Raising Arizona is a 1987 Coen Brothers comedy film starring Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, William Forsythe, John Goodman, Frances McDormand and Randall "Tex" Cobb. Not a blockbuster at the time of its release, it has since achieved the status of a cult film. Typical Coen Brothers fare, the movie is replete with symbolism, visual gags, yodeling folk music, unconventional characters, flamboyant camera work, pathos and idiosyncratic dialogue. The movie ranked number 31 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Laughs and number 45 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies."
Plot
Arizona petty criminal Herbert "H.I." McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) (known as "Hi") and policewoman Edwina (Holly Hunter) (known as "Ed") meet after she takes the mugshots of the recidivist Hi during his many trips through her station. Learning that Ed's fiancé has left her, he proposes to her after his latest release from prison and the two get married. They move into a desert mobile home, and Hi gets a job in a machine shop. Ed discovers that she is infertile and the couple tries to adopt, but none of the agencies will accept them because of Hi's criminal record. The couple learns of the "Arizona Quints," sons of locally-famous furniture magnate Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson); Hi and Ed kidnap one of the five babies, whom they believe to be Nathan Junior.
Hi and Ed return home and are soon visited by Hi's old prison buddies, Gale and Evelle Snopes (John Goodman, William Forsythe), who have just broken out under the premise that they have released themselves on their own recognizance. Under the brothers' influence, Hi is tempted to revert to his felonious ways, believing that he and Ed are not well suited for each other. Their problems are only worsened when Hi's supervisor, Glen (Sam McMurray), proposes wife swapping and Hi assaults him. That night, Hi decides to steal a package of diapers for the baby and goes on the run from the entire local neighborhood, the police, the gun-toting store cashier, and a pack of dogs. Ed finally relents and picks him up, leading to a tense ride home.
At the McDunnough residence the next day, Glen stops by to officially fire Hi and reveals that he has deduced "Junior's" true identity. He gives Hi an ultimatum: give up the baby to be raised by Glen and his child-obsessed wife, or Glen will turn them in for the reward. Gale and Evelle overhear this conversation and immediately decide to betray Hi and take Junior for themselves. Gale and Hi's ensuing fight wrecks the mobile home's interior before Hi is subdued and tied up. Gale and Evelle leave, going through with their plan to rob a "hayseed" bank, only now with Junior in tow. When Ed comes home, she finds the battered and bound Hi and learns that the baby is gone. Despite their disintegrating relationship, Ed and Hi arm themselves and set out to retrieve their child together. En route, Ed suggests that they should end their marriage after recovering the boy.
At the same time, Nathan Arizona Sr. is approached by the menacing and heavily-armed biker/bounty hunter Leonard Smalls (Randall "Tex" Cobb) who offers to find the child for twice the publicly posted reward. Even though Nathan Sr. considers police efforts to locate his son totally inadequate, he refuses to partake of Smalls' services. Smalls decides to recover the child anyway to sell on the black market, which is exactly what happened to him as a baby. He begins tracking Gale and Evelle, using the scent of the brothers' hair pomade. Breaking into the deserted McDunnough mobile home, he finds a newspaper clipping concerning the targeted bank.
Gale and Evelle successfully rob the bank but forget to make sure Junior is in the car before getting away. Their miseries are compounded when one of the bank's anti-theft dye canisters explodes in their loot sack, disabling the car and incapacitating them. Back at the bank, Smalls arrives for Junior just ahead of Ed and Hi, mounting Junior's car seat on the front of his bike. As he turns around to fight the couple, Ed grabs the baby and flees; Hi is able to fend Smalls off for a short time, but then the biker begins to methodically brutalize him. After throwing Hi to the ground and drawing his matched pair of shotguns to finish the job, Hi holds up his hand to reveal that he has pulled the pin from one of the hand grenades on Smalls' vest. Smalls struggles to drop his guns and get rid of the grenade, but is blown to pieces.
Hi and Ed wearily sneak Nathan Jr. back into his home and are confronted by Nathan Sr. while putting him back in his crib. After Nathan Sr. learns why they took his son, he is uncharacteristically understanding of their predicament, and counsels the young couple. When they say that they are breaking up, he advises them to not act rashly; perhaps someday, medical science will catch up with them, just as it did ("with a vengeance") for him and his own wife. Hi and Ed go to sleep in the same bed, and Hi dreams: Gale and Evelle elect to return to prison; Glen gets his due from a Polish-American police officer after telling one Polack joke too many; and Nathan Jr. gets a football for Christmas, from someone other than his family, and later becomes a football star. The dream suggests that Hi and Ed will, in fact, grow old together, enjoying holiday visits from a horde of well-adjusted children and grandchildren.
Cast
Production
Conception
The Coen Brothers started working on Raising Arizona with the idea to make it as different as possible from their previous film Blood Simple by having it be far more optimistic and upbeat.[1][2] The starting point of scriptwriting came from the idea of the character of Hi's who has the desire to live a regular life as well as having the desire to live outside the boundaries of the law.[3] To create their character's dialect, Joel and Ethan took a hybrid of local dialect and what the assumed reading material of the characters, namely magazines and The Bible.[4] The script took three and a half months to write.[5]
The film was influenced by director Preston Surges and writers such as William Faulkner and the southern literature of Flannery O'Conner.[6][7][8] Joel and Ethan showed their completed script to Circle Films who was their American distributor for Blood Simple. Circle Films liked the script and agreed to finance the film.[9][10] The Coens came to set with a complete script and story board.[11] With the low budget of just a little more then five million dollars, Joel Coen noted that "to obtain maximum from that money, the movie has to be meticulously prepared".[12]
Cast
Opposed to Blood Simple, the characters of Raising Arizona were written to be very sympathetic.[13] The Coens wrote the part of Ed for Holly Hunter.[11] Several babies had to be fired on set due to them taking their first steps rather than crawling. One mother put their baby's shoes on backwards to keep the baby crawling rather than walking.[14] The character of Leonard Smalls was created when the Coen Brothers tried to envision an "evil character" not from their imagination, but what one that the character Hi would have thought up.[4] Randall "Tex" Cobb gave the Coens difficulty with on set, with Joel noting that "he's less an actor then a force of nature...I don't know if I'd rush headlong into employing him for a future film."[4]
Filming
Raising Arizona was shot in thirteen weeks.[2] Relationship between actor Nicolas Cage and the Coens was respectful but turbulent. Cage arrived on set offering suggestions to the Coen Brothers through various points in the film which the Coens ignored.[14] Cage said that "Joel and Ethan have a very strong vision and I've learned how difficult it is to accept another artist's vision. They have an autocratic nature."[15]
Many crew members who had worked with Joel and Ethan on Blood Simple returned for Raising Arizona, including cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, co-producer Mark Silverman, production designer Jane Musky, associate producer and assistant director Deborah Reinisch, and film composer Carter Burwell.[9][16]
Influences and references
When H.I. wakes up after his nightmare, in which a bunny gets blown up by a grenade, he says the line "Sometimes it's a hard world for small things". This is a reference to The Night of the Hunter, where Rachel Cooper proclaims that "It's a hard world for little things" after seeing a hawk catching a bunny.
After Evelle and Gale break out of prison, they clean up in a gas station restroom where "P.O.E." and "O.P.E." are spraypainted on the walls, a reference to the film Dr. Strangelove, where it stood for both "Peace on Earth" and "Purity of Essence".
Brothers Gale and Evelle Snopes share the same last name as the fictional family in William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County.
Leonard Smalls shares the name of Lennie Smalls, from John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men. Both are physically powerful men who damage things smaller and weaker than themselves, though only Leonard does so intentionally. Lennie wants to take care of rabbits, while Leonard kills one with a grenade.
The text of the second-to-last screen of credits, which shows acknowledgment of several Southwestern U.S. Native American tribes, is arranged in the shape of a large clay pottery jar, a craft piece historically made by such tribes.
The Quints' mother's name, Florence, is also the name of an actual town in Arizona.
When Hi goes to work in a factory, his chatty co-worker (a cameo by M. Emmet Walsh) can be seen wearing a jumpsuit with the label, "Hudsucker Industries". The company name derived from a script written by the Coen brothers a couple of years earlier in collaboration with Sam Raimi, The Hudsucker Proxy, which the Coens had put on the back burner because they knew they wouldn't be able to raise the budget to make it properly. The script would eventually be filmed by the Coens and released in 1994. The idea of tracking a fugitive by the scent of his hair-pomade is reused in the Coens' 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
Reception
Initial critical reception opened to very mixed reviews. Among the positive reviews, David Denby of New York, wrote that the film was a "deranged fable of the New West" which turned "sarcasm into a rude yet affectionate mode of comedy".[17] Richard Corliss of Time referred to the film as "exuberantly original".[17] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post a positive review stating that that it was "the best kidnapping comedy since last summer's "Ruthless People".[18] On the film review television show Siskel & Ebert & the Movies, critic Gene Siskel commented that the film was as "good looking as it is funny" and that "despite some slow patches" he recommended the film giving it a "thumbs up".[19] Writing for The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote that "Raising Arizona is no big deal, but it has a rambunctious charm."[20]
Negative reviews focused on "style over substance" stand against the film. Variety wrote that "While [Raising Arizona] is filled with many splendid touches and plenty of yocks, it often doesn't hold together as a coherent story."[21] Writing for The New Times, Vincent Canby wrote that "Like "Blood Simple," it's full of technical expertise but has no life of its own... The direction is without decisive style."[22] Julie Salamon of the Wall Street Journal wrote that the Coen Brothers "have a lot of imagination and sense of fun - and, most of all, a terrific sense of how to manipulate imagery" but "By the end, the fun feels a little forced".[23] Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune wroe that "the overlooked form peels away from the slight, frail content, and the film starts to look like an episode of "Hee Haw" directed by an amphetamine-crazed Orson Welles".[24] Roger Ebert wrote a negative review stating the film "stretches out every moment for more than it's worth, until even the moments of inspiration seem forced. Since the basic idea of the movie is a good one and there are talented people in the cast, what we have here is a film shot down by its own forced and mannered style."[25]
Modern reception to the film has been more generally positive. Both the British film magazine Empire and film database Allmovie gave the film five stars, their highest ratings.[26][27] Allmovie's Lucia Bozzola wrote that "Complete with carefully modulated over-the-top performances from the entire cast, Raising Arizona confirmed the Coens' place among the most distinctive filmmakers to emerge from the 1980s independent cinema. " while Caroline Westbrook of Empire declared it a "Hilarious, madcap comedy from the Coen brothers that demonstrates just why they are the kings of quirk".[27] The Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland placed Raising Arizona's bank robbery scene second, on their list of "The 5 best bank robberies in film history", behind a bank robbery scene from the 1995 thriller Heat.[28] In 2000, the American Film Institute had the film nominated for their list of one hundred best comedy films of the twentieth century, nominated by film directors, screenwriters, actors, editors, cinematographers, critics, historians and film executives.[29] The film placed at number thirty-one on the list.[30]
Soundtrack
The score to Raising Arizona is written by Carter Burwell, the second of his collaborations with the Coen Brothers.
The sounds are a mix of organ, massed choir, banjo, whistling and yodeling.
Themes are borrowed from the "Goofing Off Suite", originally recorded by Pete Seeger in 1955, which includes an excerpt from the "Chorale" movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9" and "Russian Folk Themes and Yodel". Musicians credited with playing the music for the film are Ben Freed on banjo, Mieczyslaw Litwinski on Jew's harp and guitar and yodeling by John R. Crowder.
Selections from Burwell's score to Raising Arizona were released on an album in 1987, along with selections from the Coen's previous (and first) feature film, Blood Simple.
Track listing
- "Introduction - A Hole in the Ground" – (0:38)
- "Way Out There (Main Title)" – (1:55)
- "He Was Horrible" – (1:30)
- "Just Business" – (1:17)
- "The Letter" – (2:27)
- "Hail Lenny" – (2:18)
- "Raising Ukeleles" – (3:41)
- "Dream of the Future" – (2:31)
- "Shopping Arizona" – (2:46)
- "Return to the Nursery" – (1:35)
- The tracks from Raising Arizona comprise the first ten tracks on a 17-track CD that also features selections from the Blood Simple soundtrack.
References
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 17.
- ^ a b Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 18.
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 27.
- ^ a b c Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 29.
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 30
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 23.
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 24.
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 26.
- ^ a b Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 33
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 34.
- ^ a b Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 21.
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 28.
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 32.
- ^ a b Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 19
- ^ Coen, Coen, Allen 2006, pp. 20.
- ^ Russell 2001, pp. 27
- ^ a b Russell 2001, pp. 44
- ^ Kempley, Rita (March 20, 1987). "'Raising Arizona' (PG-13)". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/raisingarizonapg13kempley_a0cab6.htm. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ "At the Movies: Raising Arizona". At the Movies. ABC Domestic Television. 1987. http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/atm/reviews.html?sec=6&subsec=raising+arizona. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ The New Yorker: 81. 20 April 1987. "Raising Arizona is no big deal, but it has a rambunctious charm. The sunsets look marvelously ultra-vivid, the pain doesn't seem to be dry – it's like opening day of a miniature golf course.)".
- ^ "Raising Arizona Review". Variety. 1987. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117794309.html?categoryid=31&cs=1. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ The New Times: C24. 11 March 1987. "Like "Blood Simple," it's full of technical expertise but has no life of its own... The direction is without decisive style.)".
- ^ Wall Street Journal. 26 March 1987. "These fraternal film makers have a lot of imagination and sense of fun - and, most of all, a terrific sense of how to manipulate imagery... But sometimes they seem to be getting too big a kick out of their own shenanigans. By the end, the fun feels a little forced.)".
- ^ The Chicago Tribune. 20 March 1987. "Quickly and fatally, the overlooked form peels away from the slight, frail content, and the film starts to look like an episode of "Hee Haw" directed by an amphetamine-crazed Orson Welles.)".
- ^ "Raising Arizona Review". Chicago Sun Times. 1987. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19870320/REVIEWS/703200302/1023. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ "Raising Arizona > Review". Allmovie. http://allmovie.com/work/raising-arizona-40176/review. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ a b "Empire Reviews Central". Empire. http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=7118. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ Porcelijn, Max (2008-04-26). "The 5 Best Bank Robberies in Film History". Vrij Nederland: pp. 96-97.
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/laughs.aspx. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
- ^ "America's Funniest Movies". American Film Institute. http://connect.afi.com/site/DocServer/laughs100.pdf?docID=252. Retrieved on 2009-06-04.
Bibliography
External links
