Crazy from the Heat
The Coen Brothers' seminal masterpiece returns in top form.

BLOOD SIMPLE
With John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh
Written and directed by Woody Allen

THE NEW DIRECTOR'S CUT of Blood Simple is the same movie released in 1985 by Joel and Ethan Coen, two Minneapolis brothers who have since created one of the kickiest canons in American cinema, but who - like Orson Welles, which is respectable company - have never made a better movie than their first one.

There's only one thing new about this 15th anniversary reissue of their seminal film: Before the opening credits appear, a convivial old fellow, seated between an overstuffed bookshelf and a fine wood desk, introduces himself as Mortimer Young of Forever Young Films. Attended by the antique sound of celluloid clicking through the sprockets of a movie projector, he augustly informs us that this new print of Blood Simple benefits from "digital technology and Ultra Ultra Sound, a Lucas process." When he ends his spiel, he leans back and grins happily, his job well done, and another vital piece of American cultural history safely preserved.

This little joke on themselves is one reason why the Coens have never done better than Blood Simple: Soon after they made it, they started to become self-aware, and their movies started to play to - well, certainly not "the crowd," but to an errant sophistication and a sibling secret language that's diminishes their effectiveness. If Raising Arizona was too shrill and Barton Fink just too arty and bizarre, we can look to Miller's Crossing to see the Coens at their best with story and character, or to The Hudsucker Proxy for an edgy genre sendup with performances and a visual style that work together.

But none of those - not even the beautifully acted, relentlessly sinister Fargo, with its funny accents and its improbable characters - comes close to the lean, bitter brilliance of Blood Simple, a movie that teeters on the edge of realism, slipping into the surreal without our even realizing it, and then slipping back. The Coens nailed the impulses of film noir in their movie, honing in on the notion of a world without love or trust, populated by anti-heroes struggling with their shards of humanity, and pitting them against what would seem to be pure evil.

The good guys in Blood Simple - which is set in rural Texas, a land of "every man for himself" - are a pair of illicit lovers: Ray (John Getz), who works at a roadside bar, and Abby (Frances McDormand), the wife of Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), the bar's repulsive owner. Abby wants out of her marriage, and on the night she finally takes up with Ray - who seduces her with a sluggish, "I like you" - Marty has them followed by a bloated private detective (M. Emmet Walsh in a signature role) who literally attracts flies (and doesn't brush them away).

The detective takes photos that inflame the cuckold Marty, setting off a series of events that test the limits of love and narrative: Not every single thing in Blood Simple seems likely to happen, but the Coens establish their characters so strongly that you come to believe it might.

Their writing is remarkably lucid, with everyone speaking in her or her own way. This means, of course, that they don't communicate very well, which is exactly the point. The movie doesn't waste a single frame, and every detail adds to its menacing effect, from the ubiquitous "Employees Must Wash Hands" signs in the bar to the heat lamp that crackles behind Marty’s head when he confronts his wife's lover. Even the dog - lean, languid and hungry for a scratch behind he ear - belongs in the movie, which after 15 years is still a thrilling touchstone of modern American cinema.