Setting a highly-nuanced, darkly comedic thriller like Fargo in the ice-covered plains of Minnesota only elevates the mystique of characters like Midwestern housewife Dot Lyon (Juno Temple) as she pits her wits against the town’s sheriff/ rancher/ preacher Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm), among others, to hide her sordid past.
Inspired by the eponymous film by the Coen brothers in 1994, the TV series is now in its fifth season. Making full use of its anthology format, characters come and go (some more than once), as this slow-burning TV show walks the fine narrative line between the mundane and murder. Executive producers Kim Todd & Steve Stark spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about creating and sustaining a television show which links back to a small town called Fargo, North Dakota.
A defining feature of Fargo, is its delicate tone which blends comedy and tragedy – Steve Stark coins the term “Cragedy” for it. Occasionally, it ventures into melodrama. “The TV series is certainly based on the tone and the vibe of what the Coen brothers have created. Showrunner Noah Hawley has been able to extrapolate that,” he continues.
Steve Stark
The television show was a considered departure from the film because the creators never wanted to repeat anything. “We never did Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) ten years later,” states Stark. “We did a story that is about just a tone and a world of these two great things colliding. Walking that Fargo tone line is something that we have learned to do and to appreciate when we step off it.”
Anthology Format
Fargo, the television show, could have become either a standard TV series format comprising largely of self-contained stories in each episode, or a serialized format with storylines spanning several episodes. Or a hybrid of both formats. Instead, the creative team settled on an anthology format to keep each season fresh and exciting.
Kim Todd comments on the challenges of creating anthology format TV series. “It makes a lot more work because you have to reinvent a whole new world every time. You have to cast a whole new cast and hold to everything before. But it’s also incredibly invigorating for us, and also for the audience, that it’s a new adventure each season,” she asserts.
“Format was a big conversation we had when we started the show. We originally envisioned this story and I insisted we have options on Colin Hanks (who plays Gus Grimly) and Allison Tolman (who plays Molly Solverson) because we’re going to have to bring those those two stars of the show back,” declares Stark.
There was some consternation about revisiting these villains. Noah Hawley didn’t want to do any more stories about them. Steve Stark eventually agreed with Hawley “because it gives a finality to these characters.” This creative decision wasn’t absolute. The occasional revisiting of certain characters serves only to infuse more details about the totality of the series.
The re-emergence of certain characters like Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson) makes this subtle point. “In Season one we met Lou as a retired cop who had some stories to tell about how he is Molly’s dad. In Season two we meet young Lou and we live his main story the time he ran into evil, ‘as the bodies continue to pile up,’” elaborates Todd.
Genre
Fargo is many things including intriguing, captivating, subtle, understated, deadpan, and even rip-roaringly hilarious. It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact genre. Steve Stark coins the term “cragedy” (crack tragedy) as a catchall term for the series.
The show also prides itself on its darkly comedic elements. “It’s tricky because so much of it can be done on the page, but if it’s not delivered by the actor right, it may not work,” advises Stark.
Many of these issues are ironed out during the tonal pass of each script. “Noah takes great care to explain what he means, what he sees, and what he intends. He’s giving us the subtext, he’s giving us the themes that are big for him, and how he’s weaving them through a particular episode, how he means them to be visible or just be looking under the surface. He knows that they can’t all be on the page and he gives us more than is on the page in the room,” says Todd.
Kim Todd
“It’s a collision of tones and character… of fun and tragedy,” exclaims Stark. “We’ll have scenes that are outright farcical fun. But then we have Episode seven which is the incredibly immersive puppet episode. It’s a very different pace because it’s about something else. It’s telling a different story from a different character’s point of view.”
Fargo moseys along at a slow Midwestern pace. The creative team focused on a specific filming style of close wide shots – letting two symmetrically-placed characters speak unencumbered and naturalistically, rather than using rapid cuts to turbo charge the story. “Noah Hawley has such respect for both the language the words the story. Noah’s influence was to give it that very considered modulation that you’re never going to be afraid to let the camera sit there and let the actors act and the words land. On the other hand, he’s also not afraid to use a drone shot that’s giving us the scope of the world,” mentions Todd.
This gentle, unobtrusive pacing highlights the “kitchen sink” mundane life aspect of Fargo.
Themes
“Noah Hawley is exploring what happens when normal, decent people are confronted by evil. Some succumb and become more evil than the evil itself, such as Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman),” says Todd. “Juno temple’s character Dot has to fight her way out of it.”
Comments Stark, “I would just add that it’s really always about power and the corruption of power and how greed and ego can raise you to the top and also have you fall down. Fargo is a lot about people protecting power and those people trying to survive in that environment. Dot is in the middle of two of the greatest forces including a very challenging mother-law, Lorraine (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and a very challenging husband, Wayne (David Rysdahl). I think the thing that’s in almost every season is the innocent surviving power.”
The icy Minnesota plains sets a certain tone of “Minnesota Nice” where everyone’s hiding something. “The snow depicts this sort of bleakness that follows the qualities of the heroes that emerge,” says Stark. “That’s really compelling to me. It’s this dark landscape that ultimately positivity and negativity come from. Who’s gonna win?” Snow is also a metaphor. It blankets the secrets beneath it and a snow storm blinds people from the truth.
Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Juno Temple). Phot by Frank W Ockenfels III /FX
“There’s this sense of decency in the upper Midwest that you don’t say something bad about your neighbor even if your neighbor is you cutting off your wife’s head. But when evil comes to town, that decency tends to either cover it up or confront it,” explains Todd.
Kim Todd elaborates on Noah Hawley’s complex relationship with the Midwest and the American Dream. During Season 2 of Fargo, the Regan campaign came to town. “Noah has an opportunity to have his characters respond to that and Lou Solverson meets Ronald Reagan in the men’s room and they have a conversation. Noah wants to put his people through that filter and find out what they do, what they’re capable of, and what they’re made of,” she states.
Maintaining Fargo’s Longevity
Steve Stark and Kim Todd aren’t overly fixated on how many seasons Fargo runs. “I think we have to always have an element of surprise, keeping characters on their toes and making them think or feel something. That doesn’t mean just emotionally. Make them think differently, act differently, and process things differently, ” ponders Steve.
“I think that for me as a viewer, if I finish watching an episode and I go to bed and I lie there thinking about it, it’s a good show. It’s in my head and it’s gone deeply into me. It’s connected with my own experience and my own feelings about the world or my own perceptions in ways that shine a light that make me think about things differently, a show can be successful,” muses Kim.
