30 years ago, the Coen brothers made a perfect crime thriller — and introduced us to one of film's greatest heroes

30 years on, Marge Gunderson is still a hero for our time The Coen brothers’ Fargo, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary, is a perfect crime movie. It’s bitter but hopeful, tense, absurd, funny, and dark. It’s constantly unpredictable and yet unfolds exactly as it should do. Fargo is noir turned on its head. Working with the visionary cinematographer Roger Deakins, the Coens expose this usually shadowy genre to the blinding, unforgiving whiteout of the Minnesotan midwinter. Working with the brilliant actor Frances McDormand, the directors swap the typical, tragically doomed femme fatale out for her inverse: a sunny, imperturbable, heavily pregnant police chief, Marge Gunderson. Marge is one of the great heroes of film history, and not just for the reasons you might think. She’s resourceful, intuitive, cool under pressure, unfailingly moral, and a good shot. The character is as radically progressive now as it was 30 years ago. How many pregnant women are allowed to be the main characters of movies that are about anything other than their pregnancy? I can’t think of one, never mind one in which they lead an investigation into a messy multiple homicide and bungled kidnapping. Bu