According to a press release from the National Gallery, writer-director-producer brothers, Joel and Ethan Cohen’s prize-winning movie, Fargo (1995), tells the story of Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macey), a hapless car salesman so desperate for money that he plans a fake kidnapping of his wife so that he can get the ransom from his hostile but rich father-in-law and car dealership boss, who he is afraid to ask for a loan. He hires a petty crook, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) who, though himself irritated by the senseless scheme, agrees to do it, turning up with a silent partner.
When Lundegaard suddenly believes that he can raise money from another scheme he tries to cancel the kidnapping, but it is too late. The kidnappers are stopped by a policeman and events begin their unfortunate unravelling, with Showalter horrified to realize that his partner is a psychopath who kills with zombie-like detachment.
Pregnant police chief of Brainerd, Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), arrives on the scene and quickly works out the sequence of events that has led to three bodies being found in the snow. With low-key and matter-of-fact efficiency she retraces the sequence of events back to its original actors but not before they leave a string of victims in their wake.
Its combination of deadpan humour and entertaining rural mid-western accents lacing a tragedy of dimwitted selfishness and casual violence, won this film the Best Director award from the Cannes Film Festival, the UK BAFTA awards and the National Board of Review in 1996, Best Screenplay awards from the Academy Awards and the Writers’ Guild of America and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film. Frances McDormand won the Academy Award and the Screen Actors’ Guild Award for Best Actress. The film was also nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and received other Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for its writing, directing and acting.
The film starts at 6 pm and is one and a half hours long. Arrangements are in place at the National Gallery in the event of inclement weather or a power outage, the release said.
