The Man Who Wasn't There

"The Man Who Wasn't There" (2001)
Directed by Joel Coen

The Coen Brothers' film follows Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), a stoic, small-town barber who is dissatisfied with the monotony of his job and the passionless marriage with his wife, Doris (Francis McDormand). One day, Ed gives a haircut to a conman named Creighton (Jon Polito) who offers Ed a cut of any profit he makes, but only if he first gives him an “investment.” Ed, going against his normally cautious intuitions, blackmails his acquaintance, Big Dave (James Gandolfini), who he knows has been having an affair with Doris, for ten-thousand dollars. Things, naturally, go wrong: A murder occurs and someone is falsely accused, leading Ed to rethink his approach to life. How, he wonders, can he constructively change aspects of his life so that others are not harmed in the process?

Ed, in the tradition of film noir, provides a voice-over for much of the film's running time, a decision that is both beneficial and harmful for the film. While Thornton has a wonderful, gravelly voice and delivers great lines from the Coens' well-written script, the sheer amount of voiceover is monotonous and incessantly drives home some of the themes - “I became a ghost” he observes after a trial sequence – when allowing the audience breathing space would have been more appropriate.


While the narrative aspect is not without its flaws, The Man Who Wasn't There does feature astounding visuals, courtesy of Roger Deakins's high-contrast, black and white cinematography that brilliantly captures the lonely world that Ed inhabits. He provides an original approach, placing the characters in the center of the image rather than within the traditional rule of thirds. The Coens' use of sound follows a similar route as all of the sounds seem to emit from the single, center channel. These technical aspects, in simultaneously surrounding and confining Ed, subtly suggest the toll of a lifetime of constraints on his aspirations. We realize, almost from the beginning, that it will be impossible for him to overcome his problems. Nevertheless, we keep on watching him with the hope, perhaps out of a a naively optimistic curiosity, that people can always manage to right themselves in the end.

Rating: 8

First Viewed: 5/23/08
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