in praise of small moments

There’s a short scene in Fargo that nobody talks about much. It’s not one of the big scenes that everyone  who sees the 1996 Coen brothers film remembers.  Not one of the action scenes, like the kidnapping of the car salesman’s wife, or the sporadic bumbling violence of the two hired kidnappers, or the woodchipper scene and chase on the ice near the end of the film.

No, the final scene is a quiet little moment, in bed with the heroine, Marge Gunderson--a very pregnant small-town police chief (Frances McDormand in her Oscar-winning role)--and her husband, Norm, who has submitted his painting of a mallard in a competition for future postage stamps.

And no again, it’s not a sex scene. But it’s very much a love scene. In this final scene of Fargo the husband and wife lie close together in bed and talk, just talk, and it’s so sweet and real and the antithesis of the earlier violent scenes that it’s thoroughly satisfying to watch. It brings the film to rest on a note of peace and order restored in the warmth of home and the marriage bed. It’s our payoff at the end of a long and bumpy ride. Here’s the complete scene:

__________________________

A BEDROOM

We are square on Norm, who sits in bed watching television.

After a long beat, Marge enters frame in a nightie and
climbs into bed, with some effort.

                         MARGE

               Oooph!

Norm reaches for her hand as both watch the television.
At length Norm speaks, but keeps his eyes on the TV.

                         NORM

               They announced it.

Marge looks at him.

                         MARGE

               They announced it?

                         NORM

               Yah.

Marge looks at him, waiting for more, but Norm's eyes stay
fixed on the television.

                         MARGE

               ...  So?

                         NORM

               Three-cent stamp.

                         MARGE

               Your mallard?

                         NORM

               Yah.

                         MARGE

               Norm, that's terrific!

Norm tries to suppress a smile of pleasure.

                         NORM

               It's just the three-cent.

                         MARGE

               It's terrific!

                         NORM

               Hautman's blue-winged teal got the
        twenty-nine cent.  People don't 
               much use the three-cent.

                          MARGE

               Oh, for Pete's - a course they do!
       Every time they raise the darned
               postage, people need the little stamps!

                          NORM

               Yah?

                          MARGE

               When they're stuck with a bunch a
                the old ones!

                          NORM

               Yah, I guess.

                          MARGE

               That's terrific.

 Her eyes go back to the TV.

                          MARGE

               ...  I'm so proud a you, Norm.

 Norm murmurs:

                          NORM

               I love you, Margie.

                          MARGE

               I love you, Norm.

Both of them are watching the TV as Norm reaches out to rest
a hand on top of her stomach.

                         NORM

               ...  Two more months.

Marge absently rests her own hand on top of his.

                         MARGE

               Two more months.

Hold; fade out.

_________________________

I love these small moments in film and fiction and music and art. It’s easy to miss them. Don’t blink. But they are worth our attention, and worth returning to. That’s why I want to write a few small essays this summer about the kinds of small moments and details that brighten a story or a musical piece, a movie or a painting. They have a way of charming us, of drawing us in.

In fiction they can give us a sudden insight into a character, or a relationship. Or they can simply delight us in themselves, perhaps like a found object, a small shell on a beach. These small moments, small scenes, appear in many different forms.  The story-within-a-story is one common form.  A dream, which is a type of story-within-a-story, is another.  Some small scenes appear to have no direct connection to the main plot, and they challenge us as petite riddles to make the connection.  Sometimes the small moments are all about a minor, secondary character, someone who may not appear anywhere else in the narrative.  This walk-on has his moment in the spotlight and then moves on, but if the scene is done right we don’t forget him.

In a painting sometimes our eye is drawn to a detail, perhaps a person, or something, in the background.  Soon we are puzzling over that part of the work, studying the clues that keep us from turning away and moving on.  In music, say in a favorite song, there is a word or phrase, a small moment in time, that we anticipate, experience one more time, and then carry that moment with us through the rest of the song, and beyond.

Fiction writers, who are told to focus on the big scenes, the big moments in the story, need to pay attention to the small scenes as well. They give the reader, and the writer, a chance to breathe, to stroll along a side path before returning to the main highway of the plot, where characters chase each other until something big happens. I think those small scenes are a little like coffee breaks, when we sit down with a friend and tell small stories (within the larger stories of our lives), or talk about our dreams, or maybe just say, “Norm, that’s terrific!” or “Every time they raise the darned postage, people need the little stamps!”