Raising Arizona (available October 1)
The wit [of Raising Arizona] is surprisingly uneducated as well as slapstick-y, which only offers to underline the supremacy of the clever alecks behind the cam. Yet it’s also undeniably amusing, choked with lines and expressions (“My FI-antz left me,” “way-homer,” “Boy, you’ve got a panty on your head”) that are spewed in daily life virtually as commonly as those in The Simpsons … or at the very least Fletch. In the number of a bounty hunter looking for an abducted infant, it’s likewise an early display of the surrealism that would flower in a more advanced method later Coen films like Barton Fink and The Huge Lebowski.More than anything,
however, Raising Arizona is a marvel of narrative power, especially coming off the statelier Blood Simple. Having the debts show up after the very first reel mores than– an excellent 20 minutes right into the movie– might seem as show-offy as the wiper blades in Blood Simple, but it was truly the initial pause in the activity. Via voiceover, flashbacks, as well as wild digressions, the setup of the movie is so absurdly long-winded and also overstuffed that the credit ratings are a benefit in themselves, a moment where the audience can catch its breath and laugh over how much motion picture has actually been pressed right into so little a duration. [Scott Tobias]
Check out the remainder of our Primer on the films of Joel and Ethan Coen