Hi There!
Today, We are going to talk about a series that have been quite famous a few time ago,
Fargo.
Produced by Kim Todd, Chad Oaks and Michael Frislev, this series based on a true story was released in 2014, and a second season came out in 2015, but this post will only be about the first season, for it is the only one I saw.
Basically, the plot is about a man, Lester Nygaard, who has quite a bad life. His wife and he are not going along well together, his brother thinks he is a weirdo and a former classmate keeps bullying him even though years passed. But one day, he meets a guy, Lorne Malvo, who will soon influence him and drive him to kill his wife, while Malvo takes care of the bully that he murders while the man was having sex with a prostitute. He even makes this guy's elder son try to kill the younger brother. After that, the all story will be on the one hand about Lester trying to avoid being arrested by the cops, for a quite smart agent, Molly Solverson, is suspecting him for the murder of his wife and of the bully, and she will try during the all season to find links between him and Malvo, while Malvo is going on doing his business of assassin around the region.
For the cast of the main characters, we have:
Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard,
Billy Bob Thornton as Lorne Malvo,
Allison Tolman as Molly Solverson
This series is to be classified in the thriller category, for it fits into this genre standard. The first of these is about the main character facing death, either his own or someone else's. This is one of the easiest criteria to fit, for their are numerous deaths in this series. In fact, either for Malvo or lester, the story begins with a death: for Lester, his wife's death, and for Malvo the murder of Lester's bully. To illustrate the presence of death facing into it, let's just watch this short video until 1.23 :
The third main Character, Molly, also faces at the beginning of the series the death of her cop partner, Verns Thurman.
The second thing that characterizes a thriller is the forces of antagonism, that have to be at the beginning stronger or smarter than the main character. For Lester,this is easily illustrated, for either Malvo, that made is life a hell, or the police, that tries to arrest him, are clearly stronger than him. Malvo keeps manipulating him during the all season, and always has the up on him, and the police have way more means than him. Both aspects are present. For Malvo, it is a bit different, for he will always have an advantage on the cops, who are his enemies, and he is clearly smarter and better prepared than they are, even though they basically have more means than him.
Third: The main storyline has to be about a quest or the character that cannot be put down. This aspect is the less illustrated in the series, even if we could say that Molly's quest is about avenging her friend and making justice win. Even though Malvo is for long someone who looks like he cannot be put down, he will in the last episode face danger and even his own death, which makes this aspect not illustrated.
Beside this, the fourth aspect, which is about the main plot line that has to focus on a mystery, is very well shown by Molly, who is trying during the all series to find out what really happened on the evening Lester's wife died, for she only have suspicions.
Also, something very common is that the film's narrative construction has to be dominated by the character's point of view, which is obviously the case with every single of the three main characters, with whom we discover one by one the elements they discover at the same time. For example, we discover the way a big supermarket's director had his first amount of money at the same time Lorne Malvo does, when this guy's wife tells him that her husband found a bag of money on the downside of the road. Of course, with this aspect come the next, which is that every character have to play in a realistic way, and indeed, we have no doubts during the series that this story is based on true facts, for every single situation is perfectly played, like the fear of Lester when he thinks he is going to be arrested.
The next criteria is about the major themes, that are always the desire of justice and the morality of individuals. The desire of justice is the easiest to illustrate, obviously with the police officer Molly Solverson, whose first motivation is to place under arrest the authors of the first episode's crimes, either by a desire of revenge and because it's her own morality that makes her want to act for justice.
Finally, a small but significant aspect of thrillers is the presence of innocence in what is seen as a corrupted world. There is one character that illustrates this aspect perfectly, and it is Greta Grimly, played by Joey King, who is the daughter of a cop helping Molly to catch Malvo. This girl is absolutely convinced of the necessity of applying justice in every case, and is a naive teenager who seem to dream of a peaceful and just world, while her father is afraid of putting her in danger by trying to catch the manipulator Malvo.
I chosed this thriller for a few reasons: the first is that when we watched the first episode in class, I really wanted to see what was happening after, and this work gave me a perfect occasion. Also, when I told my brother, that i had seen the first episode, he told me that it was a really good series. This with the fact that the media were talking a lot about it, and only in good, so I was really thinking a lot about watching it, which make that I had no hesitation when, I saw it in the list of the thrillers we could choose to talk about.
Well, this is it, hope you enjoyed this post, even if it was something for my work, i think it was quite interesting, and I hope that it made you want to give Fargo a try, for it really worth it. I will give you another free post in a few time guys, and as always, feel free to ask anything you want in the comments section, I will read them all and take them into account,
Bye guys!
The Mad Hatter
