Editing Fargo (1996 film) (section)

===Claims of factual basis===
The film opens with the following text:
{{blockquote|This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.}}
The Coen brothers said that they based their script on an actual criminal event, but wrote a fictional story around it. "We weren't interested in that kind of fidelity", said Joel Coen. "The basic events are the same as in the real case, but the characterizations are fully imagined&nbsp;... If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept."<ref>{{cite web |author=Heitmueller |first=Karl |date=April 11, 2005 |title=Rewind: What Part Of 'Based On' Don't You Understand? |url=https://www.mtv.com/news/1499898/rewind-what-part-of-based-on-dont-you-understand/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201014122542/https://www.mtv.com/news/1499898/rewind-what-part-of-based-on-dont-you-understand/ |archive-date=October 14, 2020 |website=[[MTV]]}}</ref>

The brothers have modified their explanation more than once. In 1996, Joel Coen told a reporter that—contrary to the opening graphic—the actual murders were not committed in Minnesota.<ref>{{cite news |author=O'Rourke |first=Mike |date=February 11, 1997 |title=Reaction to 'Fargo' nomination |newspaper=[[Brainerd Dispatch]] |url=http://www.brainerddispatch.com/fargo/fargoacdmynom.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021231145342/http://www.brainerddispatch.com/fargo/fargoacdmynom.shtml |archive-date=December 31, 2002}}</ref><ref name="We're ready for our close-up, Mr. Coen(s)">{{cite news |author=Smetanka |first=Mary Jane |date=August 8, 2008 |title=We're ready for our close-up, Mr. Coen(s) |newspaper=[[Star Tribune]] |url=http://www.startribune.com/local/west/26437374.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201014122840/https://www.startribune.com/we-re-ready-for-our-close-up-mr-coen-s/26437374/ |archive-date=October 14, 2020}}</ref> Many Minnesotans speculated that the story was inspired by [[T. Eugene Thompson]], a [[Saint Paul, Minnesota|St. Paul]] attorney who was convicted of hiring a man to murder his wife in 1963, near the Coens' hometown of [[St. Louis Park, Minnesota|St. Louis Park]]; but the Coens said that they had never heard of Thompson. After Thompson's death in 2015, Joel Coen changed the explanation again: "[The story was] completely made up. Or, as we like to say, the only thing true about it is that it's a story."<ref>{{cite news |author=Roberts |first=Sam |date=September 6, 2015 |title=T. Eugene Thompson Dies at 88; Crime Stunned St. Paul |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/t-eugene-thompson-dies-at-88-crime-stunned-st-paul.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201014123107/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/t-eugene-thompson-dies-at-88-crime-stunned-st-paul.html |archive-date=October 14, 2020}}</ref>

The film's special edition DVD contains yet another account, that the film was inspired by the 1986 [[murder of Helle Crafts]], a Danish–American flight attendant from [[Connecticut]] at the hands of her husband, Richard, who disposed of her body through a wood chipper.<ref>{{cite web |author=Gado |first=Mark |date=November 18, 1986 |title=All about the Woodchipper Murder Case |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/woodchipper_murder/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512005217/http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/woodchipper_murder/index.html |archive-date=May 12, 2008 |website=[[Crime Library]]}}</ref>

In a 1998 article on the film's "true story" claim, the fact-checking website [[Snopes]] concluded that it was a prank of the kind the Coen brothers often inserted in their films, without "a word of truth to it." Snopes said that doubters should note that a [[all persons fictitious disclaimer|fictitious persons disclaimer]], used in works of fiction, is at the end of the film.<ref>{{cite web |date=June 8, 1998 |title=Was 'Fargo' Based on a True Story? |url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fargo/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201117164329/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fargo/ |archive-date=November 17, 2020 |access-date=October 14, 2020 |website=[[Snopes]]}}</ref>