20 Things You Didn't Know About Raising Arizona
14. Ethan Coen Saw A Mystical Connection Between H.I. And His Woody Woodpecker Hair
Considering H.I. fights a bounty hunter the size of Tex Cobb, it's believable that he'd be a little stressed out throughout the film.
Given Cage's Woodpecker inspiration, the connection was immediately clear to Ethan Coen too, and if Cage's insistence on the sly hint to the character through a tattoo on his arm wasn't enough, the Woody Woodpecker haircut he was given took on symbolism of its own.
If you take note of H.I.'s hair throughout the film, you'll notice that his hairstyle gets crazier the more stressful the situation that he's in. For example, when H.I. is calm and collected taking his mugshot and meeting his wife Ed for the first time, his still strange haircut is fairly tame, with the updo flat over the sides of his face. But when fighting off Leonard Smalls, his hair shoots up in all sorts of wild directions, standing perfectly upright as if he'd been electrocuted.