Blood Simple

This article is about the film. For the metal band, see Bloodsimple.

Blood Simple
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Joel Coen
Written by	Joel Coen Ethan Coen
Produced by	Ethan Coen
Starring	John Getz Frances McDormand Dan Hedaya Samm-Art Williams M. Emmet Walsh
Cinematography	Barry Sonnenfeld
Edited by	Roderick Jaynes Don Wiegmann
Music by	Carter Burwell
Production companies	River Road Productions Foxton Entertainment
Distributed by	Circle Films
Release date	October 12, 1984 (1984-10-12) (New York Film Festival)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.5 million
Box office	$2.7 million

Blood Simple is a 1984 American independent neo-noir crime film written, edited, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, and M. Emmet Walsh. Its plot follows a Texas bartender who is having a love affair with his boss’s wife. When his boss discovers the affair, he hires a private investigator to kill the couple. It was the directorial debut of the Coens and the first major film of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who later became a director, as well as the feature-film debut of McDormand.

The film's title is derived from Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest (1929), in which the Continental Op muses: “This damned burg's getting me. If I don't get away soon I'll be going blood-simple like the natives.” Stylistically, the film has been noted for its blending elements of neo-noir, pulp crime stories, and low-budget horror films. In 2001, a director's cut was released, the same year that it was ranked No. 98 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.

Plot

Texas bartender Ray and housewife Abby drive through a downpour at night, discussing Abby's bad marriage to Ray's boss Julian Marty. They have sex at a motel. Private detective Loren Visser takes photos of the tryst and delivers them to Marty. When a caller informs the couple they are being watched, Abby grabs some belongings, including a pistol Marty gave her. Ray goes to the bar to demand his back pay from Marty, who tells Ray that Abby will betray him as she did Marty, and when confronted will say, "I haven't done anything funny."

After a botched attempt to kidnap Abby, Marty offers Visser $10,000 to kill Abby and Ray. Visser tells Marty to go fishing and he will call him when it is done. Visser breaks into Ray's home and steals Abby's gun. Visser shows Marty photos of the murdered couple, one of which Marty secretes in the safe while retrieving the $10,000. Visser shoots Marty with Abby's gun, drops the gun and grabs the money but forgets his cigarette lighter as he leaves.

It is revealed that Visser doctored photos of the sleeping couple to appear that they had been shot. Ray discovers Marty's body, accidentally discharging Abby's gun when he steps on it. He puts the gun in Marty's pocket and the body in his car. Marty is still alive, albeit barely. Ray begins to bury Marty in a shallow grave when Marty aims the gun and pulls the trigger three times, falling on an empty chamber each time. Marty screams as Ray takes the gun and finishes burying him.

Ray tries to explain to Abby that he "cleaned it all up." Abby says, "I haven't done anything funny," which leads to an argument. Visser telephones but does not speak when Abby picks up. She assumes and tells Ray that it was Marty. Ray places her gun on a table as he leaves. Bartender Meurice tells Ray about a phone message Marty left regarding money stolen from the safe - Marty's cover for the $10,000 he paid Visser.

While burning the doctored photos, Visser realizes that Marty kept one, and that he left his lighter. His attempt to break into the safe is thwarted by Abby, who thinks Ray damaged the safe and realizes Marty might be dead. She has a nightmare of Marty warning her that Ray will kill her as well. She confronts Ray, who tells her Marty was still alive when he buried him.

Ray opens the safe and discovers the doctored photo. He goes to Abby's apartment to warn her. Visser kills Ray with a rifle shot from a rooftop across the street. Abby smashes the lightbulb and hides in the bathroom.

Visser enters the apartment and searches Ray for the lighter, and finds Abby has climbed out of the window into the next apartment. She stabs him with Ray's knife, pinning his hand to the sill. As she backs away, Visser empties his gun into the wall, then punches through it to remove the knife. Returning to her apartment, Abby picks up her gun and shoots Visser through the bathroom door. She says, "I'm not afraid of you, Marty," and Visser, lying wounded, laughs and responds, "Well, ma'am, if I see him, I'll sure give him the message."

Cast

• John Getz as Ray
• Frances McDormand as Abby
• Dan Hedaya as Julian Marty
• M. Emmet Walsh as Loren Visser (private detective)
• Samm-Art Williams as Meurice

Production

Development

After writing the screenplay, the Coen brothers shot a preemptive dummy theatrical trailer for the film, which showed "a man dragging a shovel alongside a car stopped in the middle of the road, back towards another man he was going to kill" and "a shot of backlit gun holes in a wall." The trailer featured actor Bruce Campbell, playing the Julian Marty role, and was shot by recent film school graduate Barry Sonnenfeld.

After completing the trailer, the Coens began exhibiting it with the hope of persuading investors to help fund the full-length feature film. Daniel Bacaner was one of the first people to invest money in the project. He also became its executive producer and introduced the Coens to other potential backers. The entire process of raising the necessary $1.5 million took a year.

Filming

The film was shot in several locations in the towns of Austin and Hutto, Texas over a period of 8 weeks in the fall of 1982. The film spent a year in postproduction and was completed by 1983.

Blood Simple was Frances McDormand's screen debut. All Coen brothers films are co-produced and co-directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, although Ethan was credited as the sole producer and Joel the sole director until 2004. The Coens share editing credit under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.

Reception and legacy

Critical response

While the film was only a modest box-office success, it was a huge critical success. It holds a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 111 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The critical consensus reads: "Brutally violent and shockingly funny in equal measure, Blood Simple offers early evidence of the Coen Brothers' twisted sensibilities and filmmaking ingenuity." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Janet Maslin wrote: "Black humor, abundant originality and a brilliant visual style make Joel Coen's Blood Simple a directorial debut of extraordinary promise. Mr. Coen, who co-wrote the film with his brother Ethan, works in a film noir style that in no way inhibits his wit, which turns out to be considerable." She cites a "long, late- night tracking shot from one end of the Neon Boot bar to another actually tracks along the surface of the bar itself - and when there is a drunk passed out on the bar, the camera simply lifts up and flies over him, then continues on its route."

Pauline Kael called it "a crude, ghoulish story with thriller themes", but was effusive about the performance of M. Emmet Walsh as Loren Visser (private detective).

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert each gave it a positive review on At the Movies. In his review, Ebert wrote: "A lot has been written about the visual style of “Blood Simple,” but I think the appeal of the movie is more elementary. It keys into three common nightmares: (1) You clean and clean, but there’s still blood all over the place; (2) You know you have committed a murder, but you are not sure quite how or why; (3) You know you have forgotten a small detail that will eventually get you into a lot of trouble."

In The Atlantic, Christopher Orr writes: "It all began here, and not merely for the Coens themselves. Blood Simple was the first feature starring Joel Coen’s soon-to-become wife, Frances McDormand; the first scored by Carter Burwell, who’s collaborated—often, as here, magnificently—with the Coens on all their subsequent scores; and the first shot by cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who also worked on the Coens’ next two films before embarking on his own directorial career... It is no small miracle—and a testament to the Coens themselves—that so many exceptional talents connected so early in their respective careers."

Box office

The film grossed $2.7 million worldwide. Its first big public viewing was the USA Film Festival in Dallas, followed by the Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Grand Jury Prize. The brothers took the film to the Toronto Film Festival, Cannes, and the New York Film Festival. They were very proud of their film, particularly in light of having raised the funds using their self-made trailer.

Accolades

• Sundance Film Festival - Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Dramatic (1985)
• 1st Independent Spirit Awards - Best Director (tied with Martin Scorsese for After Hours) and Actor (M. Emmet Walsh)

In The Atlantic, George Orr writes: "It all began here, and not merely for the Coens themselves. Blood Simple was the first feature starring Joel Coen’s soon-to-become wife, Frances McDormand; the first scored by Carter Burwell, who’s collaborated—often, as here, magnificently—with the Coens on all their subsequent scores; and the first shot by cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who also worked on the Coens’ next two films before embarking on his own directorial career... It is no small miracle—and a testament to the Coens themselves—that so many exceptional talents connected so early in their respective careers."

In popular culture

The film was referenced in a 1992 episode (Master Ninja II) of the cult satirical sci-fi TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 as well as a 2017 episode ("Backfire") of the TV series Designated Survivor.

Some audio extracts of this film are used in the song "Quotation For Listening", by On Thorns I Lay on their album Egocentric, released in 2003.

Home media

The original MCA Home Video VHS tape and LaserDisc was released on October 10, 1985, with a 96-minute running time. The film was released on Universal Pictures Home Entertainment VHS for a second time in 1995 with a 99-minute run time. Unusual for such an exercise, the "Director's Cut" is some 3 minutes shorter than the original 1985 theatrical release. The Coens reduced the run time with tighter editing, shortening some shots and removing others altogether. Additionally, they resolved long-standing rights issues with the music; the original theatrical version of the film made prominent use of The Four Tops' "It's the Same Old Song" (1965); the Coens had replaced it with Neil Diamond's "I'm a Believer" (1966) for the 1995 U.S. home video edition on VHS. The Director's Cut reinstated the Four Tops track.

Universal Home Video released a DVD version of the film in 2001, and again in 2005 as part of a DVD box set titled The Coen Brothers Collection. A Blu-ray edition was released in 2011 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

In 2016, The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD, featuring a new 4K digital transfer supervised and approved by Barry Sonnenfeld and the Coens, along with various new special features. In 2024, The Criterion Collection released the film on 4K Ultra HD for the first time as a combo pack which includes the 2016 Blu-ray disc as well.

Soundtrack

Original Motion Picture Soundtracks: Raising Arizona and Blood Simple
Soundtrack album by Carter Burwell
Released	1987
Genre	Film score
Length	39:26
Label	Varèse Sarabande
Coen Brothers film soundtracks chronology
Original Motion Picture Soundtracks: Raising Arizona and Blood Simple (1987) Raising Arizona (1987)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic

Carter Burwell wrote the Blood Simple score, the first of his collaborations with the Coen brothers. Blood Simple was also the first feature-film score for Burwell, and after his work on this film, he became a much-in-demand composer in Hollywood. As of 2024, he had scored 16 of the Coen brothers' films.

The score for Blood Simple is a mix of solo piano and electronic ambient sounds. One track, "Monkey Chant", is based on kecak, the "Ramayana Monkey Chant" of Bali.

In 1987, seven selections from Burwell's Blood Simple score were released on a 17-track album that also features selections from the soundtrack of the Coens' next film, Raising Arizona (1987).

Blood Simple selections on the 1987 album:

1. "Crash and Burn" (2:40)
2. "Blood Simple" (3:33)
3. "Chain Gang" (4:47)
4. "The March" (3:34)
5. "Monkey Chant" (1:04)
6. "The Shooting" (2:52)
7. "Blood Simpler" (1:22)

Other songs from the film that are not on the album:

• "It's the Same Old Song", written by Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland, performed by The Four Tops (used three different times, two inside the bar and one for the end credits)
• "Louie Louie", written by Richard Berry, performed by Toots & the Maytals
• "The Lady in Red", written by M. Dixon and A. Wrubel, performed by Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra
• "Rogaciano", courtesy of Monitor Records
• "He'll Have to Go", written by Joe Allison and Audrey Allison, arranged by Jim Roberge, performed by Joan Black
• "El Sueno", written by Camilo Namen, performed by Johnny Ventura y su Combo
• "Anahi", performed by Maria Luisa Buchino and her Llameros
• "Sweet Dreams", written by Don Gibson, performed by Patsy Cline

See also

• A Simple Noodle Story, a 2009 Chinese language remake directed by Zhang Yimou.

Sources

• Levine, Josh (2000). The Coen Brothers: The Story of Two American Film Makers. Canasa: ECW Press. ISBN 978-1-55022-424-5.
• Robson, Eddie (2003). Coen Brothers. London, England: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-753-54770-0.
• Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth, eds. (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd ed.). Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5.

External links

• Blood Simple at IMDb
• Blood Simple at Rotten Tomatoes
• Blood Simple at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Blood Simple at the TCM Movie Database
• Blood Simple at AllMovie
• Blood Simple at Box Office Mojo
• Blood Simple: “Down Here, You’re on Your Own” an essay by Nathaniel Rich at the Criterion Collection
• Investor trailer officially posted by Janus Films on Vimeo