The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

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The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) – J. Coen & E. Coen

The Coen Brothers love film noir, from their first feature (Blood Simple, 1984) through Miller’s Crossing (1990) and possibly including Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998) and No Country for Old Men (2007).  These latter films are genre-bending masterpieces but the Coens playfully toy with form and content in even their straightest films. On the surface, The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) feels like a very sincere homage to the noirs of the 1940s (think James M. Cain) but, on second glance, it doesn’t shy away from some other literary references and comic asides (in true Coen style). Shot in faux-black-and-white (colour but converted in the lab) by Roger Deakins but still featuring the chiaroscuro lighting preferred by noir cinematographers, as well as perfect period sets and costumes – you get the sense that this was a labour of love for the team, reconstructing the past and its dark moves.  It may be no surprise that the film’s smalltown locale is Santa Rosa, CA, where Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) also takes place. Billy Bob Thornton plays Ed Crane, a barber (narrating the film in a voiceover from the unknown future) who suspects that his wife Doris (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with her boss at the department store, Big Jim (James Gandolfini). When an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new entrepreneurial venture (dry cleaning!) appears, he decides to (anonymously) blackmail Big Jim for the $10K he needs, threatening to expose the affair. As Big Jim’s wife is the actual department store heiress, this puts him into a desperate situation – and soon things spiral out of control. The plot takes many twists and turns, reeling in Scarlett Johansson’s Lolita-reference Birdy, Tony Shalhoub’s cocky lawyer Freddy Ridenschneider, not to mention Coen stalwarts Michael Badalucco and Jon Polito in quirky supporting roles. There are a fair few things you’d never encounter in the noirs of the Forties! This time through, having just re-read Camus’ The Stranger (1942), it struck me just how much Ed Crane’s character echoes Meursault from the book – a man of few words, who responds spontaneously in the moment, absorbed by perceptions and sensations, who ultimately comes to accept the absurdity of existence with no regrets.  Stir in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and the poem Antigonish and there’s a bit more than meets the eye here.