The Two Headed Directorby Adam D. Miller
The Two-Headed Director
By Adam D. Miller
Way up North there were these fellas. Fellas I wanna tell you about. Fellas by the names of Joel and Ethan. Born and raised in Minneapolis, some people call these two brothers the “two headed director.” They went to school together, they’ve written all of their films together, and they even direct together, though Joel is usually the one who gets all the credit for it. They make movies that’ll chill you to the bone. That Charlie Meadows in Barton Fink is creepy as heck. Seemed like a friendly guy, though. The Coens like to fool you like that. Make you think you can trust the bad guy. Someone always seems to get killed in bizarre circumstances. And yet, they are rarely depressin’. They sure make you laugh pretty good too. And man, are their soundtracks good or what?
Joel & Ethan Coen make films that are, more than anything, Coen Brothers films. Despite casting big stars such as Nicolas Cage, Billy Bob Thornton, Tom Hanks, George Clooney, and Jeff Bridges, they are perfectly capable of making their audiences aware of the fact that they are watching a Coen Brothers film, not a film that is the property of the actors who star in them. Like Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, or David Lynch, we are so aware of the ‘Coen-ness’of Joel & Ethan’s films, that we often feel we can compare them and analyze them very closely.
There are definitely common trends and themes to examine. The protagonist is often much of an antihero, embodying traits that we might normally find outlandish. Surely, while we laugh at The Dude or Ulysses Everett McGill, we are ultimately laughing at them, not with them. The female characters, on the other hand, are often shown to be superior to the males. Frances McDormand plays strong female roles in Blood Simple, Fargo, and The Man Who Wasn’t There. Crime (particularly kidnapping) is also often a theme, yet it is approached with a sense of humour and abstractness, making it both comedic and dramatic.
The Coens also explore the universality of characterization, plot structure, and setting. Rarely sticking to a single perspective in their representations of America, they’ve traveled to the snowy north in Fargo and the Deep South in O Brother, Where Art Thou?. They’ve been to the big cities in The Hudsucker Proxy and the small towns in Blood Simple. Wherever they go, the Coens are home, making films that are convincing in spite of their mayhem.
The Coens are well known for using many of the same people throughout their films. Frances McDormand, who is incidentally also Joel Coen’s wife, is among the many actors who have appeared in more than a handful of Joel & Ethan Coen projects. This sense of a Coens ‘club’ of sorts extends into the crew, as well. Carter Burwell has written the musical score for every Coen film, and the brothers have only relied on two cinematographers since their debut with Blood Simple. Barry Sonnenfeld (who later went on to direct such films as Men In Black and Get Shorty) fulfilled the cinematography duties for Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and Miller’s Crossing. Roger A. Deakins took over for Barton Fink and has continued to be the cinematographer for every Coens film since, up to this year’s The Ladykillers.
Simple Beginnings
“Gimme a call whenever you wanna cut off my head. I can always crawl around without it.” – Private Detective Loren Visser, Blood Simple
After apprenticing with horror directors Frank LaLoggia and Sam Raimi as an assistant editor, Joel Coen teamed up with his brother Ethan to make their first feature film, Blood Simple. It was originally released in 1984 and starred John Getz, M. Emmet Walsh, and Frances McDormand, in her filmic debut. Blood Simple was no major success, but established the Coens as makers of quirky film-noir, something that they would revisit in later films such as Fargo and The Man Who Wasn’t There. Blood Simple gained attention from independent film audiences, and in 1986, the film received six Independent Spirit Award nominations. M. Emmet Walsh and Joel Coen both won awards for Best Male Lead and Best Director, respectively.
It would be another three years before the Coens returned with their second film. Raising Arizona, a comedy starring a young Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter was released in 1987. Hunter, a former roommate of McDormand, had actually auditioned for her role in Blood Simple, but was forced to turn it down due to a prior theatrical commitment. Along with Cage, Hunter delivered some of the snappy dialogue one would come to expect from a Coen Bros. film.
Raising Arizona abandons many of the dark aspects of Blood Simple in favour of a more slapstick comedy approach to crime. The story itself is very absurd, chronicling the kidnapping and ill-fated attempt at raising a baby by an ex-cop and ex-con. The cast also includes Frances McDormand, and John Goodman, in his first role in a Joel & Ethan Coen film.
Crossing Over Into The Mainstream
“You know, for kids!” – Norville Barnes, The Hudsucker Proxy
After the mild success of Raising Arizona, the Coens were able to double their budget and make an incredibly visual film; one made for the big screen and embodying much of the cinematographic genius typical of the Coen films that would follow. Barry Sonnenfeld undoubtedly reached his cinematographic peak with Miller’s Crossing, a crime-drama about the Irish mafia released in 1990.
Miller’s Crossing, with brilliant performances by Marcia Gay Harden and Gabriel Byrne, also introduced us to a few more soon-to-be Coen regulars. The film featured the first performance in a Joel & Ethan Coen film by Steve Buscemi, who would go on to appear in the four Coens films that directly followed.
Miller’s Crossing was also the first of many Coen films to be set in the past. The 1940s in particular seem to be an inspiring time period for Joel & Ethan. Even in the present-day Intolerable Cruelty (2003), some critics likened George Clooney’s performance to Cary Grant.
John Turturro, who also starred in Miller’s Crossing returned a year later in Barton Fink, another film set in earlier days. Barton Fink is about a neurotic playwright who is sent to Hollywood to write a hit movie. The film follows the struggles of writer’s block and the loneliness of a displaced individual. Barton’s only friend, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), turns out to be wickedly evil and the film is both unpredictable and eerie, picking up on a lot of the sleepy quietness of Blood Simple.
Critically, Barton Fink was a pinnacle film for Joel & Ethan. The film won the Palm D’Or at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, which also awarded John Turturro and Joel Coen with separate awards.
The Hudsucker Proxy, released in 1994, once again set in the 1940s, is often viewed as an early flop for Joel & Ethan. The film is very fantasy-driven and certainly over-the-top. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance as Amy Archer is a purposely overblown parody of Katherine Hepburn at her most exuberant. At the same time, it is as visually stimulating as any film made by the Coens since Miller’s Crossing and contains enjoyable performances from Tim Robbins (who later that year would star in The Shawshank Redemption) and Paul Newman.
And The Oscar Goes To…
“Oh for pete's sake, he's fleeing the interview! He's fleeing the interview!” – Marge Gunderson, Fargo.
Joel & Ethan Coen returned to the present-day for the first time since Raising Arizona in their 1996 film Fargo, which took them to snowy North Dakota. The film revisited the crime theme explored in many other Coens films, and starred Coen regulars Frances McDormand and Steve Buscemi, in one of his creepier performances. The film also starred William H. Macy in one of the most heralded roles of his career. With Fargo, Joel & Ethan finally found major commercial success when the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.
The film won two Oscars. Joel & Ethan won for Best Original Screenplay, and Frances McDormand for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The English Patient won nods for Best Picture and Best Director that year, but Fargo was a huge success, becoming the first film Joel & Ethan Coen made that actually earned more money in the Box Office than it cost to make the film.
Hot off the heels of the success that came with Fargo, the Coens upped the budget once again, following up Fargo with their funniest, quirkiest, and silliest film yet. Chronicling a man simply known as The Dude, The Big Lebowski contains some of the greatest one liners ever used in a film. Fantastic performances by Jeff Bridges in the leading role, John Goodman as the short-fused Walter, and Steve Buscemi as the curious and irritable Donny make it an immensely entertaining film to watch.
The story itself is absurd yet familiar, particularly to those of us who have a common name. The Dude is a simple slacker who is mistaken for a millionaire, simply because they share the same name, Jeffrey Lebowski. The only true tragedy of the film is the death of Donny, a simple character who never earned the respect of his only friends, The Dude and Walter. Of his character’s demise, Buscemi has said, “You know, if you're going to die for somebody, it may as well be the Coens. In their last film, in The Big Lebowski, I was grateful that I just had a heart attack. In Fargo, they not only killed me, but they beat me up and shot me in the face and had an axe.”1 An axe, eh? I guess the woodchipper wasn’t as big a deal. Sadly, Donny’s death in The Big Lebowski marked the end of Steve Buscemi’s collaboration with Joel & Ethan Coen, and he has yet to appear in another film of theirs since.
And The Grammy Goes To…
“Them sirens did this to him. They loved him up and turned him into a horny toad.” – Delmar O’Donnell, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Although Fargo may have been Joel & Ethan Coen’s biggest hit, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is considered by many to be their best film yet. With hysterical slapstick comedy provided by the trio of George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, and a T-Bone Burnett produced soundtrack that practically started a musical revolution, O Brother will be remembered just as much for its music as it will for its snappy dialogue and Homer-inspired story.
As a result of the success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack, many of its artists were assembled for a concert at Carnegie Hall entitled Down From The Mountain. The concert included The Fairfield Four, Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss & Union Station (including Dan Tyminski, who actually sang ‘Man Of Constant Sorrow’), Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, and Chris Thomas King, who actually starred as blues guitarist Tommy Johnson in the film. The success of the concert led to a tour with most of the participants, and the formation of a record label, DMZ Records, co-founded by T-Bone Burnett and Joel & Ethan Coen, to promote many of the same music as that which was featured in the film.
O Brother was followed up in 2001 with The Man Who Wasn’t There, a black and white film-noir starring Billy Bob Thornton, James Gandolfini, and Frances McDormand. Some fans and critics criticized the film for lacking much of the witty and snappy dialogue ever-present in previous Coen films. Indeed, after their magnum opus in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, just about anything would have been a let down. And yet, with its silent moments and slow narration from Billy Bob Thornton, combined with cloudly and dark cinematography by Roger A. Deakins, the film is brooding and melancholy in a seductive and enticing way.
Cruelty to Filmmakers
“Attila the Hun. Ivan the Terrible. Henry the Eighth. What do they have in common? “ – Miles Massey
“….Middle name?” – Wrigley, Intolerable Cruelty
Intolerable Cruelty was the first true flop of Joel & Ethan Coen’s film career. Heavily criticized for being too mainstream, the film starred George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and lacked many of the obscure references cited in previous Coens films. The film was also only partially written by Joel & Ethan Coen, and lacked the sheer brilliance that seemed to be effortless screenwriting that made their previous films succeed in stimulating the viewer. John Beifuss put it simply in his review in Commercial Appeal: “The Coens’ most experimental film: a ‘normal’ movie.”2 And yet the film, by any other standards would have been a valiant effort, with quirky characters like Geoffrey Rush’s Australian soap star Donavan Donaly (a character who most certainly deserved more script time) and Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy.
The Ladykillers seemed slightly more promising. A re-write of the 1955 British film that starred Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness, the film would be set in modern-day Mississippi and star Tom Hanks in a role with characterization much like we would expect from the Coens.
And yet, perhaps even more than Intolerable Cruelty, the film’s dialogue is uninspired, and the film relies too heavily on fart jokes and other forms of empty humour. As Linda Cook of the Quad City Times wrote in her review of The Ladykillers, “There’s a hint of the usual Coen genius here… but only a hint..”3
Postscript
“Phone's ringing, Dude.” - Donny
“Thank you, Donny.” – The Dude, The Big Lebowski
To some, the legacy of Joel & Ethan Coen seems to be over. This is an unfair prediction. In just twenty years, the Coens have made more five-star films than some directors make in thirty. Many of us remain confident that they will wow us with a film even better than Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou? When will that happen? Who knows, but in this world of Mandy Moore and Vin Diesel movies, we can rest easy knowing that Joel & Ethan are out there to keep us entertained and on the edge.
Credits:
1. Goldshmid, Eyal. “Q&A with Steve Buscemi and Seymour Cassel.” The Slant. 23 June 1998 <http://www.theslant.com/arts_media/articles/buscemi.html>
2. Beifuss, John. “Coens play it straight in screwball comedy.” Commercial Appeal. 11 October 2003 <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/source-1345/?letter=i>
3. Cook, Linda. Ladykillers review. Quad City Times. Date unknown.
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/source-1057/?letter=l>
