The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

In the Coen Brothers' apt-named neo-noir crime drama - it paid homage to classic film noirs, with Roger Deakins' B/W cinematography (Oscar-nominated), almost constant flat-accented voice-over narration, and an entirely-flashbacked, slow-burning story with deadpan black humor - told by the passionless and morose protagonist on death row. Accompanied by a Ludwig van Beethoven piano sonata soundtrack, it was a tale of adultery, a blackmailing scheme, embezzlement and financial corruption, greed, foul play, unfulfilled dreams and the false hope of upward mobility and ultimately murder.

The main protagonist - a laconic and empty barber living a quiet and basically meaningless existence with an unfaithful bookkeeper-wife in a small California town, had his life upended when he received a promising business offer from a natty entrepreneur involving a lucrative investment (of $10,000 dollars) in a dry-cleaning service. The barber went ahead with an anonymous, threatening blackmail note to his wife's boss (about his adultery) to raise the money, but soon after, the barber's simple plan went haywire. The boss was murdered (a case of self-defense) and the wrongly-accused barber's wife was arrested due to her complicity involving embezzlement of the funds from her now-dead boss. Other twists and turns led to another death (the suicide of the barber's pregnant wife), the discovery of the body of the dry-cleaning entrepreneur, and finally the imprisonment and execution of the barber for the wrong crime.

Previously, the Coen brothers had made films to pay homage to hard-boiled fiction writers including Dashiell Hammett (Miller's Crossing (1990)), and Raymond Chandler (The Big Lebowski (1998)). Now they were tackling the themes of pulp writer James M. Cain (in his many novels adapted into the classic noir films Double Indemnity (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)). There were many references and nods to characters in these noirs and others, including Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). In the overindulgent, melancholy black comedy, there were additional references to the "uncertainty" philosophy of Heisenberg, a teenaged, piano-playing Lolita, and to UFOs and alien abduction.

On a budget of $20 million, the film took in $7.5 million (domestic) and $18.9 million (worldwide):

• the opening title credits (that cast shadows) were presented above a hypnotic view of a rotating red/white barber's pole shot at a low angle; the setting was a small Northern California town (Santa Rosa) in the summer of 1949 during the post-war era [Note: Hitchcock's film noir Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was also set in Santa Rosa]
• detached, taciturn barber Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), a heavy Chesterfield cigarette chain-smoker, worked for his talkative brother-in-law Frank Raffo (Michael Badalucco) who owned the local, small barber shop in Santa Rosa with only three chairs (or stations); Ed calmly admitted in the film's first line of voice-over dialogue: "Yeah, I worked in a barbershop, but I never considered myself a barber. I stumbled into it. Or married into it, more precisely"
• in comparison to Frank, the principal barber who loved to cut hair and "chew the fat," Ed was less of a talker, and more laconic, quiet and introspective: ("Frank Raffo, my brother-in-law, was the principal barber. Man, could he talk. Maybe if you're 11 or 12 years old, Frank's got an interesting point of view, but sometimes it got on my nerves"); Frank had inherited the Guzzi's shop ("free and clear") from his barber-father August (or "Guzzi"), who died of a heart attack mid-haircut
• although he provided almost non-stop voice-over narration, Ed admitted about himself: "Me, I don't talk much. I just cut the hair....Being a barber is a lot like being a bar man or a soda jerk. There's not much to it once you've learned the basic moves...I was a ghost. I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber"
• he was in an unsatisfactory, desperate and sexless marriage to alcoholic, opportunistic, department store accountant-bookkeeper Doris Crane (Frances McDormand), who "kept the books" at Nirdlingers for her boss "Big Dave" Brewster (James Gandolfini); he was married to the department store heiress Ann Nirdlinger Brewster (Katherine Borowitz)
• Ed often accompanied Doris to play bingo in the local church on Tuesday nights: "I wasn't crazy about the game, But, I don't know, it made her happy"

(l to r): Ann Nirdlinger Brewster and Her Husband "Big Dave" (Doris' Boss)

At Dinner Time with the Cranes, "Big Dave's" Fake War Heroics Tale

• one evening while Ed and Doris entertained "Big Dave" and his mousy wife Ann at their home for dinner, "Big Dave" entered into a colorful description of his heroic war experience: "The Japs had us pinned down on Buna for somethin' like six weeks. I gotta tell ya, I thought we had it tough, but we had supply. The Japs were eatin' bugs and grubs and thistles. Anyway, one day we bust off the beach. And we find Arney Bragg, this kid missin' on recon. The Japs had eaten the son of a bitch. If you'll pardon the, uh... Anyway, he was a scrawny, pimply kid, I mean, nothin' to write home about. I mean, I never woulda, you know"
• Ed - who was living an existence of quiet despair - had long suspected that Doris was having an affair with "Big Dave" behind his back: ("Sometimes I had the feeling that she and Big Dave were a lot closer than they let on. The signs were all there, plain enough"); Big Dave told Ed that he was planning on opening a second annex store in town specializing in "haberdashery," and was considering making Doris the new store's comptroller
• one day in the barber shop at closing time, pushy customer and shady traveling salesman-businessman and self-labeled entrepreneur Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito) from Sacramento, with a hair "rug" (why would he need a haircut?), mentioned how he was seeking investors (or speculators) who would risk their "venture capital" to contribute $10,000 dollars and join in his new "prospect" - to open up a dry cleaning store that would then expand into a chain of stores; he boasted about the return on investment for a potential partner: "It's only the biggest business opportunity since Henry Ford, And I can't seem to interest a soul...There's money in it. there's a future. There's room to grow"
• Tolliver went on to explain the miraculous, newfangled process: "Wash without water. No suds. No tumble. No stress on the clothes. It's all done with chemicals, my friend. And here's the capper. No shrinkage"; afterwards, Ed asked himself: "Was he a huckster or an opportunity, the real McCoy?"; that evening as he shaved his wife's legs while she reclined in the bathtub, he became obsessed with the idea of dry-cleaning as a ticket out of his depressed and inert state
• still intrigued later that evening, Ed sought out Tolliver in his downtown hotel room and expressed interest in his business proposition; Tolliver enticingly described how there would be no work involved and that he was only looking for "a silent partner" who would provide the "dough" and then share 50/50 in the profits; Ed promised to have the money in a week, and also firmly brushed off perceived romantic advances by the homosexual hustler by firmly asking: "Was that a pass?"
• Ed typed out an anonymous blackmail note demanding $10,000 dollars that he sent to "Big Dave" the next morning, to seek revenge for cheating on his wife - and to finance Tolliver's new technology scheme:
  • "I know about you and Doris Crane. Cooperate or Ed Crane will know. Your wife will know. Everyone will know. Gather $10,000 and await instructions"
• while cutting hair in the shop, Ed mused philosophically to his perplexed brother-in-law Frank about the phenomenon of hair growth and its worth as dirt: "How it keeps on coming. It just keeps growing....And it's part of us. And then we cut it off and throw it away...I'm gonna take this hair and throw it out in the dirt...I'm gonna mingle it with common house dirt"

Ed's Typewritten Blackmail Note to "Big Dave" - Demanding $10,000 Dollars

Dave's Confession to Ed: "I've been carryin' on with a married woman"

• at a party during the "Christmas push" at Nirdlingers, Ed was called aside to "Big Dave's" private office, where Dave used a small, serrated cigar-trimming knife ("Souvenired it off a Jap in New Guinea") to cut into two expensive, imported stogies for them to smoke - an important plot point for the future
• Ed heard a predictable confession from the guilt-ridden "Big Dave" - who then quickly denied that it was Doris - "I've been carryin' on with a married woman - no one you know"; "Big Dave" added that he had received a blackmail note - and explained how public knowledge of his affair would ruin him if he didn't pay up: "I guess you know what that would do to me...Ann would throw me right out on my keister...It's her family's store, Ed...I serve at the indulgence of the god-damn ownership"
• "Big Dave" immediately suspected that the fast-talking, city-slicker Sacramento businessman Tolliver, who had propositioned him to invest ("A goddamn pansy, Ed. Tryin' to rope me into some crackpot scheme") had seen him with the "lady in question" in The Hobart Arms Hotel and was probably the blackmailer; it wasn't just a coincidence that the demanded blackmail amount was the same as the investment - 10 thousand dollars; Ed innocently suggested that the sniveling "Big Dave" pay up: ("Why don't you just pay him. Dave?")
• Dave responded that he was reluctant to use the money he had already raised for the dept. store annex; he had previously suggested that Doris embezzle money from his wife's department store: ("A way to get the money from the store that we could hide from Ann") - and now with great hubris, he would use the already-embezzled money to pay off the blackmail demand: ("Embezzlin' from my own goddamn wife!")
• Ed realized the beauty of his vengeful plan: "In a way, I felt bad for Big Dave. I knew that ten grand was going to pinch him where it hurt, but Doris was two-timing me. And I guess somewhere that pinched a little too"
• meanwhile, Ed was regularly visiting with teenaged Rachel "Birdy" Abundas (Scarlett Johansson), the daughter of his lawyer-friend Walter Abundas (Richard Jenkins), to hear her play the piano (piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven)
• after the Christmas party, an upset Doris revealed to Ed that "Big Dave" had money problems and was cancelling the annex - and that there were consequences for herself: "That means I don't run Nirdlingers. What a knucklehead!"
• after receiving the $10,000 dollars blackmail money from "Big Dave"at a drop spot (inside the hotel), Ed brought the cash to Tolliver in his hotel room and signed partnership papers (without a lawyer present); Tolliver happened to mention that he would name the business after himself, and vehemently insisted that he was on the up-and-up: "This is dry cleaning. This is not some fly-by-night thing here... Nobody's ever questioned me"
• Doris and Ed reluctantly attended an outdoor Saturday wedding reception for her cousin Gina in Modesto who had recently married a "wop vendor"; at the reception that included a pie-eating contest and bare-back riding on a pig, the Cranes were critically questioned about why they didn't have children, and Doris soon became drunk; she sarcastically greeted her cousin: "Life is just so goddamn wonderful you almost won't believe it. It's a bowl of goddamn cherries..."; she was passed out while being driven home
• after dragging his unconscious and drunken wife Doris into their home and placing her on their bed, Ed recalled how they had originally met and were fated to have a failed marriage - voice-over:
  • "I'd met Doris blind on a double date with a loudmouthed buddy of mine who was seeing a friend of hers from work. We went to a movie. Doris had a flask. Boy, she could put it away. At the end of the night, she said she liked that I didn't talk much. It was only a couple of weeks later she suggested we get married... I said, 'Don't you want to get to know me more?' She said, 'Why? Does it get better?' She looked at me like I was a dope, which I never really minded from her. And she had a point, I guess. We knew each other as well then as now. Anyway, well enough"
• Ed was interrupted in his reverie about Doris by a phone call to meet up with "Big Dave" in Nirdlingers; at his desk, Ed listened to a miserable and accusatory Dave: ("I'm ruined. They've ruined me. This money. No annex. I'm all shot to hell. So, you paid the guy?"); he twice asked Dave an incriminating question: "What kind of man are you?"; Dave then admitted that he had beaten up Tolliver to confess (but did not say anything about killing him!) and had learned from Tolliver that Ed was implicated in the blackmail scheme: ("I had to beat it out of the pansy"); "Big Dave" confronted Ed about his guilt and attempted to strangle and kill him (by forcing him up against a glass pane that cracked), but Ed struggled to fight back in self-defense and fatally stabbed Dave in the neck (jugular vein) with his own cigar trimming knife
• the next afternoon, two police officers (on "crap detail") arrived at the barber shop to tell Ed that they had "pinched" his wife for accounting "irregularities"; she had been arrested and taken to the county jail, and charged for two crimes: embezzling the $10,000 for the annex, and for homicide after murdering her boss "Big Dave"
• that evening, Ed sought advice from his heavy-drinking, non-criminal (probate and real estate) lawyer friend Walter Abundas, "Birdy's" father, who first suggested using the county defender Bert to try the "capital offense" crime, or better yet, hire an expensive, big-shot Sacramento defense attorney named Freddy Riedenschneider (Tony Shalhoub)
• Ed visited Doris in jail the next day, who admitted to some of the accusations: ("I did help him cook the books, Ed. I did do that") - to embezzle funds to pay for the additional annex: ("I knew we'd pay for it"), but claimed that she was innocent of homicide: ("I don't know what happened to Big Dave"); at the bank, Doris' brother Frank arranged to mortgage off the barber shop in order to provide funds for Doris' defense - to hire and pay for the recommended, high-priced out-of-town lawyer Freddy Riedenschneider
• the hot-shot lawyer arrived in town two days later, and took up residence in a luxury suite in the town's Hotel Metropole; the sharply-dressed attorney met with Ed while eating a fancy lunch at DaVinci's; he rattled off his long list of lavish expenses to be paid: ("So, in addition to my retainer, you're paying hotel, living expenses, secretarial, private eye, if we need to make inquiries, head shrinker, should we go that way"); he was pleased that Doris hadn't confessed to anything, and was planning to meet with her the following day; Freddy ordered Ed to keep his mouth shut: "I'm an attorney. You're a barber. You don't know anything," and then reassured him: "You're okay, pal. You're okay, she's okay, everything's gonna be hunky..."; Ed realized that he had huge secrets that he had to keep to himself: "It seems like I knew a secret, A bigger one, even, than what had really happened to Big Dave, something none of them knew"
• that evening at Ed's front door, Big Dave's grieving wife Ann (wearing a netted hat) spoke to him about how on their last summer's camping trip outside Eugene, OR with her husband, they both saw lights; she claimed in an official report to the government that Big Dave had been abducted by aliens and that it produced lasting consequences on their sex life: ("There was a spacecraft. I saw the creatures. They led Big Dave onto the craft. He never told anyone what they did...After this happened, things changed. Big Dave - he never touched me again"); obviously, Ann (who believed in government lies and conspiracy theories) was in the dark about Dave's unfaithfulness to her over the last year; Ann ignorantly vowed that she was sure that Doris was not involved: "Tell Doris not to worry. I know it wasn't her"
• the next afternoon at the county jail with Ed and Doris, according to Riedenschneider, the case looked dire against Doris, and he was upset that he had no defense: ("It stinks!"): "They got the company books prepared by you, Cooked by you. That's motive. They got a murder scene you had access to. That's opportunity. They got that little trimmer thing he was stabbed in the throat with. A dame's weapon...they got a fine, upstanding pillar of the business community as a victim, and then they got you, a disgruntled, number-juggling underling, who on the day in question was drunk as a skunk - and whose alibi for the time in question is being passed out at home, alone"
• after a pause, Ed quietly admitted: "I killed him" - but Riedenschneider thought Ed's sudden claim was implausible, and that Ed was just trying to mercifully save Doris: "Will anyone corroborate any goddamn part of your story at all? Oh, come on! People, you can't help each other like that"; however, the attorney felt that he still had very few options, but was determined to proceed as usual: "I litigate. I don't capitulate...We're goin' with the blackmail"
• Ed thought to himself that there was only one person who could confirm Doris' innocence and story -- "the dry-cleaning pansy," but Tolliver had skipped town with the investment money and had completely disappeared: "The money gone, Big Dave gone, Doris going. How could I have been so stupid?"; however, life went on for Ed: "Sooner or later, everyone needs a haircut. We were working for the bank now. We kept cutting the hair, trying to stay afloat, Make the payments, tread the water day by day, Day by day"
• the Crane's lawyer Riedenschneider hired PI Burns (Jack McGee) to dig into Big Dave's past; meanwhile, in the county jail, the attorney proposed a winning strategy to defend Doris - known as Heisenberg's 'uncertainty principle' - the creation of reasonable doubt:
  • "They got this guy, in Germany. Fritz Something-or-other. Or is it? Maybe it's Werner. Anyway. He's got this theory. You wanna test something, you know, scientifically. How the planets go around the sun, what sunspots are made of, why the water comes out of the tap - well, you gotta look at it. But sometimes you look at it, your looking changes it. You can't know the reality of what happened, or what would've happened if you hadn't a stuck in your own goddamn schnozz. So there is no 'what happened'? Looking at something changes it. They call it the 'Uncertainty Principle'. I'm sure it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy's on to something. Science, perception, reality, doubt.
    Reasonable doubt. I'm sayin' that sometimes the more you look, the less you really know. It's a fact, true fact. In a way, it's the only fact there is. This heinie even wrote it out in numbers."
    

Lawyer Riedenschneider's Description of the Theory of the 'Uncertainty Principle'

• Riedenschneider also thought, after investigating Big Dave's past through his PI Burns, that he was an inveterate liar and "cynical manipulator" about his heroic war service and everything else, and had repeated those lies to all of the town's residents: ("It turns out this dope spent the war sitting on his ass in some boat yard in San Diego"), and so his word couldn't be trusted; clearly, he was being blackmailed about all of his past lies: "It finally caught up with him. Somebody knew his dirty little secret, just like your wife says. They called, they demanded money"
• therefore, to help Dave out of his jam, Doris had been asked to embezzle the money for him; the identity of the blackmailer wasn't important: "But we can't know who. We can't know what really happened. Because the more you look, the less you know. But the beauty of it is, we don't gotta know"; Riedenschneider was confident of his new strategy of muddying the waters: "Freddy Riedenschneider sees daylight. We got a real shot at this, folks"; even Ed optimistically thought to himself: "Maybe it would all work out" for both himself and Doris
• during another of Ed's house visits and during a public recital, to soothe and calm himself by listening to "Birdy" Abundas play the piano, he fantasized about becoming her manager in her budding musical career: "If she was going to have a career, she'd need a responsible adult, looking out for her, some kind of manager"
• on the morning of the first day of the trial ("the big show"), the Judge unexpectedly dismissed the case and the jury when it was announced that Doris was found dead (from hanging by her new dress belt) in her cell; Ed deduced: "Everything just seemed ruined"; Doris' deeply-indebted brother Frank began to drink heavily and quit working; Ed was promoted to principal barber and hired another man (also talkative) for the second chair; now in his empty home, Ed felt even more isolated, depressed, and disconnected: "I was a ghost. I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber"
• in the local bar, the County Medical Examiner Dr. Diedrickson (Alan Fudge) revealed to Ed, after performing a routine autopsy, that Doris was pregnant and in her first trimester when she died; the news confirmed for Ed that Doris' affair with Big Dave was real, and he admitted: "My wife and I have not performed the sex act in many years"; Ed was left with lots of "secrets" and no one to tell them to
• Ed visited a medium (Lilyan Chauvin) - "A guide, someone with a gift for talking to souls"; as she read Ed's palm, he thought to himself: "She was a phony, just another gabber. I was turning into Ann Nirdlinger, Big Dave's wife. I had to turn my back on the old lady, on the veils, on the ghosts, on the dead. Before they all sucked me in"
• Ed shared with "Birdy" how he was aiding her - he had contacted Jacques Carcanogues (Ana-Sofia Mastroianna), a respected French music teacher in San Francisco, and insisted that she see him to help guide her toward her ambitious future musical career; however, after an audition, it resulted in a devastating evaluation about "the very nice girl" - he declared that "Birdy" had no exceptional talent: "I cannot teach her to have the soul. Hmm, voyez, monsieur. Look. To play the piano is not about the fingers...I think, uh, perhaps some day, she can make very good typist, huh? Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. Voila!"
• after visiting the teacher, on their drive home, "Birdy" told Ed that she realized she had failed the audition: "I stank, didn't I?"; she thanked Ed for his support, but then shared how she didn't really want a career as a musician: "I'm not interested in playing music professionally," and that she might become a veterinarian instead; after kissing him on the cheek, she offered - as a thank you - to perform oral sex on Ed: ("Mr. Crane, I wanna do it"), but as he tried to decline, his vehicle went out of control and crashed
• in the instant just before the crash, Ed thought about his own mortality, as one of the car's hubcabs (resembling a flying saucer) spun off:
  • "I thought about what an undertaker had told me once. That your hair keeps growing for a while, anyway, after you die. And then it stops. I thought, 'What keeps it growing? Is it like a plant in soil? What goes out of the soil? The soul? And when does the hair realize that it's gone?'"
• "Birdy" suffered a broken collarbone, but Ed had fared far worse - for other reasons; when he regained consciousness in a hospital, he was told by two police officers that he was under arrest for the murder of Tolliver - the "pansy," who had been found underwater in his car and beaten to death ("just like Big Dave said"); inside the deceased's briefcase were the partnership papers signed with Ed, revealing their suspicious $10,000 dollar transaction
• the DA (Rick Scarry) had speculated (wrongly) that Ed had pressured and used Doris to embezzle the investment funds, and then let her "take the fall"; supposedly, Ed was then compelled to kill Tolliver to keep him quiet: "The pansy had gotten wise somehow, so I had to kill him to cover my tracks" - however, there was no proof that Ed had committed the crime, and he had not admitted guilt; Ed realized that he was "in a spot" because to clear himself, he would have to admit that he had killed Big Dave (who had killed Tolliver)
• Ed signed over his house as collateral to Riedenschneider, now to defend his own innocence at trial; the lawyer had to find a way to not implicate Ed in Big Dave's murder, but found that he couldn't use the truth to set Ed free: "He didn't see any way of using it without putting me on the hot seat - for the murder of Big Dave"

Ed On Trial - Defended by Riedenschneider

• during the trial, Doris was made to look like a "saint" - controlled by her "svengali" husband Ed; he recalled how Riedenschneider delivered a closing defense for the jury:
  • "He told them to look at me, look at me close. That the closer they looked, the less sense it would all make. This human, this barber. That I wasn't the kind of guy to kill a guy, that I was the barber, for Christ's sake. I was just like them, an ordinary man. Guilty of living in a world that had no place for me, yeah. Guilty of wanting to be a dry cleaner, sure. But not of murder... He said I was modern man. And if they voted to convict me, they'd be practically cinching the noose around their own necks. He told them to look not at the facts, but at the meaning of the facts. And then he said the facts had no meaning"
• the case ended in a mistrial after Frank interrupted the proceedings and punched out Ed while yelling and besmirching Ed's name: "What kind of man are you?" (the same question Dave had asked Ed before being murdered)
• with no more funds, a second trial was held with court-appointed attorney Lloyd Garroway (George Ives); Ed was forced to plead guilty "with extenuating circumstances" for the murder of Tolliver; Ed knew he was fated to fail without effective counsel: "I guess that meant I never had a chance"; the Judge ruled on Ed's fate: "This man is a menace to society"
• on death row in prison, Ed spoke about how he had been paid by a pulpy men's magazine to tell his side of the story - revealing that all of his previous narrations were actually his submitted writings: ("Writing it has helped me sort it all out"); it was an ironic twist of fate that in the end, Ed was to be executed for a crime he didn't commit (the murder of Tolliver), and also escaped being blamed for killing his wife's lover; however, his actions directly or indirectly precipitated the deaths of four people (Big Dave, Doris, Tolliver, and himself)

In Prison - Ed Writing For A Pulp Men's Magazine

Ed on Death Row

• Ed mused about his approaching death and was resigned to his fate:
  • "That's the funny thing about going away, knowing the date you're gonna die....Well, it's like pulling away from the maze. While you're in the maze, you go through willy-nilly, turning where you think you have to turn, banging into the dead ends, One thing after another. But you get some distance on it, and all those twists and turns. Why, they're the shape of your life. It's hard to explain. But seeing it whole gives you some peace"
• shortly before being executed, Ed imagined that he walked down a corridor outside his unlocked cell, and out into the jailhouse's courtyard, where he saw a UFO in the sky shining a spotlight on him
• Ed delivered the film's final lines of dialogue as he was about to be executed (in the electric chair in a blinding white room); he entered the room, with the chair in the dead center of the room, with the executioner on the left, and a window for viewing on the right; part of Ed's leg was shaved (similar to his shaving of Doris' legs earlier)
• as Ed stared upward, he speculated about the afterlife, and for the first time in the film, was hoping for something:
  • "I don't know where I'm being taken. I don't know what I'll find, beyond the earth and sky. But I'm not afraid to go. Maybe the things I don't understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away. Maybe Doris will be there. And maybe there I can tell her all those things they don't have words for here"

Electric Chair Electrocution Preparation With Ed's Last Words