2. The Wood Chipper – Fargo (1996)
Yes it’s gratuitous and the picture’s snow-soaked setting only makes the blood seem bolder, but scenes like this are why the Coens are so renowned. The brilliant, effortless and utterly sublime measurements used in the duo’s crime comedy means they are allowed to offer scenes like this; nothing is placed for ‘the sake of it’ for lack of a better phrase.
The characters are constantly built and developed which means they all need a pay-off, and none is more satisfying than Buscemi’s “funny lookin'” crook being chewed up and pulped into a gore-soaked mess by a wood chipper as Frances McDormand’s keen-thinking sheriff looks and shoots on. The brothers have made a career out of defying convention and painting with the broadest strokes, and they aren’t many broader than this one. Probably required a mighty big brush for all that blood too…
