Joel and Ethan Coen

Joel and Ethan Coen, commonly called The Coen Brothers, are Jewish-American film directors best known for their quirky comedies such as Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski, as well as for darker film noir dramas such as Fargo and Blood Simple. The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, alternating top billing for the screenplay. Until recently, Joel received sole credit for directing the films, and Ethan for producing, but the two brothers work so closely together and share such a strong vision of what their films are to be that actors report that they can approach either brother with a question and get the same answer. The brothers are known in the film business as "the two-headed director."

Stylistic devices

Owing a heavy debt to film noir and other film styles of the past, the Coen brothers' films combine dry humor with sharp irony and shocking visuals, most often in moving camera shots. The Coens prefer not to put the opening credits at the very beginning of the film.

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Dialogue

The Coen brothers' films typically feature a combination of dry wit, exaggerated language, and glaring irony. The brothers frequently use dialogue to develop characters and advance plot. The exaggerated language is sometimes erudite (as in Tom's "if I'd known we were going to cast our feelings into words, I'd have memorized the Song of Solomon") but more often failed erudition ("Jesus, Tom, I was just speculatin' about a hypothesis" (Miller's Crossing), "You know, it's proven that cigarettes are carci—carci—cancer-causing" (Fargo), and the Dude's imitation of Maude's "in the parlance of our times," appending it with "You know?... Man?" (The Big Lebowski).)

Related Topics:
Song of Solomon - Erudition

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Blood and guts

The Coens also show a fascination with blood and vomit; Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, and Blood Simple all show elaborate puddles of blood, whereas in Fargo it's a wide spray in the snow coming from a wood chipper; Tom vomits in Miller's Crossing once off-screen at his house and once on-screen in the crossing itself; Marty vomits in Ray's yard in Blood Simple, and then vomits again on the floor later (but this time it's a torrent of blood); Charlie vomits off-screen in Barton Fink; and Marge bends over to vomit but doesn't in Fargo.

Related Topics:
Blood - Vomit

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Film noir and misunderstanding

Stylistically, Coen brothers movies show a heavy debt to film noir, featuring stark contrast in lighting (most notably in Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, and Fargo) and the typical theme of people being in over their heads in a scheme. Their movies often deal with kidnapping. A near universal plot device is misunderstanding: misunderstanding over who killed Rug Daniels and who took his hair causes friction between different mobs in Miller's Crossing; misunderstanding of Norville's blueprint causes him some grief later in The Hudsucker Proxy; everyone except for the nihilists in The Big Lebowski misunderstands Bunny's kidnapping; and in Blood Simple, misunderstanding is the driving force behind the entire plot past the thirty-minute mark. The Coen brothers' film The Man Who Wasn't There pays homage to film noir, with a plot that seems an update/twist of The Postman Always Rings Twice. The film is in black and white and has been lauded by various critics for both its cinematography and its sharply drawn, fairly sympathetic characters, though many critics take issue with the sharp turn in plot towards the end.

Related Topics:
Film noir - Kidnapping - The Man Who Wasn't There - The Postman Always Rings Twice

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Depictions of various cities, states, and regions of America

The various aspects that make the character of a city, state or region of America are an integral component in several Coen brothers films. Raising Arizona strongly features the distinct Arizona landscape, and some of the movie's characters are stereotypes of typical Arizonans. Similarly, in Fargo the landscape and accents of North Dakota and Minnesota are an essential component of the film. The Big Lebowski is the Coens' Los Angeles film, with the Dude and other characters as emblematic of the city's eclectic population. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is distinctly Southern, as it was filmed in rural Mississippi, most of the characters speak with pronounced Southern accents, and the soundtrack is a mix of old country and folk songs. Barton Fink is in some respects a satire on another famous area of Los Angeles, Hollywood. There are several scenes in the movie that in the Coen brothers' distinctly farcical way, paint the movie industry, and movie executives in particular, in a very unflattering light.

Related Topics:
Arizona - Stereotype - North Dakota - Minnesota - Los Angeles - Southern - Mississippi - Country - Folk - Hollywood

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The Coens also often set their movies in times of American crisis: Blood Simple and Raizing Arizona in the Reagan 1980s, Miller's Crossing during prohibition, Barton Fink in the time around the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Big Lebowski during the 1991 Gulf War, The Hudsucker Proxy during the Eisenhower era, and O Brother Where Art Thou? during the Great Depression. It is interesting to note that some of the Coens' most recent films have been set in the present.

Related Topics:
Reagan - Prohibition - Attack on Pearl Harbor - Gulf War - Eisenhower - Great Depression

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