“Television is the best example of independent film and not … – The País.com (Spain)

The name of Billy Bob Thornton leads attached to Fargo years. was not part of the original film from the Coen brothers as many believe but both were companions in the independent film revolution that shook Hollywood in the mid-nineties. The Coen won the Oscar for best original screenplay the same year that Thornton took the best screenplay adapted by The other side of life (Sling Blade). “And better for two because I had spent all wondering how in the Oscar season beat them, “says the actor in this paper. He says with a laugh, recalling a past that little pointed today, when the performer, director and screenwriter leads the cast of this television version of the film of the Coens. But as you say, now no more laughter and resigned, is that things have changed a lot. “The film no longer exists as we knew,” he argues, looking back at the “time of rebirth” in which he lived alongside the Coen films like or One misstep. “To begin we were real rooms where we all saw the same thing instead of those cinemas now. And we were wide-eyed and eager to enjoy. Now the same attention is not paid, “continues his criticism

” Fargo “is that point where we’re all fish out of water “

Your new hope also called Fargo, that series whose premiere in Spain was included as part of the Festival Sitges before beginning his career tonight (22.30) on Canal + Series. “Television is the alternative. It is the best example of independent cinema that no longer exists. At least in content, “adds happy to have this lifeline. He was the first to ride this adaptation is attempted in its plot away as possible from the Coen Brothers film directed in 1995 “We just wanted to keep the tone” recalls the artist’s work Noah Hawley, the showrunner. There are more similarities, as the year in which the action, 1987, and even the plot, also related to an unlikely crime that takes place in a village lost in the snow and where the protagonists most criminals are nonsensical, but that does not make them less dangerous. But as pointed Thornton, Fargo is not so much the place as a state of mind, “the point at which we are all fish out of water.”

So Allison Tolman felt when he landed the role that most closely which she played Frances McDormand in the original. Unknown and unemployed as an actor, all he had in common with the series is that he grew up in Chicago, so she is used to the freezing temperatures of Calgary (Canada), where they filmed for five months. “I had a decade waiting for something and had already thrown in the towel,” said who came to audition for the show the same day requesting job at a local print shop. Colin Hanks went through the same screening test despite the weight of his name. “It is impossible to get out from under the shadow of my father,” the son of Tom Hanks is sincere. Do not say it with regret because at least that can be booked for jobs considered good, as happened with Fargo. “I’ve never read anything like that. And that Fargo, the movie, was my letter to the world of the Coens, “he recalls with admiration.

His surprise was the quality, not the middle. Young Hanks has been working in television, including shows like Mad Men , and knows that television provides the best vehicle for storytelling. “For as Billy Bob Thornton says with more ease than I, certain films like Fargo no longer in cinema. However, you find these stories on TV and over have 10 hours to count them. ” For Thornton, this is the first foray into television which he is proud. He does not hide his objections to the environment because when tested, between the late eighties and early nineties, the television was something else. “I did not have much to offer. The TV had their hands tied by the censors. Now there are more artistic freedom in movies, where, because of the average age of the audience, you can always show a heroin addict who does not smoke, “rebufa. Do not blame the studios. “If people over 40 do not go to the movies, what will make films for an adult audience?” Adds rhetorical. Still and while enjoying this new thrust in his career, Thornton does not believe that television is their goal. “Not all our blood a series that lasts seven years,”

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Like the movie, the series Fargo begins with a sign that says it is a true story. Nothing is further from reality. In fact it is a fiction that takes incubating since the film was released. MGM wanted to transfer his success to television and in 2003 made an attempt to not get very far. Another decade would pass until the writer Bones , Noah Hawley, were encouraged to stand up to the challenge of writing Fargo without the original characters. The result was a script of 68 pages so similar in spirit to the work of the Coen that the approval of the brothers as executive producers gained, though they refrained from any creative involvement.

Apart from the title and snow, the rest was changed though Fargo , the series, the film makes repeated allusions. Specifically the buried money that gives rise to the film. And also keeps the subversive spirit of the work. If the film broke many molds film, including its initial lie, the TV series was not going to be less.

Conceived as autoconclusiva series, Fargo became what which is now known as an anthology, a miniseries of 10 episodes that repeats the same title but with different story the following season. The cast will also be different, as are the characters and the time for action. Hawley think you know where to shoot. The second season, already confirmed, will run in Sioux Falls (South Dakota, United States) in 1979 and will focus on a crime that already alluded to this first season. The results obtained also emulate the film. If film Fargo took the Oscar for best original screenplay and his actress (Frances McDormand) of a total of seven nominations, won two Emmy television (best miniseries and best direction) of the twelve defended, including four corresponding to its main actors.