Film Three-Quarterly: Fargo (1996)

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Before Picasso went Cubist, he knew the techniques of the old masters. Before the Coen Brothers became one of the more adventurous commercial filmmakers out there, they knew their genre and structure. Blood Simple is tight as a drum when it comes to plotting. But as they got more confident, they began to experiment with form, character, and structure.

Let’s take their Oscar-winning Fargo from 1996. Like their first film, it’s a crime story where a plan goes terribly awry. But in terms of structure, we are a long way from classic noir. This is the first film we’ve looked at that refutes the three quarter structure that so many films follow. How and why it does that is what we’ll get into.
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Ensemble closes season with ‘Venus in Fur’

 Bruce Turk, new to Ensemble Theatre, plays writer-director Thomas and Annie Abrams plays Vanda in the two-character play "Venus in Fur." Bruce Burr photo

Bruce Turk, new to Ensemble Theatre, plays writer-director Thomas and Annie Abrams plays Vanda in the two-character play “Venus in Fur.”
Bruce Burr photo

Ensemble Theatre finishes this season with “Venus in Fur,” the David Ives-penned hothouse of a play that joyously blurs the line between actor and role playing, befitting a story that takes as its inspiration the 1870 novel of the same name (minus the plural letter s) by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. (Yes, that’s where we get the word Masochism.)

After the large cast and inventive sets of “Woyzeck,” Ensemble is seeing out the season with that most modern of set-ups: two people in a room, and a relationship that changes completely over the course of its runtime.

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‘Force’ of comic nature: Eddie Izzard returns to Santa Barbara

 English stand-up comedian, actor and writer Eddie Izzard brings his stream-of-consciousness comedic style to the Granada Theatre. Amanda Searle photo

English stand-up comedian, actor and writer Eddie Izzard brings his stream-of-consciousness comedic style to the Granada Theatre.
Amanda Searle photo

When Eddie Izzard first came to town in 2012, he was working material out for his tour. Three years later, he’s still on that tour, called “Force Majeure,” which has taken him “from Moscow to St. Petersburg to Cape Town, 27 countries, and the show is in a very good space,” as the comedian puts it.

He returns to Santa Barbara tonight at the Granada.

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UCSB students mount ‘The Tempest’ outdoors in Isla Vista

 Performing in "The Tempest" are, from left, Ami Shimada, Scarlett Jia and Kassidy Klinesmith as Ariel and Danielle De La O as Prospera. Gerry Hansen photo

Performing in “The Tempest” are, from left, Ami Shimada, Scarlett Jia and Kassidy Klinesmith as Ariel and Danielle De La O as Prospera.
Gerry Hansen photo

A year ago, the shadow of the Isla Vista shootings hung over that June’s Shakespeare in the Park performance, which laughed in the face of tragedy with

“Twelfth Night.” Now with an all-new cast, the all-student company has nothing so sad hanging over their production, the culmination of their UCSB theater course. This Saturday and Sunday they return to the Anisq’Oyo’ Park amphitheater in Isla Vista with “The Tempest.”

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