Discussion: FARGO on FX @10pm Update: Season 5 w/ John Hamm
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Brief Candles: Henri Regnault, the history painter who became history
Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1866, in the next 4 years he painted several startling canvases which took the Salon by storm. Then he was killed.
eclecticlight.co
Regnault, the history painter who became history
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Summary Execution under the Moorish Kings of Grenada (1870), oil on canvas, 305 x 146 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Image by Sailko, via Wikimedia Commons.
… Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
(William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, scene 5.)
The most famous artist to die in the Franco-Prussian War was the French Impressionist Frédéric Bazille, but he was not the only promising young painter to be a victim of that brief conflict: also killed was Alexandre-Georges-Henri or just plain Henri Regnault (1843–1871).
Son of one of France’s most distinguished chemists and physicists, he trained with Montfort, Lamothe, and Alexandre Cabanel, and first competed unsuccessfully for the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1863.
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Orpheus in the Underworld (1865), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle, Calais, France. By VladoubidoOo, via Wikimedia Commons.
His Orpheus in the Underworld (1865) appears to be based on the popular opera by Offenbach, which was first performed in 1858. Orpheus is seen at the left, his lyre in his hand, singing to the dead. Behind him, at the left edge, are two of the heads of Cerberus, who guards the entrance to the underworld.
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Thetis Bringing Achilles the Weapons Forged by Vulcan (1866), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1866, he competed again in the Prix de Rome, and won it with his Thetis Bringing Achilles the Weapons Forged by Vulcan. This set title for the painting was taken from a famous painting, generally known as Thetis Receiving the Weapons of Achilles from Hephaestus, by Anthony van Dyck, from 1630-32.
It shows a scene from the story of the Shield of Achilles, drawn from Homer’s Iliad, book 18, lines 478-608. In this, the sea-nymph Thetis, Achilles’ mother, pleads with Hephaestus/Vulcan for replacement weapons for Achilles in the Trojan war, after his original armour and weapons are taken by the Trojans from the corpse of Patroclus. Here, the bare-breasted Thetis brings those impregnable weapons to Achilles. Among them is the famous decorated Shield of Achilles.
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Automedon with the Horses of Achilles (1868), oil on canvas, 315 × 329 cm, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA. Wikimedia Commons.
Automedon with the Horses of Achilles (1868) also draws from the stories about Achilles during the Trojan War, in the Iliad. Automedon was Achilles’ charioteer, who rode into battle in command of Achilles’ horses Balius and Xanthos, to support Patroclus, when he was wearing Achilles’ armour. When Patroclus was killed, Automedon was driven to the rear of the fighting, where he tried to console the bereaved horses, as shown here.
Oddly, Regnault does not associate the horses’ names with their appearance: Balios probably means dappled, and Xanthus means blonde.
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Castilian Mountain Shepherd (1868), oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm, Musée des beaux-arts de Pau, Pau, Aquitaine, France. Wikimedia Commons.
Regnault was probably the first winner of the Prix de Rome to be given dispensation to not spend the obligatory three years in Rome. Instead he travelled to Spain and North Africa for the latter years, for example painting this fine realist portrait of a Castilian Mountain Shepherd (1868).
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Colonnade of the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra (1869), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Musée des Augustins de Toulouse, Toulouse, France. Wikimedia Commons.
When he was in Granada, he painted this view of the Colonnade of the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra (1869). I suspect that this was unfinished, and that he intended to complete the detail in its lower half.
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Summary Execution under the Moorish Kings of Grenada (1870), oil on canvas, 305 x 146 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Image by Sailko, via Wikimedia Commons.
More famous was his Summary Execution under the Moorish Kings of Grenada (1870), which catered for the growing public taste for spectacular gore. This shows the immediate aftermath of a summary beheading performed on the steps of the Alhambra, during the Moorish kingdom prior to the Christian Reconquista of 1492.
Regnault uses contrasting colours to great effect here, with the green robes of the victim making his blood seem intensely red. The low angle of the view also enhances the stature of the executioner and gives immediacy.
Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Salome (1870), oil on canvas, 160 × 101 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Gift of George F. Baker, 1916), New York, NY. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Regnault’s other painting shown in the Salon that year caused even more of a sensation: it was his Salome (1870).
Most unusually, Regnault shows Salome alone, equipped with a short sword with which to behead John, and the large platter to contain his head. She is dressed as an ‘oriental’ (North African) dancing girl, and Regnault had originally intended to make her appear North African too. On her face is a knowing smile, of someone who is about to get just what they wanted. Although it questioned the Biblical account, Regnault was careful not to contradict it.
Sometimes those who won the Prix de Rome all but disappear. In Regnault’s case, he was clearly destined for much greater paintings in the future, and promised to be just what history painting most needed. Then on 19 January 1871, during the second Battle of Buzenval, near St Cloud to the west of the city of Paris, he was among the defenders and was killed in battle. He was 27.
His tragic death was commemorated by other artists who had fought in the war.
Carolus-Duran (1837–1917), Henri Regnault Dead on the Battlefield (1871), oil, dimensions not known, Palais des beaux-arts de Lille, Lille, France. Wikimedia Commons.
Carolus-Duran, who had fought in the same battle, painted his oil sketch of Henri Regnault Dead on the Battlefield (1871).
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891), The Siege of Paris in 1870 (1884), oil on canvas, 54 × 71 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, who commanded an infantry regiment which defended Paris during the war, included Regnault as the soldier slumped on the white plinth in The Siege of Paris in 1870 (1884). Camille Saint-Saëns, another veteran of the defence of Paris, dedicated his Marche Héroïque (1871) to Regnault’s memory.
Brief Candles: Henri Regnault, the history painter who became history
Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1866, in the next 4 years he painted several startling canvases which took the Salon by storm. Then he was killed.
eclecticlight.co
@playahaitian
Thanks for the info & link.
Great episode ... like you said with the pacing, writing, and tying up of loose ends leading into the finale.
- The meetings with Happy (also the name of the episode, "Happy")
- Satchel going Milligan and pulling the gun on the shitheads and telling them "Now fuck off ..."
- Gaetano killing Weff & accidentally killing himself seconds later with his brother rushing him from the car nearby. The singing from the late wife/fiancee of Weff as he came to accept his fate like a sitting duck in the car before getting blasted. Josto's "What the fuck?" reaction to Gaetano's grave mistake afterward. Some of the podcast recappers were joking that all season they had seen Gaetano with his big knife. Occasionally sharpening it, etc. They thought for sure he'd be stabbing people up. Instead he shot a handful of people, bodyslammed his brother through a table, and punched Josto's future father-in-law in the face a few times, and shot the top of his own head off. Damn! What a run he had.
- The way the camera shot Mayflower (or was it the ghost?) entering the Smutny house and going up the staircase. That was the ghost, right? Given the speed the camera panned up the stairs & Mayflower was preparing her injection. As she told Ethelrida on the front porch earlier - "I'll see you in your dreams" (damn that was cold) - the Angel of Death in her room
- Loved when Ethelrida & Lemuel shot her down on the porch - stood their ground to that pure evil - Lemuel helping protect her
- That bitch Mayflower getting apprehended / the ghost disrupting her from behind (we thought Zelmare was going to arrive). The Smutny family standing on the porch watching her get taken away
- Ethelrida's boss level meeting with Cannon at the end. Coming with the facts & numbers
Thanks for the info & link.
Great episode ... like you said with the pacing, writing, and tying up of loose ends leading into the finale.
- The meetings with Happy (also the name of the episode, "Happy")
- Satchel going Milligan and pulling the gun on the shitheads and telling them "Now fuck off ..."
- Gaetano killing Weff & accidentally killing himself seconds later with his brother rushing him from the car nearby. The singing from the late wife/fiancee of Weff as he came to accept his fate like a sitting duck in the car before getting blasted. Josto's "What the fuck?" reaction to Gaetano's grave mistake afterward. Some of the podcast recappers were joking that all season they had seen Gaetano with his big knife. Occasionally sharpening it, etc. They thought for sure he'd be stabbing people up. Instead he shot a handful of people, bodyslammed his brother through a table, and punched Josto's future father-in-law in the face a few times, and shot the top of his own head off. Damn! What a run he had.
- The way the camera shot Mayflower (or was it the ghost?) entering the Smutny house and going up the staircase. That was the ghost, right? Given the speed the camera panned up the stairs & Mayflower was preparing her injection. As she told Ethelrida on the front porch earlier - "I'll see you in your dreams" (damn that was cold) - the Angel of Death in her room
- Loved when Ethelrida & Lemuel shot her down on the porch - stood their ground to that pure evil - Lemuel helping protect her
- That bitch Mayflower getting apprehended / the ghost disrupting her from behind (we thought Zelmare was going to arrive). The Smutny family standing on the porch watching her get taken away
- Ethelrida's boss level meeting with Cannon at the end. Coming with the facts & numbers
Hey ... wait a second?
He has familial ties to Anjelica and one of the villains from Yellowstone?
He has familial ties to Anjelica and one of the villains from Yellowstone?
Last edited:
@playahaitian
Thanks for the info & link.
Great episode ... like you said with the pacing, writing, and tying up of loose ends leading into the finale.
- The meetings with Happy (also the name of the episode, "Happy")
- Satchel going Milligan and pulling the gun on the shitheads and telling them "Now fuck off ..."
- Gaetano killing Weff & accidentally killing himself seconds later with his brother rushing him from the car nearby. The singing from the late wife/fiancee of Weff as he came to accept his fate like a sitting duck in the car before getting blasted. Josto's "What the fuck?" reaction to Gaetano's grave mistake afterward. Some of the podcast recappers were joking that all season they had seen Gaetano with his big knife. Occasionally sharpening it, etc. They thought for sure he'd be stabbing people up. Instead he shot a handful of people, bodyslammed his brother through a table, and punched Josto's future father-in-law in the face a few times, and shot the top of his own head off. Damn! What a run he had.
- The way the camera shot Mayflower (or was it the ghost?) entering the Smutny house and going up the staircase. That was the ghost, right? Given the speed the camera panned up the stairs & Mayflower was preparing her injection. As she told Ethelrida on the front porch earlier - "I'll see you in your dreams" (damn that was cold) - the Angel of Death in her room
- Loved when Ethelrida & Lemuel shot her down on the porch - stood their ground to that pure evil - Lemuel helping protect her
- That bitch Mayflower getting apprehended / the ghost disrupting her from behind (we thought Zelmare was going to arrive). The Smutny family standing on the porch watching her get taken away
- Ethelrida's boss level meeting with Cannon at the end. Coming with the facts & numbers
I'm still a little confused how they all kinda let the whole BEING SENT A POISONED PIE THING GO.
Agreed. Need to hear more about that. Plus, it seems like her storyline was wrapped up a bit too quickly and neatly given her serial killer ways. How much time do they devote in the finale to further wrapping up her story? Do we get any word from Dr. Harvard after he’s since recovered from his own poisoning incident which nearly proved fatal at the hands of her tampered-with macaro(o)ns?
We also need confirmation that the crazy nurse did NOT do this with Josto's PERMISSION.
Was it accidental? Deliberate? Drug induced?
Agreed. They were doing drugs together that same episode, and she may have mistook what he said about taking care of the father as a shield to deliberately put him out of his misery, per her M.O.
Definitely would like to see Josto realize she was the one who did it. Especially given how he’s already dealt with so much shit losing a number of family members. It would be another WTF moment in his troubled existence. Nurse kills dad. Mom gets shot in crossfire. Brother trips and shoots the top of his own head off. Or does Josto not make it out alive at the end? We’ll soon see on that last ep’ ahead ...
Seeing the Nurse in the back of the squad car was nice
but far from fulfilling
I NEED MORE...
@playahaitian
Thanks for the info & link.
Great episode ... like you said with the pacing, writing, and tying up of loose ends leading into the finale.
- The meetings with Happy (also the name of the episode, "Happy")
- Satchel going Milligan and pulling the gun on the shitheads and telling them "Now fuck off ..."
- Gaetano killing Weff & accidentally killing himself seconds later with his brother rushing him from the car nearby. The singing from the late wife/fiancee of Weff as he came to accept his fate like a sitting duck in the car before getting blasted. Josto's "What the fuck?" reaction to Gaetano's grave mistake afterward. Some of the podcast recappers were joking that all season they had seen Gaetano with his big knife. Occasionally sharpening it, etc. They thought for sure he'd be stabbing people up. Instead he shot a handful of people, bodyslammed his brother through a table, and punched Josto's future father-in-law in the face a few times, and shot the top of his own head off. Damn! What a run he had.
- The way the camera shot Mayflower (or was it the ghost?) entering the Smutny house and going up the staircase. That was the ghost, right? Given the speed the camera panned up the stairs & Mayflower was preparing her injection. As she told Ethelrida on the front porch earlier - "I'll see you in your dreams" (damn that was cold) - the Angel of Death in her room
- Loved when Ethelrida & Lemuel shot her down on the porch - stood their ground to that pure evil - Lemuel helping protect her
- That bitch Mayflower getting apprehended / the ghost disrupting her from behind (we thought Zelmare was going to arrive). The Smutny family standing on the porch watching her get taken away
- Ethelrida's boss level meeting with Cannon at the end. Coming with the facts & numbers
now the camera and the ghost to me
I know they are NOT going to get MORE into it
but they should
there has been a thinly addressed but PROMINENT alien / supernatural influence EVERY season.
this one might be the MOST DETAILED.
Yeah it COULD have been all in the mind of a deranged psychopathic nurse...
but I don't know.
Cause this is a DIFFERENT ghost than the one haunting Swanee correct?
SO that is a little TOO MUCH ghost to go UNADDRESSED.
@playahaitian
- Satchel going Milligan and pulling the gun on the shitheads and telling them "Now fuck off ..."
It was the VOICE the delivery the word selection
It was PERFECT
that young man KNEW his moment and they directed him perfectly
he hit a 3 pointer game winner at the buzzer from like 40 ft out.
left his hand in the air
and walked off the court before it went in
nothing but net.
Salute.
Agreed. The supernatural elements throughout the anthology series.
From what the podcasters noted, they thought it was the same ghost throughout. It distracted Mayflower (evil) in the end, but didn’t cause any harm to the others (Smutny family, aunt Zelmare, now deceased Swanee). In the end it did “protect” Ethelrida in a crucial moment.
Loved that too. The confidence in delivery. Loy Cannon and Rabbi Milligan would be damn proud of how he conducted himself.
How did I miss this? Just watched the finale and saw this connection.
OK lets go
awesome season
NOT GREAT
but it was excellent
that ending had no real surprises
but it felt EARNED
and everything fell into place.
awesome season
NOT GREAT
but it was excellent
that ending had no real surprises
but it felt EARNED
and everything fell into place.
Ok Ethelrida BETTER get her own season, who WAS she talking to?
WHERE is she going with those bags?
WHERE is she going with those bags?
Josto - Hasn't there been ENOUGH killing?
Joe the Goon - Ha Ha Ha Hold on your NOT serious?
Ok now we NEED explanation that Mayflower spirit Is is NOT evil??
it PROTECTS Ethelrida?
The evil nurse SAW her dark soul in that reflection TOO? when half her face was distorted?
COLD as ice when she said my last request is to see Josto die FIRST?
(and did she cum when she saw him die?)
and that lipstick?
WOW
Joe the Goon - Ha Ha Ha Hold on your NOT serious?
Ok now we NEED explanation that Mayflower spirit Is is NOT evil??
it PROTECTS Ethelrida?
The evil nurse SAW her dark soul in that reflection TOO? when half her face was distorted?
COLD as ice when she said my last request is to see Josto die FIRST?
(and did she cum when she saw him die?)
and that lipstick?
WOW
How Glynn Turman Played the Long Game
Emmy Award-winner Glynn Turman, currently in 'Fargo' and 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,' discusses his career highlights and most famous roles
www.rollingstone.com
Glad I got to binge this shit. It was an OK season. Still like season 1 and the one with Bokeem the best. Crazy that the little boy was his character.
Just OK?
Yeah. It would be great to see her, Lemuel, and Roach as feature characters on future season.
How Glynn Turman Played the Long Game
Emmy Award-winner Glynn Turman, currently in 'Fargo' and 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,' discusses his career highlights and most famous roles
so far no news on another season
'Fargo' showrunner breaks down that season 4 finale, and drops a season 5 tease
'Fargo' showrunner Noah Hawley discusses the end of season 4 and reveals that he has an idea for season 5 .
'Fargo' Fans May Be Waiting A Long Time For Season 5
'Fargo' creator Noah Hawley hasn't said if the show will return for Season 5, but he's leaving the door open to the possibility.
‘Fargo’ Season 4 Finale: Creator Noah Hawley On Tonight’s Gangland Outcome; The Future Of ‘Cat’s Cradle’ & Those ‘Alien’ TV Series Rumors
SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains details about tonight’s Fargo Season 4 finale “Storia Americana” on FX Crime doesn’t pay, and it never did for mobsters. While we were bound to see the death of one big Kansas City mafia kingpin at the end of Fargo‘s Season 4, specifically Jason...
deadline.com
What 'Fargo' Creator Noah Hawley Has Said About Season 5
"Fargo" is bringing its current season to an end, but creator Noah Hawley has hinted that another season could be coming soon on FX.
www.newsweek.com
Yeah, I don't know why I expected more.
I really thought you would it enjoy it more
let ,e know what specifically you thought and didn't like
@Helico-pterFunk
www.nytimes.com
Noah Hawley Isn’t Done with ‘Fargo’
“The show has always been about the American experience, and there’s still a lot to say about it,” said the creator of the FX crime drama, which wrapped up its fourth season on Sunday night.
Chris Rock in the fourth season of “Fargo,” which ended Sunday night on FX.Credit...FX
By Finn Cohen
Now he’s managed to land in it again. During a pandemic-induced, five-month interruption in filming, Hawley’s theme for Season 4 of “Fargo” — which ended Sunday evening — again collided with current events. This time, a story set in 1950 featured Chris Rock as the head of a Black crime family in Kansas City locked in a battle with Italians — and both groups being demonized by white police and politicians. There are still plenty of Hawley’s trademark Easter eggs — ample references to the show’s previous seasons and the canon of Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed the 1996 film that inspired the series. It’s difficult not to draw parallels to this summer’s social upheaval, but Hawley doesn’t see these issues as anything new.
“This show emerged into a country that was having an active and urgent conversation about race,” said Hawley last week. “But it’s also a conversation that we have been having for hundreds of years in this country, about this country. So I’m not sure that if this show premiered in 1986, or 1995, or 2007, that it would have been much different.”
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The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Spoilers await — and if you didn’t watch the closing credits in Sunday’s finale, make sure to do so.
‘Fargo’ Season 4 Finale Recap: Lessons Learned
Nov. 29, 2020
How difficult was it to return after such a long break?
It presented some challenges. It’s helpful that we had nine hours that the cast could watch and everyone could understand, “oh, that’s the show that we were making” — which you don’t usually have. The crew and the cast, if you’re lucky, they might see the first hour while you’re filming. So in many ways, they were much more informed than they’ve ever been. I know that Jason Schwartzman never shaved that mustache because he was so dedicated.
After George Floyd was killed and protests started this summer, there were a lot of conversations in journalism and entertainment about representation: Who gets to tell whose story? As a white writer, were you at all concerned about how this season’s story would land in that climate?
Everyone has their own American story, their own American experience. My American experience starts on one side of my family with a grandmother who fled from Russia in 1895, as the Cossacks were coming. Everyone arrived here at a certain point, and in a different way. What I knew in exploring the immigration experience and the experience of Black Americans is that, to the degree that those are not my story, that I did want and need as many voices and as much understanding as possible to be able to tell those stories: in the writers’ room and among directors and actors and, you know, as much diversity as possible — an actual diversity of experience and opinion and perspective.
Those conversations were so intense that I wondered if you felt like the story carried more weight?
You used the word “conversation,” and that’s what I’m trying to have. And not everyone says the right thing in a conversation. But what was important to me, to the degree that this show has always been a show about America, was to continue to explore America from all points of view. On a very primal level, the reason that I write is to try to understand the world that I’m living in and to recreate the world in a fictional way, and then look at it and go, “Did I get this right?” That becomes the exploration — and the risk, because there’s a risk that you’re getting it wrong. But we can’t operate from a place of fear in terms of asking the hard questions.
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I had a lot of conversations throughout the process with a lot of people that I really respected, who I knew would call me out if I was not being authentic. If it was Chris Rock, writers, directors, or the other actors, if there had been a moment that didn’t feel authentic or felt like it was romanticized, then we would have those conversations. We had an interesting conversation in the writers’ room about Ethelrida [E’myri Crutchfield]. Some of the writers wanted, because she’s a teenage girl, to have her struggle with some moral issues of her own; maybe her aunt offers her a drink, and she takes it because she’s a teenager. There was a fear expressed that I was making her too honorable a character because she was Black. I said, “No, I’m making her that honorable a character because she is the character this year that represents that pure goodness that Marge [Frances McDormand] represented in the movie, or Patrick Wilson represented in Season 2, or Carrie Coon in Season 3: decency.” The struggle that she is going through is a struggle against exterior forces, but she is very comfortable with who she is. She knows that the path that she’s on, one mistake can throw her off it. So we had those conversations and, as in any good writers’ room or any good process, it forces you to justify the choices that you make.
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As I said, we can’t live in fear. Writers have to be willing to take those risks and put ourselves out there because the reward is too great. To be able to put yourself into somebody else’s shoes, and to create that empathy in yourself and in others — that is the definition of good writing, I think.
Image
“Everyone has their own American story, their own American experience,” said Noah Hawley, center, on the “Fargo” set.Credit...Elizabeth Morris/FX
This season is set in a time and place, postwar America, that was superficially quite optimistic: “We can do anything.” But many of the characters are traumatized, which seems to say that America is actually a vicious place.
I came upon this equation when I was writing Season 3, which is that irony without humor is just violence. Think about the stories of Kafka. But also think about the immigrant experience or the experience of Black people in America. We say it’s the land of the free and the home of the brave, and yet those freedoms are not available to everyone equally. What is that if not ironic? But there’s no humor to it. When you tell someone that they have to be an American to be accepted, but then when they become an American, you say they’re not a real American — it has the setup for a joke, but the joke is on you. It’s not funny.
That comedic setup to a tragic payoff feels very much to me like what many of Joel and Ethan’s movies have that is unique, and something that I felt very much would translate from that fundamentally Jewish point of view to the experience of people of color and immigrants in this country.
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It was a pleasant surprise to see so many “Raising Arizona” references this season. As you’re writing, do you create Coen mile markers for yourself as templates?
It’s like the Talmud, right? You go to the big book of questions: “How has this problem been asked and answered before?” I knew that in setting up this epic season with 21 main characters trying to look at the history of crime in America, that there was a lot of information I was going to have to deliver to the audience very quickly. So I tried to think, how had Joel and Ethan done that? My mind went to “Raising Arizona”: The first 11 minutes of that movie is this amazing narrated montage that tells you everything you know about H.I. McDunnough [Nicolas Cage], and Nathan Arizona and their quintuplets, and it brings you all the way up to the ladder on the roof of the car as they’re driving off to go get them a baby. It’s a comic masterpiece unto itself.
So I settled on this history-report format from Ethelrida, which allowed me both to tell the history of crime in Kansas City and also her history, and introduce all the important characters and ideas in about 24 minutes. Once I had “Raising Arizona” in mind, I thought it would be fun if we did a jailbreak with two women instead of John Goodman and William Forsythe, and rather than being H.I.’s buddies from prison, it’s Ethelrida’s aunt and her paramour. That led me into a story that drove those characters through the rest of the season.
What about Mike Milligan [Bokeem Woodbine] made you want to close the season out with him?
He remains a kind of active conundrum, as this iconoclastic character that didn’t seem to belong anywhere. He’s clearly a Black man in America in 1979. But you don’t get the sense that he really fits into that culture. He clearly doesn’t really fit into the white culture he’s part of, or at least he’s not respected there. And he also has this larger perspective on things. He’s a very thoughtful and erudite speaker who played the game — he went out and did what his boss told him; he won the war and he came home and he wanted his reward, and his reward was a tiny office with an electric typewriter. We left him in limbo, and when I thought about what to do this year, he was still there in that limbo. His story wasn’t done.
I didn’t set out to tell the Mike Milligan origin story per se. It was an element of this larger story in the same way that Season 2 was the Molly Solverson [Allison Tolman] origin story. There was a young girl named Molly Solverson, and she was in a few scenes, but it was mostly the story of her father and her mother. It’s the same here. I think you can get from Satchel, whose story we’ve seen in Season 4, to the Mike Milligan that we see in Season 2, but it’s not the sum total of what the story was.
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Jason Schwartzman kept his “Fargo” mustache during the show’s pandemic production shutdown.Credit...Elizabeth Morris/FX
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Art Blakey’s “Moanin’” features prominently in the last two seasons, in two different formats. What about that album resonates with you?
Percussion has always been really attractive to me as a sonic element. When it came time in Season 1 to introduce Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers, I asked [the composer] Jeff Russo, I said: “I don’t want music, I just want a beat. That’s their signature.” And it continued from there. In Season 2, we had a drum line, we brought in a marching band to record; Season 3, there was a lot of New Orleans-style music that was very rhythmic. Jazz is such a rhythmic form of music, so in figuring out what to set this season’s opening 24-minute montage to — which in “Raising Arizona” is “Ode to Joy” for banjo and whistling — I went to “Caravan” as a piece of music that you can hear for 24 minutes and not be tired of it. We can reinvent in different ways, and some of it is just percussion.
With “Moanin’,” in the third season I used a song version in the first hour. This season, when we knew we were doing the jazz club and they asked me what piece of music I wanted to use, it occurred to me to use that same thing but to do it from an instrumental point of view. Again, it’s a kind of rhyme with the previous year, but there’s something about that music — it’s kind of the perfect piece.
Are you definitely done with “Fargo”?
No, I don’t think so. I’ve been saying I’m done for three years and I haven’t been, so it feels obnoxious to say it again. The show has always been about the American experience, and there’s still a lot to say about it. That said, I don’t have a timeline and I don’t even really have an idea. But I find myself compelled to come back to this style of storytelling: to tell a crime story, which is also a kind of character study and philosophical document exploration of our American experience. It’s not something I feel like I ever would have been allowed to do without the Coen Brothers’ model in the beginning, and now I can’t think of why I would do it in any other format. The tone of voice is also unique: It’s that Kafka setup to a tragic punchline, with a happy ending. That feels like a magic trick, if you can do it right.
Do you have much interaction with the Coens about the series, or feedback from them?
I do not. I have not spoken to them in a while. In the first two or three years I would make my way to New York and have a breakfast or a quick conversation from time to time. It’s never creative. It’s never about the show, other than they say, “You’re still making that thing?”
If they have something to volunteer, I’d love to hear it. But at the same time, their tacit neglect is — I still get a warm feeling from it. Because they’ve allowed me to do this. This grand experiment in storytelling that has been so fulfilling and enriching for me.
Noah Hawley Isn’t Done with ‘Fargo’ (Published 2020)
“The show has always been about the American experience, and there’s still a lot to say about it,” said the creator of the FX crime drama, which wrapped up its fourth season on Sunday night.
Noah Hawley Isn’t Done with ‘Fargo’
“The show has always been about the American experience, and there’s still a lot to say about it,” said the creator of the FX crime drama, which wrapped up its fourth season on Sunday night.
- 39
Chris Rock in the fourth season of “Fargo,” which ended Sunday night on FX.Credit...FX
By Finn Cohen
- Nov. 30, 2020
Now he’s managed to land in it again. During a pandemic-induced, five-month interruption in filming, Hawley’s theme for Season 4 of “Fargo” — which ended Sunday evening — again collided with current events. This time, a story set in 1950 featured Chris Rock as the head of a Black crime family in Kansas City locked in a battle with Italians — and both groups being demonized by white police and politicians. There are still plenty of Hawley’s trademark Easter eggs — ample references to the show’s previous seasons and the canon of Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed the 1996 film that inspired the series. It’s difficult not to draw parallels to this summer’s social upheaval, but Hawley doesn’t see these issues as anything new.
“This show emerged into a country that was having an active and urgent conversation about race,” said Hawley last week. “But it’s also a conversation that we have been having for hundreds of years in this country, about this country. So I’m not sure that if this show premiered in 1986, or 1995, or 2007, that it would have been much different.”
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The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Spoilers await — and if you didn’t watch the closing credits in Sunday’s finale, make sure to do so.
‘Fargo’ Season 4 Finale Recap: Lessons Learned
Nov. 29, 2020
How difficult was it to return after such a long break?
It presented some challenges. It’s helpful that we had nine hours that the cast could watch and everyone could understand, “oh, that’s the show that we were making” — which you don’t usually have. The crew and the cast, if you’re lucky, they might see the first hour while you’re filming. So in many ways, they were much more informed than they’ve ever been. I know that Jason Schwartzman never shaved that mustache because he was so dedicated.
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After George Floyd was killed and protests started this summer, there were a lot of conversations in journalism and entertainment about representation: Who gets to tell whose story? As a white writer, were you at all concerned about how this season’s story would land in that climate?
Everyone has their own American story, their own American experience. My American experience starts on one side of my family with a grandmother who fled from Russia in 1895, as the Cossacks were coming. Everyone arrived here at a certain point, and in a different way. What I knew in exploring the immigration experience and the experience of Black Americans is that, to the degree that those are not my story, that I did want and need as many voices and as much understanding as possible to be able to tell those stories: in the writers’ room and among directors and actors and, you know, as much diversity as possible — an actual diversity of experience and opinion and perspective.
Those conversations were so intense that I wondered if you felt like the story carried more weight?
You used the word “conversation,” and that’s what I’m trying to have. And not everyone says the right thing in a conversation. But what was important to me, to the degree that this show has always been a show about America, was to continue to explore America from all points of view. On a very primal level, the reason that I write is to try to understand the world that I’m living in and to recreate the world in a fictional way, and then look at it and go, “Did I get this right?” That becomes the exploration — and the risk, because there’s a risk that you’re getting it wrong. But we can’t operate from a place of fear in terms of asking the hard questions.
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I had a lot of conversations throughout the process with a lot of people that I really respected, who I knew would call me out if I was not being authentic. If it was Chris Rock, writers, directors, or the other actors, if there had been a moment that didn’t feel authentic or felt like it was romanticized, then we would have those conversations. We had an interesting conversation in the writers’ room about Ethelrida [E’myri Crutchfield]. Some of the writers wanted, because she’s a teenage girl, to have her struggle with some moral issues of her own; maybe her aunt offers her a drink, and she takes it because she’s a teenager. There was a fear expressed that I was making her too honorable a character because she was Black. I said, “No, I’m making her that honorable a character because she is the character this year that represents that pure goodness that Marge [Frances McDormand] represented in the movie, or Patrick Wilson represented in Season 2, or Carrie Coon in Season 3: decency.” The struggle that she is going through is a struggle against exterior forces, but she is very comfortable with who she is. She knows that the path that she’s on, one mistake can throw her off it. So we had those conversations and, as in any good writers’ room or any good process, it forces you to justify the choices that you make.
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As I said, we can’t live in fear. Writers have to be willing to take those risks and put ourselves out there because the reward is too great. To be able to put yourself into somebody else’s shoes, and to create that empathy in yourself and in others — that is the definition of good writing, I think.
Image
“Everyone has their own American story, their own American experience,” said Noah Hawley, center, on the “Fargo” set.Credit...Elizabeth Morris/FX
This season is set in a time and place, postwar America, that was superficially quite optimistic: “We can do anything.” But many of the characters are traumatized, which seems to say that America is actually a vicious place.
I came upon this equation when I was writing Season 3, which is that irony without humor is just violence. Think about the stories of Kafka. But also think about the immigrant experience or the experience of Black people in America. We say it’s the land of the free and the home of the brave, and yet those freedoms are not available to everyone equally. What is that if not ironic? But there’s no humor to it. When you tell someone that they have to be an American to be accepted, but then when they become an American, you say they’re not a real American — it has the setup for a joke, but the joke is on you. It’s not funny.
That comedic setup to a tragic payoff feels very much to me like what many of Joel and Ethan’s movies have that is unique, and something that I felt very much would translate from that fundamentally Jewish point of view to the experience of people of color and immigrants in this country.
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It was a pleasant surprise to see so many “Raising Arizona” references this season. As you’re writing, do you create Coen mile markers for yourself as templates?
It’s like the Talmud, right? You go to the big book of questions: “How has this problem been asked and answered before?” I knew that in setting up this epic season with 21 main characters trying to look at the history of crime in America, that there was a lot of information I was going to have to deliver to the audience very quickly. So I tried to think, how had Joel and Ethan done that? My mind went to “Raising Arizona”: The first 11 minutes of that movie is this amazing narrated montage that tells you everything you know about H.I. McDunnough [Nicolas Cage], and Nathan Arizona and their quintuplets, and it brings you all the way up to the ladder on the roof of the car as they’re driving off to go get them a baby. It’s a comic masterpiece unto itself.
So I settled on this history-report format from Ethelrida, which allowed me both to tell the history of crime in Kansas City and also her history, and introduce all the important characters and ideas in about 24 minutes. Once I had “Raising Arizona” in mind, I thought it would be fun if we did a jailbreak with two women instead of John Goodman and William Forsythe, and rather than being H.I.’s buddies from prison, it’s Ethelrida’s aunt and her paramour. That led me into a story that drove those characters through the rest of the season.
What about Mike Milligan [Bokeem Woodbine] made you want to close the season out with him?
He remains a kind of active conundrum, as this iconoclastic character that didn’t seem to belong anywhere. He’s clearly a Black man in America in 1979. But you don’t get the sense that he really fits into that culture. He clearly doesn’t really fit into the white culture he’s part of, or at least he’s not respected there. And he also has this larger perspective on things. He’s a very thoughtful and erudite speaker who played the game — he went out and did what his boss told him; he won the war and he came home and he wanted his reward, and his reward was a tiny office with an electric typewriter. We left him in limbo, and when I thought about what to do this year, he was still there in that limbo. His story wasn’t done.
I didn’t set out to tell the Mike Milligan origin story per se. It was an element of this larger story in the same way that Season 2 was the Molly Solverson [Allison Tolman] origin story. There was a young girl named Molly Solverson, and she was in a few scenes, but it was mostly the story of her father and her mother. It’s the same here. I think you can get from Satchel, whose story we’ve seen in Season 4, to the Mike Milligan that we see in Season 2, but it’s not the sum total of what the story was.
Image
Jason Schwartzman kept his “Fargo” mustache during the show’s pandemic production shutdown.Credit...Elizabeth Morris/FX
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Art Blakey’s “Moanin’” features prominently in the last two seasons, in two different formats. What about that album resonates with you?
Percussion has always been really attractive to me as a sonic element. When it came time in Season 1 to introduce Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers, I asked [the composer] Jeff Russo, I said: “I don’t want music, I just want a beat. That’s their signature.” And it continued from there. In Season 2, we had a drum line, we brought in a marching band to record; Season 3, there was a lot of New Orleans-style music that was very rhythmic. Jazz is such a rhythmic form of music, so in figuring out what to set this season’s opening 24-minute montage to — which in “Raising Arizona” is “Ode to Joy” for banjo and whistling — I went to “Caravan” as a piece of music that you can hear for 24 minutes and not be tired of it. We can reinvent in different ways, and some of it is just percussion.
With “Moanin’,” in the third season I used a song version in the first hour. This season, when we knew we were doing the jazz club and they asked me what piece of music I wanted to use, it occurred to me to use that same thing but to do it from an instrumental point of view. Again, it’s a kind of rhyme with the previous year, but there’s something about that music — it’s kind of the perfect piece.
Are you definitely done with “Fargo”?
No, I don’t think so. I’ve been saying I’m done for three years and I haven’t been, so it feels obnoxious to say it again. The show has always been about the American experience, and there’s still a lot to say about it. That said, I don’t have a timeline and I don’t even really have an idea. But I find myself compelled to come back to this style of storytelling: to tell a crime story, which is also a kind of character study and philosophical document exploration of our American experience. It’s not something I feel like I ever would have been allowed to do without the Coen Brothers’ model in the beginning, and now I can’t think of why I would do it in any other format. The tone of voice is also unique: It’s that Kafka setup to a tragic punchline, with a happy ending. That feels like a magic trick, if you can do it right.
Do you have much interaction with the Coens about the series, or feedback from them?
I do not. I have not spoken to them in a while. In the first two or three years I would make my way to New York and have a breakfast or a quick conversation from time to time. It’s never creative. It’s never about the show, other than they say, “You’re still making that thing?”
If they have something to volunteer, I’d love to hear it. But at the same time, their tacit neglect is — I still get a warm feeling from it. Because they’ve allowed me to do this. This grand experiment in storytelling that has been so fulfilling and enriching for me.
Fargo showrunner breaks down that season 4 finale
Noah Hawley discusses answers lingering questions about season 4, and reveals that he has an idea for season 5.
By James Hibberd
November 30, 2020 at 07:31 PM EST
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CREDIT: FX
Fargo
TYPE
Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley breaks down the season finale of the most ambitious chapter yet in his History of True Crime in the Mid West: his sprawling season 4 Kansas City crime epic that pitted two mob families, led by Loy Cannon (Chris Rock) and Josto Fadda (Jason Schwartzman), against each other. The season had the usual Fargo-ian elements of murder, mayhem, and pitch-black comedy, but also with the added and timely resonance of looking at race relations in America. Below, Hawley takes some of our lingering questions about the season in general and Sunday's finale in particular (spoilers ahead!).
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So what made Zelmare (Karen Aldridge) killing Loy the right move, creatively speaking?
NOAH HAWLEY: It's a very loaded question, right? We had a lot of conversations in the writers' room about it. Because he's a Black man in 1950, it didn't feel realistic that he was gonna win. And as the head of a criminal organization, his days were numbered no matter what. He's either gonna end up dead or behind bars. And we certainly didn't want to put him behind bars and send that message. And so what felt right was an individual betrayal catching up to him. We take him from defeat to victory and back to defeat again when he's told that half his business was being taken away from him, then he goes home and he looks in the window and he sees his family and his son he thought was dead. And he thinks, "Well, I always thought I needed more power to make us safe, but we've never been safer than we are right now." So maybe this is the happy ending? And then the knife comes out. And what he sees is not the state coming to arrest him or an enemy, but somebody he betrayed who deserves justice. And because hopefully we all love Swanee and Zelmare and it feels like, "Okay, I can live with that. I don't like that it happened, but it feels like justice to me."
This is a random reference but it, weirdly enough, reminded me of Carlito's Way — the overlooked younger gangster who was snubbed and you forgot about returns when you least expect it to take out the protagonist right as he thinks he's achieved his goal.
And the first time I saw No Country for Old Men, and Josh Brolin goes, "I'm going to make you my special project," and you think, "Okay, it's on," but then 10 minutes later Brolin is dead in a motel room, killed by this Mexican cartel. It's perfectly real, but I didn't see it coming.
The finale was notably a bit of a shorter episode than all the other episodes. I know you had that break in production due to the pandemic. So I guess my first question was whether you had to cut anything you had hoped to include?
It was a 30-page script, and for the international release we actually had to try to lengthen it. That that was just how much story was left, and it didn't feel like it made sense to move some things from [episodes] 9 and 10. I just went ahead knowing that most people live in a streaming world and it doesn't matter if it's a 30-minute episode or a 65-minute episode.
What do you want to say about the Ghost Slaver and why the ghost would protect Ethelrida (E'myri Crutchfield) from Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley) in that moment?
I think he's protecting his "property," if you know what I mean. Like, "No, nobody gets to mess with her except me." It's like the devil is not willing to share. I also thought it was kind of funny that by far the most demonic character in the show, this sociopath, has got nothing on the actual devil, you know?
Speaking of Oraetta, she kept reminding me of two iconic characters that I wondered if either was an inspiration at all. Stephen King's Annie Wilkes and this other — just the way she walked and talked and carried herself — it reminded me a bit of Miss Gulch from The Wizard of Oz, the pre-tornado Wicked Witch of the West, just in case that was another Oz inspiration this season.
I did not think about King's character at all in the creation of Oraetta. When you say The Wizard of Oz out loud, considering our other homage, I would like to say that that's in there — because it would make me look smart — but if that's in there, it's only because Jessie put it in there, it wasn't a note I gave her.
Oraetta's line while standing in front of her grave along with Josto Fadda, "Can you shoot him first so I can watch?" is perhaps one of my favorite lines you've written. It's just so bonkers, yet perfectly in character.
And Jason, who is told in the first act, "You say 'what' a lot," gets one last "What?" right before he's killed. If ever Josto thought that he was anything more than just a pawn in this whole story, he's proven otherwise. He doesn't even have the dignity of being prepared for his death.
Going back in time a bit, I loved the episode "East/West" and wondered if you talk about the decision to do the hour in black-and-white, aside from the obvious Oz homage.
There was a point early on where I told FX, "The good news is I've decided not to film the entire season in black-and-white," so you should feel lucky we're just doing this one hour. The Wizard of Oz was always built into the season on some level, and that includes cinematically in that hour of going from black-and-white to color. If you're going to do that, you have to start with black-and-white. And obviously, the twister comes in just a few minutes before the end of the episode.
And with the black-and-whites, I do think in some ways they were kind of driving into the past as well. You have all the historical markers throughout the episode and the sense this history of America and the history of these places and this boarding house and these people who seemed like almost like they were still living in the '20s or the '30s. So the black-and-white also felt like it played into that. So that was the origin of it; it wasn't just an affectation of saying, "Well, let's just try this."
With Odis (Jack Huston) and all his tics: Whenever I saw him, because of having watched on film sets how many times and different ways each scene is shot, I just kept thinking how utterly exhausting it must have been, going through those tics, hundreds of times, and there must have been days when that was exhausting for all involved, having to film that.
Because he has all these tics and because he calls Josto "boss," Jack thought [when the character is introduced in the season's second episode, which Hawley directed] I wanted him to have a kind of obsequiousness, a toadyism about him. And I said, "No, think about how the smallest dogs are always the most anxious, but they're also the most aggressive, right? He needs to be hostile, and he's hostile because his anxiety is spiking." I was glad that I got to work with Jack in those first couple of hours to really dial in where that character lived.
A lot of characters in the Coen Brothers universe have had kind of random fates and accidents, but Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito) might have been the most out-of-nowhere one.
In some way, that's what gave it its power. First, we had just given Odis this kind of epic depth in which, after a lifetime of torment from his tics, it suddenly goes away and he has this moment of peace when he realizes it's all ending. Then you have Gaetano starting to work back to the car and he trips — and we've seen him trip at least twice in the season before — and falls and shoots himself accidentally. It's tragic because he and Josto finally managed to repair their wounds. I wanted it like the death of the state trooper in Fargo: It's shocking because it happens so quickly and it's gory, it's graphic, and seems a bit over-the-top, so it becomes what violence actually is, which is overwhelming in the moment.
There's the reveal that Loy's son Michael (Rodney L. Jones III) grows up to be season 2 fan-favorite Mike Milligan. How much did connecting those dots influence the season?
When you think back on season 2, you don't necessarily think first, "Oh, it's the Molly Solverson origin story." It's the same way this is the Mike Milligan origin story that is tangentially about Mike Milligan on some level, but it's not by any means the season's defining feature.
And finally, any thoughts on a Fargo season 5? Any new lightbulbs having gone off since the last time we spoke?
I think so. I don't know where this thing goes or where it ends. I certainly don't want to overstay my welcome. I'm sure there are some people who think that four seasons are too many. I have the germination of an idea, but there's a lot of work that has to be done to make sure it's worthy. Fargo has never really been a story where "this happens, then this happens, then this happens." There's a lot more that goes into it, and the bar is high, and I certainly have no desire to be the last guy at the dance going, "Oh, it's still good."
Do you have a time period, or too early to say?
It feels more contemporary. It'll be set somewhere in the recent past. But I don't know where it would come in terms of writing and producing it. I'm working right now to finish a long-overdue book. And then we'll see what comes next.
Noah Hawley discusses answers lingering questions about season 4, and reveals that he has an idea for season 5.
By James Hibberd
November 30, 2020 at 07:31 PM EST
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CREDIT: FX
Fargo
TYPE
- TV Show
- FX
Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley breaks down the season finale of the most ambitious chapter yet in his History of True Crime in the Mid West: his sprawling season 4 Kansas City crime epic that pitted two mob families, led by Loy Cannon (Chris Rock) and Josto Fadda (Jason Schwartzman), against each other. The season had the usual Fargo-ian elements of murder, mayhem, and pitch-black comedy, but also with the added and timely resonance of looking at race relations in America. Below, Hawley takes some of our lingering questions about the season in general and Sunday's finale in particular (spoilers ahead!).
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So what made Zelmare (Karen Aldridge) killing Loy the right move, creatively speaking?
NOAH HAWLEY: It's a very loaded question, right? We had a lot of conversations in the writers' room about it. Because he's a Black man in 1950, it didn't feel realistic that he was gonna win. And as the head of a criminal organization, his days were numbered no matter what. He's either gonna end up dead or behind bars. And we certainly didn't want to put him behind bars and send that message. And so what felt right was an individual betrayal catching up to him. We take him from defeat to victory and back to defeat again when he's told that half his business was being taken away from him, then he goes home and he looks in the window and he sees his family and his son he thought was dead. And he thinks, "Well, I always thought I needed more power to make us safe, but we've never been safer than we are right now." So maybe this is the happy ending? And then the knife comes out. And what he sees is not the state coming to arrest him or an enemy, but somebody he betrayed who deserves justice. And because hopefully we all love Swanee and Zelmare and it feels like, "Okay, I can live with that. I don't like that it happened, but it feels like justice to me."
This is a random reference but it, weirdly enough, reminded me of Carlito's Way — the overlooked younger gangster who was snubbed and you forgot about returns when you least expect it to take out the protagonist right as he thinks he's achieved his goal.
And the first time I saw No Country for Old Men, and Josh Brolin goes, "I'm going to make you my special project," and you think, "Okay, it's on," but then 10 minutes later Brolin is dead in a motel room, killed by this Mexican cartel. It's perfectly real, but I didn't see it coming.
The finale was notably a bit of a shorter episode than all the other episodes. I know you had that break in production due to the pandemic. So I guess my first question was whether you had to cut anything you had hoped to include?
It was a 30-page script, and for the international release we actually had to try to lengthen it. That that was just how much story was left, and it didn't feel like it made sense to move some things from [episodes] 9 and 10. I just went ahead knowing that most people live in a streaming world and it doesn't matter if it's a 30-minute episode or a 65-minute episode.
What do you want to say about the Ghost Slaver and why the ghost would protect Ethelrida (E'myri Crutchfield) from Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley) in that moment?
I think he's protecting his "property," if you know what I mean. Like, "No, nobody gets to mess with her except me." It's like the devil is not willing to share. I also thought it was kind of funny that by far the most demonic character in the show, this sociopath, has got nothing on the actual devil, you know?
Speaking of Oraetta, she kept reminding me of two iconic characters that I wondered if either was an inspiration at all. Stephen King's Annie Wilkes and this other — just the way she walked and talked and carried herself — it reminded me a bit of Miss Gulch from The Wizard of Oz, the pre-tornado Wicked Witch of the West, just in case that was another Oz inspiration this season.
I did not think about King's character at all in the creation of Oraetta. When you say The Wizard of Oz out loud, considering our other homage, I would like to say that that's in there — because it would make me look smart — but if that's in there, it's only because Jessie put it in there, it wasn't a note I gave her.
Oraetta's line while standing in front of her grave along with Josto Fadda, "Can you shoot him first so I can watch?" is perhaps one of my favorite lines you've written. It's just so bonkers, yet perfectly in character.
And Jason, who is told in the first act, "You say 'what' a lot," gets one last "What?" right before he's killed. If ever Josto thought that he was anything more than just a pawn in this whole story, he's proven otherwise. He doesn't even have the dignity of being prepared for his death.
Going back in time a bit, I loved the episode "East/West" and wondered if you talk about the decision to do the hour in black-and-white, aside from the obvious Oz homage.
There was a point early on where I told FX, "The good news is I've decided not to film the entire season in black-and-white," so you should feel lucky we're just doing this one hour. The Wizard of Oz was always built into the season on some level, and that includes cinematically in that hour of going from black-and-white to color. If you're going to do that, you have to start with black-and-white. And obviously, the twister comes in just a few minutes before the end of the episode.
And with the black-and-whites, I do think in some ways they were kind of driving into the past as well. You have all the historical markers throughout the episode and the sense this history of America and the history of these places and this boarding house and these people who seemed like almost like they were still living in the '20s or the '30s. So the black-and-white also felt like it played into that. So that was the origin of it; it wasn't just an affectation of saying, "Well, let's just try this."
With Odis (Jack Huston) and all his tics: Whenever I saw him, because of having watched on film sets how many times and different ways each scene is shot, I just kept thinking how utterly exhausting it must have been, going through those tics, hundreds of times, and there must have been days when that was exhausting for all involved, having to film that.
Because he has all these tics and because he calls Josto "boss," Jack thought [when the character is introduced in the season's second episode, which Hawley directed] I wanted him to have a kind of obsequiousness, a toadyism about him. And I said, "No, think about how the smallest dogs are always the most anxious, but they're also the most aggressive, right? He needs to be hostile, and he's hostile because his anxiety is spiking." I was glad that I got to work with Jack in those first couple of hours to really dial in where that character lived.
A lot of characters in the Coen Brothers universe have had kind of random fates and accidents, but Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito) might have been the most out-of-nowhere one.
In some way, that's what gave it its power. First, we had just given Odis this kind of epic depth in which, after a lifetime of torment from his tics, it suddenly goes away and he has this moment of peace when he realizes it's all ending. Then you have Gaetano starting to work back to the car and he trips — and we've seen him trip at least twice in the season before — and falls and shoots himself accidentally. It's tragic because he and Josto finally managed to repair their wounds. I wanted it like the death of the state trooper in Fargo: It's shocking because it happens so quickly and it's gory, it's graphic, and seems a bit over-the-top, so it becomes what violence actually is, which is overwhelming in the moment.
There's the reveal that Loy's son Michael (Rodney L. Jones III) grows up to be season 2 fan-favorite Mike Milligan. How much did connecting those dots influence the season?
When you think back on season 2, you don't necessarily think first, "Oh, it's the Molly Solverson origin story." It's the same way this is the Mike Milligan origin story that is tangentially about Mike Milligan on some level, but it's not by any means the season's defining feature.
And finally, any thoughts on a Fargo season 5? Any new lightbulbs having gone off since the last time we spoke?
I think so. I don't know where this thing goes or where it ends. I certainly don't want to overstay my welcome. I'm sure there are some people who think that four seasons are too many. I have the germination of an idea, but there's a lot of work that has to be done to make sure it's worthy. Fargo has never really been a story where "this happens, then this happens, then this happens." There's a lot more that goes into it, and the bar is high, and I certainly have no desire to be the last guy at the dance going, "Oh, it's still good."
Do you have a time period, or too early to say?
It feels more contemporary. It'll be set somewhere in the recent past. But I don't know where it would come in terms of writing and producing it. I'm working right now to finish a long-overdue book. And then we'll see what comes next.
The Italians seemed like cornballs. The crazy nurse was just annoying. Chris Rock just didn't do the bad guy thing like Bokeem or Billy Bob did it. Could have just made the funeral home couple black.
@playahaitian
Thanks for the links. We’re gonna check out the season finale and our other series this evening. Got ‘em all lined up commercial-free on the flashdrive!
Thanks for the links. We’re gonna check out the season finale and our other series this evening. Got ‘em all lined up commercial-free on the flashdrive!
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