26) Raising Arizona

Raising Arizona (1987)

Director: Joel Coen

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, Trey Wilson, William Forsythe, Frances McDormand, Sam McMurray, Randall 'Tex' Cobb

As part of my PhD thesis I will be looking at the work of the Coen brothers. Raising Arizona was one of the few Coen brothers films which I had not seen. I also haven't seen Intolerable Cruelty or their remake of The Ladykillers, both of which are regarded as somewhat disappointing. Raising Arizona, however, is considered a Coen brothers classic so I thought it was high time I gave it a look.

Recidivist H.I. 'Hi' McDunnough (Cage) falls in love with Ed (Hunter) the police officer who takes his mug shots each time he is arrested. They marry, but unfortunately are unable to have children (as Hi explains through the narration "Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase"). When the news reports that wealthy businessman Nathan Arizona (Wilson) and his wife have just given birth to quintuplets, Ed and Hi decide that five is more than any parent could handle so they will abduct one for themselves. However, when two of Hi's friends, Gale (Goodman) and Evelle (Forsythe), who have broken out of prison and are hiding out at Hi and Ed's home discover the identity of the baby they abduct him with the intention of claiming the ransom money, only to themselves form an attachment to the child.

Raising Arizona was the Coens' second film, after the Noir-ish thriller Blood Simple and introduced the world to their particular style of black comedy (the film is, after all, a comedy about child abduction which is not generally considered a humorous subject). The film has quite a strange pace. On the one hand it is quite fast paced, in particular the prologue in which Hi gives us the back story of his criminal past and his relationship with Ed really raced through, if very quick with a number of years of history condensed into a couple of minutes. In general a lot happens for a 90min film, but every now and then a scene will be stretched on for a bit long, for example the first kidnapping scene, which really stalls the pace of the film. Being that it was the Coen's first comic film it could simply be the case that they were still learning just how long you should milk a certain joke for.

Raising Arizona also introduced one of the staples of Coen brothers comedies, the dimwitted protagonist. Hi and Ed are lovable hicks, and the Coen's use their simple perspective of looking at the world as a key tool in not only creating the narrative, it takes a special kind of dimwit to think that just because someone has had five babies they wouldn't miss one if it was kidnapped, but also as a way of telling the story, in this case through the narration of Hi. The Coens would continue to use these dimwitted protagonists in their later comedies: Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) in The Hudsucker Proxy, The Dude (Jeff Bridges) in The Big Lebowski, Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) in O Brother Where Art Thou? and Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) in Burn After Reading.

The comedy in the film is not just from the dialogue. There is also a fair bit of visual humour (including a brilliant short scene where Gale and Evelle are tunneling out of jail with their breaking through the surface is presented in such a way that it looks like the earth is giving birth to them, continuing the baby theme). The film was shot by cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld who not only had a good working relationship with the Coens, collaborating with them on their first three films, but also has an obvious knack for comedy as he was also the cinematographer on Big and When Harry Met Sally before launching his own directorial career which would include titles like The Addams Family and Addams Family Values (a very underrated pair of comedies), Get Shorty and Men In Black and its sequel.

Raising Arizona is a very enjoyable film, quite funny and typically quirky, but for mine the Coen brothers have got a lot better at what they do since making this film in 1987 and it is probably not as good as some of their later comic efforts like The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou?