Intro to Cinema: WKU

Joel Coen (1954) and Ethan Coen (1957)

“What a couple of a&%holes.”—Frances

McDormand on watching an interview with

Joel (her husband) and brother-in-law Ethan

Intro to Cinema: WKU

Joel & Ethan Coen


Ethan & Joel Coen (with an employee of the

Hotel Earle)


Ethan & Joel Coen


Ethan & Joel Coen


Ethan & Joel Coen (and George Clooney)


Ethan & Joel Coen (with Martin Scorsese)



The Coen Brothers (with Roger Deakins)

Ethan & Joel Coen


Joel & Ethan Coen


Joel & Ethan Coen


The Movies of

The Coen Brothers



David Lavery. “’Secret SH#%t’: The Uncertainty Principle,

Lying, Deviance, and the Movie Creativity of the Coen

Brothers.” Post Script 27.2 (2008): 141-153.


Cine-Mendacity

Fellini himself once even proclaimed the need for a

“cine-mendacity” to replace “cinema-verite” because “a lie is always more interesting than the truth” ( Playboy 58).

A Sample of The Brothers’

Lies

 In the best Alan Smithee tradition, they created a fictional editor for their films, the

Brit Roderick Jaynes

(of “Hayward’s

Heath, Surrey”), for whom they posited an entire professional career and a cantankerous personality —a fiction that was exposed only after his nomination for an Oscar for Fargo. He would later make a comeback, however, writing the introduction to the first volume of Coen screenplays in 2002.)

The Coen Brothers Intro to Cinema: WKU

A Sample of The Brothers’ Lies



The Coens

’ claim in their introduction to the published script of

The Big

Lebowski that it won “the 1998 Bar Kochba Award, # honouring achievements in the arts that defy racial and religious stereotyping and promote appreciation for the multiplicity of man.”



Ethan told Terry Gross on Fresh Air that he and Frances McDormand were surprised that the character of Marge Gunderson in Fargo was a favorite with audiences —“I thought she was the bad guy.”

 They insisted that Fargo was “based on a true story.”

 The Boys told all interested parties that they had never read Homer’s The

Odyssey (on which O Brother Where Art Thou? was loosely based).

# The director of the Bar Kochba, Rabbi Emmanuel Lev-Tov, we also learn, edits the quarterly journal “T’keyah and wrote a memoir entitled You with the Snozz.

The Coen Brothers


A Sample of The Brothers’ Lies



In

“The Making of

The Big Lebowskl

” available on the DVD version of the 1998 film, the Coens recall on camera, but without once making eye-contact with the lens, how a woman from Floor Covering Weekly had sought and been granted an interview concerning their new film. Since, in the opening scene of Lebowski, a thug urinates on a carpet in the apartment of “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges), thereby setting into motion the chain of events which will propel the film’s

Chandleresque plot, we find it mostly credible. Details of the interview follow: the FCW journalist, we are told, was the only interviewer they have ever encountered who couldn’t wait to get away from the usually reticent Coens; Joel and Ethan offered to be photographed for the cover of the magazine; mysteriously, the interview never appeared. Suspicious, they claim, that the interviewer might actually have been a previously snubbed critic and dubious of the existence of a weekly magazine devoted to carpet and tile, The Boys confess that they came to wonder if the whole affair might have been a hoax. Floor Covering Weekly , however, does exist.

The Coen Brothers


A Sample of

The Brothers’

Lies

Intro to Cinema:

WKU

Ethan as the more ingenious liar . . .

Ethan Coen’s Books


Ethan as the more ingenious liar

. . .

As a philosophy major at

Princeton who did his honors thesis on Wittgenstein

Steve Martin



Ethan Coen: A Brief Bio

From The Drunk Driver Has the Right of Way .

Ethan Coen lives outside of Marfa, Texas, on the ranch he won arm wrestling Lady Bird Johnson in a cantina in Ensenada in 1962

(the ensuing love story was celebrated in his memoir Don't Tell

Lyndon). He is an expert on the poetry of Walter Savage Landor and many other subjects which he travels the world to lecture upon, unsolicited. Coen is Poet-in-Residence at the University of

Big Bend and hosted its "Fire in the John" poetry readings until they changed the open bar policy. Under the pen name G. Willard

Snunt, Coen is the author of the Moe Grabinsky mystery stories, detailing the adventures of the wily toll-taker/sleuth. In his spare time he is shot from cannons.

The Coen Brothers Intro to Cinema: WKU


At Princeton, Ethan was equally out of step. After neglecting to notify the college that he planned to return from a term off, he tried to cut through the red tape with a phony doctor's excuse (from a surgeon at "Our Lady of the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat") that claimed he'd lost an arm in a hunting accident in his brother-inlaw's living room. The school ordered him to see a shrink.

--David Edelstein ( The Coen Brothers Interviews , 23)

The Coen Brothers


Speaking with one voice . . .


And yet . . . The Brothers are, in the tradition of Hitchcock, detail obsessive:

To say the Coens come prepared to shoot is to understate the case. The script has been rubbed and buffed, the shots storyboarded. On the set they rarely improvise. Joel insists that when you make a movie for so little money, you can't afford to mess around. It's strange then, to hear them rhapsodize about

Francis Coppola, a director who can't seem to work without a crisis, hammering out scenes and shots on the spot. 'I have no idea how you can go into a movie without a finished script,'

Joel admits.

--David Edelstein, The Coen Brothers Interviews 21

The Coen Brothers


Actors as cattle . . .

The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company: John

Turturro

Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink,

Fargo, Big Lebowski, O Brother

Where Art Thou


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

Bridges

Jeff

Big Lebowski, True Grit


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

George

Clooney

O Brother Where Art Thou,

Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After

Reading


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

Jon

Polito


The Hudsucker Proxy, Big

Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn’t

There


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company: Steve

Buscemi


Fargo, Big Lebowski


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

M. Emmett

Walsh

Blood Simple, Raising Arizona,

Hudsucker Proxy


The Coen Brothers

Repertoire Company:

Frances

McDormand

Blood Simple, Fargo, Big

Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn’t

There, Burn After Reading


The Coen Brothers

Repertoire Company:

Holly Hunter

Raising Arizona, O Brother

Where Art Thou


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company: Peter

Stormare

Fargo, Big Lebowski


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

Richard Jenkins

The Man Who Wasn’t There,

Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After

Reading


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company: Billy

Bob Thornton

The Man Who Wasn’t There,

Intolerable Cruelty


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

J. K. Simmons

Intolerable Cruelty, The

Ladykillers, Burn After Reading


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

Michael

Badalucco

O Brother Where Art Thou, The

Man Who Wasn’t There


The Coen

Brothers

Repertoire

Company:

John Goodman

Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Big

Lebowski


Indebted to Liz Cooke and William Preston Robertson. The Big Lebowski:

The Making of a Coen Brothers Film. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998: 16-

23.

Coen Motifs &

Signatures


Coen Motifs & Signatures:

 Howling Fat Men

 Blustery Titans (Men Behind Big Desk)

 Vomiting

 Violence (Often Extreme & Very Bloody)

 Dreams

 Peculiar Haircuts

 Eccentric/Extremely Repugnant/Over-the-Top Characters

 The Incongruous

 Odd Names

 Strong Narrative Voices/Voice-Overs

 “Hellzapopin’ Camera Work”

 Odd Angles/Shots

 Extraordinary Tracking Shots

 Long, Wordless Sequences

 Strange Dialogue


Coen Motifs & Signatures (one example):

 Peculiar Haircuts: George Clooney in O Brother (right); Brad Pitt in

Burn After (left).


Blood Simple (1984)


Visser's Opening Narration in Blood Simple

The world is full of complainers. And the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. Now I don't care if you're the Pope of Rome,

President of the United States or Man of the Year, something can all go wrong. Now go on ahead, you know complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help, and watch him fly. Now, in

Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else . . . that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, and down here you're on your own.

The Coen Brothers


Blood Simple (1984)

Cast


Raising Arizona (1987)


Raising

Arizona

(1987)

Cast


Raising Arizona (1987)

Joel: For a movie like Raising Arizona, I guess you can detect our admiration for Southern writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor

Ethan: Even if we don’t share her interest in Catholicism! But she has a true knowledge of Southern psychology that you don’t find with many other writers She also has a great sense of eccentric character. (The Coen

Brothers Interviews 26)


Flannery O’Connor

(1925-1964)


William Faulkner (1897-1962)


Chapter 18 of

Raising Arizona:

“Warthog from

Hell”

The book struck her directly over her left eye. It struck almost at the same instant that she realized the girl was about to hurl it. . . .

Mrs. Turpin’s head cleared and her power of motion returned. She leaned forward until she was looking directly into the fierce brilliant eyes. There was no doubt in her mind that the girl did know her, knew her in some intense and personal way, beyond time and place and condition, “What you got to say to me?” she asked hoarsely and held her breath, waiting, as for a revelation.

The girl raised her head. Her gaze locked with Mrs. Turpin’s. “Go back to hell where you came from, you old warthog,” she whispered.

--Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation”


Chuck Jones


Miller’s Crossing

(1990)


Miller’s

Crossing

(1990)


Barton Fink (1991)


Barton Fink

(1991)


“Fink, played with a likable, dim earnestness by John Turturro, checks into an eerie hotel that looks designed by Edward Hopper.”—

Roger Ebert

Edward Hopper, Office at

Night (1940)



Roger Ebert

Edward Hopper, Hotel

Lobby (1943)

Intro to Cinema:

WKU


Roger Ebert

Edward Hopper, New York

Movie(1939)


The Hudsucker Proxy

(1994)


The

Hudsucker

Proxy

(1994)

Cast


Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

(Frank Capra, 1939)


Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra,

1936 [Cooper, Jean Arthur, Capra])


Preston Sturges (1898-

1959)


Fargo (1996)


Fargo (1996)

Based on a true story . . .


Fargo

(1996)

Cast


The Big Lebowski

(1998)


The Big

Lebowski

(1998)

Cast


Cult Media


The Cult Film

A COMPLETELY FURNISHED WORLD.


 Table of Contents

 Introduction / Edward P. Comentale and

Aaron Jaffe

Part 1. Ins (Intrinsic Models and Influences)

 1. The Really Big Sleep: Jeffrey Lebowski as the Second Coming of Rip Van Winkle / Fred

Ashe

 2. A Once and Future Dude: The Big

Lebowski as Medieval Grail-Quest / Andrew

Rabin

 3. Dudespeak: Or, How to Bowl like a

Pornstar / Justus Nieland

 4. Metonymic Hats and Metaphoric

Tumbleweeds: Noir Literary Aesthetics in

Miller’s Crossing and The Big Lebowski /

Christopher Raczkowski

 5. The Dude and the New Left / Stacy

Thompson

 6. The Big Lebowski and Paul de Man:

Historicizing Irony and Ironizing Historicism /

Joshua Kates

Edited by Edward P.

Comentale and Aaron Jaffe


O Brother Where Art

Thou? (2000)

There is a Bible in every wanderer's bedroom, where there might better be the Odyssey.

James Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology


Brother Where

Art Thou?

(2000)

Cast


Homer’s The Odyssey

 Odysseus—the King of Ithaca

 Penelope—Odysseus’ wife (a “spinster”)

 The Trojan War: The Trojan Horse

 The Journey Home:

 Scylla and Charybdis

 The Sirens

 The Cyclops

 Circe/Calypso

 Defeating the Suiters


The Man Who Wasn’t

There (2001)



There (2001)



There (2001)

A story of a barber who wants to become a dry cleaner.



There (2001)


The Man Who

Wasn’t There

(2001)

Cast


Other Titles Considered for The Man Who Was Not There

(according to Roderick Jaynes in his “Introduction” to the screenplay)

 I, The Barber

 The Man Who Smoked Too Much

 The Nirdlinger Doings

 Missing, Presumed Ed

 Mr. Mum

 I Love You, Birdie Abundas

 The Barber, Crane

 Edward Crane

 The Other Side of Fate

 None Know My Name

 I Will Cut Hair No More Forever

 The Man Who Wasn’t All There

 The Man with the Gas Hearth or My Hearth is Gas


They got this guy, in Germany. Fritz something-orother. Or is it? Maybe it's Werner. Anyway, he's got this theory, you wanna test something, you know, scientifically—how the planets go round the sun, what sunspots are made of, why the water comes out of the tap—well, you gotta look at it. But sometimes, you look at it, your looking “changes” it. Ya can't know the reality of what happened, or what

“would've” happened if you hadden a stuck in your goddamn schnozz. So there “is” no “what happened.”

Not in any sense that we can grasp with our puny minds. Because our minds . . . our minds get in the way. Looking at something changes it. They call it the

“Uncertainty Principle.” Sure, it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy's on to something.

Werner Heisenberg

No Country for Old

Men (2007)


No Country for Old Men

(2007)

Cast



Burn After Reading

(2008)


Burn After

Reading

(2008)

Cast


A Serious Man(2009)

Please don’t hurt the Jews . . .


A Serious

Man (2009)

Cast


A Serious

Man (2009)

Ethan and Joel at the 2009 Toronto Film

Festival screening of A Serious Man.


A Serious Man(2009)

“and that means . . . so that ... from which we derive . . . and also . . . which lets us . . . and . . . Okay? The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can't ever really know . . . what's going on. . . . But even if you can't figure anything out, you'll still be responsible for it on the mid-term .”

My Article on Schrodinger’s Paradox


True Grit (2010)


Inside Llewyn Davis

(2013)



? ? ?


Joel Coen (1954) and Ethan Coen (1957)

“What a couple of a&%holes.”—Frances

McDormand on watching an interview with

Joel (her husband) and brother-in-law Ethan


Intro to Cinema: WKU

Cine-Mendacity

Coen Motifs &

Signatures

Flannery O’Connor

(1925-1964)

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

Chuck Jones

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

(Frank Capra, 1939)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra,

1936 [Cooper, Jean Arthur, Capra])

Cult Media

The Cult Film

Related documents

Products

Support

Intro to Cinema: WKU

Cine-Mendacity

Coen Motifs &

Signatures

Flannery O’Connor

(1925-1964)

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

Chuck Jones

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

(Frank Capra, 1939)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra,

1936 [Cooper, Jean Arthur, Capra])

Cult Media

The Cult Film

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