Review: The Man Who Wasn’t There
Apr 22nd, 2008 | By Rick | Category: Reviews
There’s a scene early-on in Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Man Who Wasn’t There where Doris Crane (Frances McDormand) is in the bathtub, getting ready for a night out. Her husband Ed (Billy Bob Thornton) stands in the doorway, watching, and she calls him over to shave her legs. He bends over the tub, hands her the cigarette from his mouth, and carefully shaves an extended calf. It’s a scene both intimate and servile, played deadpan by Thornton and with a hint of self-satisfied entitlement by McDormand. The scene neatly sums up Crane’s character–he is truly a man who isn’t there. His ego is subsumed by others, submerged into them. He is still and quiet, rarely speaking while everyone else babbles constantly around him.
It’s Crane’s passivity that helps get him into trouble: just minutes after closing, a man named Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito) comes into the barber shop where he works with his brother-in-law Frank (Michael Badalucco). When Frank refuses to cut the man’s hair after hours, Ed acquiesces with a shrug, and while Tolliver sits in the chair, he tells Crane about a fabulous new industry called dry cleaning. For 10,000 dollars, Ed can get in on the ground floor. To raise the cash, Ed blackmails his wife’s boss and lover, Big Dave Brewster (James Gandolfini), and that’s where things start to go horribly wrong. Big Dave finds out who it is, Ed has to kill him, and Doris is arrested for the murder. After that, their story spirals out of control, heading toward its inevitable unhappy end.
The Man Who Wasn’t There is noir in style and atmosphere, as well as in its classic set-up: a common schmuck tries to better his life. The Coens, of course, derail and subvert the genre at every opportunity. Whereas in classic noir, the hero is undone by greed and raging lust, Ed Crane exhibits no emotion at all. Even after killing Big Dave, he doesn’t panic — his actions are reasonable and calm. And though his bad judgment has set everything in motion, he is undone by random forces, skewered by pure, dumb, luck. Although McDormand has the nominal role of femme fatale, she’s neither overwhelmingly femme — at least by 40s and 50s standards — or particularly fatale. Far from being swept away by his passion for her, Crane is preternaturally calm. In the end, he tries to sacrifice himself for her, but he’s not allowed to. Once again, it’s as if he isn’t there.
The film is technically exquisite, and nowhere is that more evident than in Roger Deakins’ gorgeous
cinematography. It is well known that the film was shot on color stock and then transferred to black-and-white. Apparently, the producers had a contract to deliver a color version to certain overseas markets (see this interview with Deakins about the effort). I, for one, can’t imagine seeing it in anything other than black-and-white; it is absolutely one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen. Pools of inky black alternate with luminous white. Smoke curls lazily in and out of rays of sunlight streaming through windows. Shadows play across hard-bitten faces. Watching this film, I again lament the modern marketplace, which makes it almost impossible to get a black-and-white movie made.
Deakins’ photography is complemented by Dennis Glassner’s precise and detailed production design, which convincingly makes the case that the action does indeed take place in 1949 Santa Rosa, California.
McDormand does her usual fine work as Doris, bringing both toughness and vulnerability to the role. Coen regulars Polito, Badalucco and Tony Shaloub (as Doris’ fast-talking lawyer) do fine, comic work, but the film belongs to Thornton. Through his seemingly dead-pan performance, he manages to convey worlds of wary hurt in the set of his mouth and the hardness of his eyes. It is truly a remarkable performance.
The Coens are masters of mixing moods, combining dire circumstances with wry humor. In one scene, Ed accompanies Frank to the bank to acquire a loan to pay for Doris’ defense. When the banker arrives, he leads Frank off alone into his office. The look on Badalucco’s baby face is one of pure fear and panic, as if he is a calf being led off to slaughter. The scene is both funny and moving, and it displays the Coens’ baroque genius: we are able to both laugh at Fankie’s discomfort and feel for him at the same time.
It is often said that the brothers maintain a certain distance from their characters, observing their antics like they were bugs under a lamp. There is a certain truth to this, and as such, Ed Crane might be as close to their hearts as any of their protagonists. Like his creators, he is a witness, an observer, watching the action, but rarely taking part, and never getting emotionally involved. He watches the other characters with a detached impassivity and more than a little irony, forever separate, forever alone.
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Fine work here Rick. I think you really hit on the elements that make the Coens tick - their subversion of genre, their blending of disparate tones, and their (seemingly) standoffishness from their characters. This one is not my favorite of theirs (I enjoy the films they manage to infuse with some heart), but it is interesting to discuss. What relevance, pray tell, do you think the UFO holds?
Thanks for the compliment, Evan. I think the UFO is a red herring, sort of … I think that when he gets out of the prison in his dream or in his vision or whatever it is, and sees the UFO, it convinces him that he knows the answers to life … remember what he says in V.O. when he “sees” the UFO:
The UFO gives the lie to what he’s saying, it’s a symbol of the futility of trying to make sense out of life. He thinks he’s found it, but it’s really just like a flying saucer: an UNIDENTIFIED flying object.
Great piece Rick, you’ve made sense of why I love this film so much.
I never knew that it was originally filmed in colour for oversea markets, what a sad indictment of our times. I too could never imagine this film in colour; I still can’t get over the terrible job they did with The Big Sleep. Another film that should never be seen in anything other than black and white.
Great review! I loved this movie when I saw it, but it has been quite some time. I will probably have to make an effort watch it again some time. I agree with the black and white of this film; it certainly made it for me. I could not have imagined it if it were in color, but if it were then I would have never thought about it being in black and white probably. I loved it in Black and white though so I have to had it to them.
Thanks Dave, Ibetolis … The color apparently isn’t particular garish, it’s a washed-out sepia, perhaps created using the post-camera techniques pioneered the year before in O Brother. You can see some screen caps comparing the two here.
Excellent review, Rick. This one is quickly growing on me as my favorite Coen film.
Joel Coen has directly said, “Nothing much makes sense. So, you might as well make whatever kind of movies you want. And hope for the best.” I think The Man Who Wasn’t There illustrates that methodology the best and I think the UFO aspect of the plot is inconsequential. It makes no sense, but stepping back and knowing that strange stuff like that exists gives a strange sense of peace.
Hi there, Rick. Just wanted to say that I’m glad to have discovered your blog. I’ve added it to my RSS subscriptions and look forward to following your writings.
Phillip, thanks for the nice words . . . I went back and watched this again for my piece in MovieZeal’s Coen-fest, and I came to appreciate it as one of my Coen favorites as well.
girish, I’m honored … yours is one of my favorite blogs; I especially liked your post on auteurism, the gift that keeps on giving, or the controversy that will not die. You’re on my feed-reader, as well.