Joel and Ethan Coen have been making films together since the mid-1980s. The pair’s dark films are set all over the United States and usually embody different regions culturally, visually, and dialectically. Blood Simple was set in Texas, Raising Arizona in the southwest, and The Hudsucker Proxy in the rust belt and New York City. By 1996, the Coen Brothers had become master filmmakers of black comedy and released Fargo, which was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, and won 2. Fargo presented many interesting aspects of their filmmaking, the casting was impeccable, the locations were vivid representations of the stark, snowy landscape, the story was dead on, and Minnesota presented dialogue was perfect, encompassing the ‘Minnesota Nice’ stereotype.
This passive aggressive, polite ideal is what feeds into the story. A feeling of anger repression works as a motive for what happens in the story. Dual protagonists Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) and Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) are both from Minnesota and utilize Upper Midwestern dialects for their characters. The town of Brainerd and the twin cities sit just west of an isogloss in the Midwest, dividing the Midland dialects and the Great lakes regions. Such a drastic difference is largely due to immigration of Scandinavians from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark during the second immigration wave and influence of Canadian dialects.
During the 1860s and 70s, German’s migrated to the area, settling all over the state of Minnesota. After World War I, a second wave came from Scandinavian countries and occupied the Twin Cities. Canada’s close proximity has caused some aspects of Canadian English, a form of English heavily influenced by Manitoba. The actors presented some interesting contrasts to the characters the Coen’s wanted them to portray in the film, but voice coaching and spending a lot of time in the area helped. Frances McDormand, who had been coached in linguistics before, is from Chicago. William H. Macy is from Miami, the villains Carl and Ceasar are portrayed by New Yorker Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, from Kumla, Sweden. Stormare’s character presents an interesting representation of the regions Scandinavian roots, as he speaks with a thick native accent because he was working in Sweden as a theatre actor during the mid-1990s. There is also an interesting cross in the characters of Mike Yanagita (Steve Park), a Korean classmate of Marge Gunderson, and Ship Proudfoot (Steven Reevis), a Native American mechanic, however their dialogue was minimal.
Compared to where I live, there are noticeably different mannerisms of the people. An overall polite and stubbornness comes through. Lundegaard’s character continually tries to achieve his aims of getting money, no matter what seems to happen. Despite his nature, Jerry, Marge, and other natives in the film are noticeably over-polite:
Jerry Lundegaard: I told ya. We haven't had any vehicles go missing.After Lundegarrd’s outburst, Marge reacts to his unusual hostile tone with a long pause. In some instances, small talk can be dragged out over long swaths of time. This “long goodbye” makes for some seemingly awkward moments to audience members, but is common place among the Mid-western community. It is possible this may be a form of artistic liberty which the Coen’s are using to spice up there movie, but it appears to not be overdone. To strengthen the story line further, the Coen brothers used a number of lexical differences also.
Marge Gunderson: Okay! But are ya sure? 'Cause I mean, how do you know? Do you do a count, or what kind of a routine do you have here?
Jerry Lundegaard: [growing uncomfortable with this questioning] Ma'am, I answered your question!
Marge Gunderson: [long pause] I'm sorry, sir?
Jerry Lundegaard: Ma'am, I answered your question. I answered the darned... I'm cooperatin' here!
Marge Gunderson: Sir, you have no call to get snippy with me, I'm just doing my job here.
Jerry Lundegaard: I'm... I'm not arguing here! I'm cooperating. So there's no need to... we're doin' all we can here.
Aspects of social dialect really come through in the film through common vocabulary used throughout the film. Many times, they are talking in informal registers. Jerry uses ‘alright’ many times:
Jerry: They’re [these plans] are alright, alright.‘Youbetchya’ is also used, combining a phrase of reassurance with ‘yah.’ ‘Awe jeeze’ takes on a meaning linked with the social dialect and seems to express a sense of restrained despair.
Obviously here, the plans are alright (O.K.) and Jerry is attaching an informal alright. Other common words are ‘yah’ and ‘type deal’.
Carl Showalter: We need more money...
Jerry Lundegaard: This was supposed to be a no rough stuff type deal!
During a dinner scene with Marge and her husband Norm, they are seen at a buffet eating “hotdish”. Hotdish is a casserole dish common in Minnesota and neighboring states. It consists of starch, meat, vegetables, and a soup. The ingredients are baked together in a dish, with the soup acting as a bonding agent, and served straight out of the oven. Usually, a dessert is done the same way and known as “dessert bars”. A second term, ‘prowler,’ simply means police car. This probably is just an easier word to say than ‘cruiser’ or ‘police car’ and may refer to the fact that the car needs to be good in the snowy weather of the Northern Midwest.
/r/ is one of the many pronunciation problems the Scandinavians have, thus speakers of the area tend to have problems with it too. Others include [t, d, l, and n]. In Fargo, the word ‘darn’ presents a level of difficulty. Such a clustering of difficult constantans causes the speaker to say:
/ dIrn/ as opposed to /darn/.In English /t/, /d/, /l/, and /n/ are alveolar, in Norwegian they are dental. In the aforementioned ‘yah’ there is also sometimes a substitution of /j/ for /d / sound. Unlike ‘darn’, the vowel pronunciation can be freed up, but encounters a vowel shift in words like ‘yah’. For example:
‘ox’ is pronounced /aks/ or / ks/In these examples, the normally mid or low vowels are elevated in the mouth and moved to the rear of the throat. Another vowel shift occurs where mid or low vowels are elevated and moved to the front:
‘lot’ is pronounced /lat/ or /l t/
Jerry’s son’s name “Scotty” pronounced /sc ti/
‘into’ is pronounced /inta/
‘OK’ is pronounced /uKi/‘awe,’ as in awe jeeze, is pronounced /uw jiz/
Pronounced vowel stresses also cause what I call “consonant bursts” in some words. In words like “connected” and “defensive,” there seems to be two halves of each one set off by consonants:
‘connected’ – /kinƷktəd/In ‘vehicle,’ a silent letter is used to set off the “bursts”:
‘defensive’ – /dafənsəv/
‘Vehicle’ - /vihəcle/In the two phonological exampled, the underlined t, s, and h set off this “consonant bursts.” To compensate for the burst during longer words, schwas are used. This is usually a conditional example of a phonological device and depends where it is used in the sentence.
Vowel shifts and consonant compensation and burst make up the Minnesotan dialect devices in Fargo. I feel a more extensive study into Minnesota Nice would warrant some more differences, but what I have noticed is no doubt a result of Norwegian influence in the area. Choosing a movie for dialectical analysis presents some shortcomings, but overall I feel I got a good idea for what Upper Mid-Western dialect sounds like. It was interesting pulling out some guidelines and rules by which I can analyze a language phonetically and dialectically, not just by the way it sounds.
