Blood Simple opens much like No Country for Old Men, with drawling narration set against static shots of the sparse Texas landscape. In Old Men, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is stoic yet world-weary, confused by a new violence that defies reason. In Blood Simple, private detective Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh), a very different kind of investigator, seems unfazed by whatever new depravity he may encounter. “What I know about is Texas,” Visser says, “and down here, you’re on your own.”
This hard-boiled line establishes the nasty sensibility of the Coen brothers’ debut, which draws from classic noir, namely Dashiell Hammett’s novel Red Harvest, which popularised the term ‘blood simple’, a pithy phrase referring to a twitching, primitive kind of brutality brought on by sustained violence, such as in war, or, in Simple’s case, a remorseless series of deceit, double-crossing and murder.
Loren Visser is the lever of the Coens’ tight, mechanical script. Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), a sketchy bar owner, hires Visser to follow his wife Abby (Frances McDormand), whom Marty suspects of cheating. Visser photographs her in bed with Ray (John Getz), a barman at Marty’s dive. Marty asks Visser if he kills, and Visser says yes.
What follows is trap after trap of deceit, loose ends and dramatic irony. Blood Simple is a classic noir puzzle straight out of James M. Cain and Billy Wilder, in which reversals of fortune and dark, scheming logic inch towards violence like an amoral flowchart.
Blood Simple does not have the ensemble cast of No Country for Old Men (in which Javier Bardem still manages to shine). Getz and Hedaya are a little too mannered and deliberate in their laconic detachment and mumbling bitterness, respectively. McDormand is more natural, but the film belongs to Walsh. His performance is physical. Visser sinks into his chair like he’s just finished a huge meal, slurring his words with sweaty corpulence. He’s not stupid, though. He’s a smug, canny bastard who loves his trade, which goes far beyond snooping and telephoto lenses.
