SNOW FLURRIES\New film takes Coen brothers back home to Minnesota in a frantic\search for white stuff.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Staff Writer

Imagine growing up kind of a misfit in a place that seemed to lack everything - warmth, excitement, career options - everything but snow.

Then you come back years later, bent on taking advantage of all that snow by shooting a movie that depends on it - and what does the place lack? Snow.

Ironically, it happened to filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, masters of irony who returned to their native Minnesota in early 1995 to shoot the snowbound crime drama "Fargo" and found themselves sabotaged by one of the warmest, driest winters in the state's history.

"There was no snow, and it seemed like a catastrophe," said Joel Coen, 41, who directs and co-writes the movies the brothers have been making as a team since 1985. Ethan, 38, co-writes and produces.

In a typical Coen brothers movie - like the stylish and creepy crime saga "Blood Simple" or the comically outrageous "Raising Arizona" - this twist of fate would have sent the whole enterprise veering off in some dark, wildly out-of-control direction.

Real life, however, offered a happier outcome. The production moved further north, to the Dakota plains, where snow was abundant, and Joel found he actually preferred the more extreme, more flat and featureless landscape.

"Graphically, that came across on screen as so much more beautiful than Minnesota would have, so we were lucky to have been forced to chase the snow," Joel says.

In terms of the droll character-based comedy they wrote into "Fargo," they were also able to turn the environment they had chafed against as teen-agers to their advantage.

First, there are the natives, whose odd, flat speech and Minnesota matter-of-factness is satirized to dead-funny effect in the movie, which stars Frances McDormand as a very competent, unflappable and pregnant police chief, and William H. Macy as a weaselly car dealer who crosses her when he tries to get rich by having his own wife kidnapped.

Then there's the landscape itself. "That featureless, blank white thing that we grew up with seemed so bound up in the personalities of the people we knew," says Joel. "Their banality, their ordinariness, the way they accept their lives at face value."

Based on the true story of a notorious Midwestern kidnapping case that went seriously awry and left several people dead, "Fargo" revolves around two very ordinary-seeming people dealing with a situation that gets more and more out of control.

"The Jerry character (Macy) is ordinary in a very evil way, and Marge (McDormand) is ordinary in a very good way," Joel explains. "To Marge, nothing is a big drama, even though it actually is a big drama."

It wasn't much of a struggle for McDormand to get the part, either, since she's married to the director, Joel, whom she met on the set of "Blood Simple." "It's the first time in 12 years of sleeping with the director that I got the job, no questions asked," McDormand says, laughing.

The couple now live in Manhattan, as do Ethan and his wife. Both couples are raising young sons. But though the Coens' movies suggest intense, driven creators with feverish, precise visions, in person the brothers seem remarkably modest and casual - almost, well, Minnesotan.

Start with their appearance - they favor long hair, flannel shirts and jeans, looking much like graduate students from some 1970s Midwestern canvas.

Then ask them how they differ as people. "We don't do a lot of self-analysis," says Joel. Spoken like a true Minnesotan. "Our own mother confuses us on the phone," says Ethan.

"I guess we're different the way any two people are different," says Joel. "But our movies represent the intersection of the things that interest us."

Even making movies is no big drama to them, though other filmmakers tend to portray it as a heroic struggle.

"That's just a vibe they put out to discourage other people from trying it," says Ethan. "I mean, we write our own material, so if one project doesn't get funded, we just write another one. As long as you don't spend a lot of money, it's hard to hurt anybody."

After the box-office disappointment of their previous movie, the visually dazzling "The Hudsucker Proxy," which starred Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh and cost Warner Bros. around $25 million, Ethan says the brothers plan to keep their budgets modest so that "we can keep making movies for a good long time."

"Fargo" was made for about $6.5 million, and an earlier critics' favorite, "Barton Fink," which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, cost about $8 million. Though they enjoy a relatively small but loyal following in the United States, the brothers' movies are even more popular in Europe. "Don't ask me why," says Joel. "I think our movies are very American."

Perhaps it's the ambiguity of certain scenes that throws off some American filmgoers who are accustomed to mainstream spoon-feedings. With the Coens' dry, corrosive sense of humor, there are scenes - including several in "Fargo" - in which the audience scarcely knows whether to laugh or be horrified.

"People don't seem to know when it's safe to laugh," says Joel.

Adds Ethan, "We want to make the first feature film with a laugh track. We figure the canned laughter might help."

Speaking Minnesotan

So distinct are the speech patterns of the Minnesota natives in the black comedy "Fargo" that the movie's distributor, Gramercy Pictures, is sending journalists a helpful guidebook called "How to Speak Minnesota."

The book, published by Penguin, instructs in the authentic deployment of such native phrases as "you bet," "that's different, then," "a heckuva deal," "it could be worse" and "you got that right."

According to the book, by humorist Howard Mohr, a writer for the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," here's a typical Minnesota conversation:

"Pretty nice day, then, huh?"

"It could be worse, but it won't last. You get a day like this, it spells trouble. It's too good."

"I know what you mean."

"It makes a guy nervous."

"Uneasy."

"You got that right."

Minnesotans don't expect much, and they don't get too excited about anything. According to Mohr, if you were to bound into town spouting such typical Los Angeles phrases as "terrific," "fantastic," "perfect" and "great," you might as well wear a bumper sticker on your forehead that says "I'm Not From Around Here."

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Photo (1) Filmmakers Joel, left, and Ethan Coen, have satirized the odd, flat speech and matter-of-factness of fellow Minnesotans to dead-funny effect in "Fargo." Phil McCarten/Daily News (2) Frances McDormand plays an unflappable police chief in "Fargo." (3) William H. Macy plays a weaselly car dealer seeking riches through kidnapping. Box Speaking Minnesotan (See Text)