” And it’s only because Grimsrud “steps toward” the shower that Jean “explodes outward, animated by thrashing limbs” and gets tangled up in the shower curtain. Which leads to —

BEDROOM

Jean rushes toward the door, cloaked by the shower curtain
but awkwardly trying to push it off.

UPSTAIRS LANDING

Still thrashing, Jean crashes against the upstairs railing,
trips on the curtain and falls, thumping crazily down the
stairs.

So in effect, the kidnappers screw up the job, but Jean’s hysterical response to the events actually helps the crooks prevail. And all the goofiness and irony in the scene is conveyed in a dry, objective description, allowing the characters’ actions to provide the humor.

Takeaway: In a pure comedy, you would want to find the appropriate Narrative Voice that provides a comedic tone to your scene description. But in a drama-comedy or a Coen-type movie, you can let the comedy be conveyed primarily through the actions of your characters.

Here’s the movie version of the scene:

Fargo has to be one of the best Coen brothers movies of all time.

[Originally posted July 8, 2010]

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