4. The Window Ledge – Blood Simple (1984)
There are very few debut films as impressive as the Coens’ first feature. Blood Simple is like a pitbull; angry, bursting with energy and fuelled by unquenchable thirst – it shows just how good these guys are, and just how darn risky too by offering such a violent and unorthodox tale to kick-start their filmmaking campaign.
M. Emmett Walsh’s shady Texan detective – who is on the prowl for an adulterous couple – is certainly good at his job. His thought processes are absurdly smart and often get results, even if they aren’t always legal. However being smarter than the rest of the bunch doesn’t make you the luckiest which he comes to find out as the film enters its climatic act when he gets his hand stuck on a window ledge – with a knife shoved through it.
The jet-black tone of the Coens’ crime saga means laughs come with a bitter sting and buckets of gloop often take precedence, but moments like these are littered throughout future works; stunning the spectator with a sudden and unexpected twist. For two filmmakers to show as much diversity and genre maturity such as this in their very first film is why they are ranked amongst the greatest living auteurs today.
