Filmmaker Profile: The Coen Brothers

by Marcy Dermansky

What a pair of siblings. Joel Coen writes and directs. Ethan Coen writes and produces. Their films are funny, violent, surreal, eccentric, quirky and more. In the last two decades, the Coen brothers have played with various films genres, from their first film Blood Simple (1984), a stylish, violent excercise in film noir, to the classic gangster epic, Miller's Crossing (1990), to the soon to be released Homeric musical O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Rebecca Flint of All Movie Guide calls the Coen brothers "the most visionary and idiosyncratic filmmakers of the late 20th century." Their films have garnered both popular success and enormous critical acclaim. Barton Fink won numerous prizes at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival: Best Director for Joel, a Golden Palm and Best Actor award for Turturo. The enormously successful Fargo (1996) was also a critical darling. The brothers shared a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for their work, and another Oscar for Best Actress went to Frances McDormand.

The best thing to do when watching a Coen brothers film is to give your trust to the Coens. What I like best about each film is alway the characters. The quintessential Coen narrator is always a bit off. Always weird. Always interesting. Usually, but certainly not necessarily endearing. Not much attention was paid to charming comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), but Jeff Bridges was wonderful as the laid-back, bowling, pot smoking The Dude. Holly Hunter and Nicholas Cage (before they were Academy Award winner Holly Hunter and Nick Cage) were memorable in Raising Arizona (1987) as the police officer and convict who fall in love, marry and decide to kidnap a baby. Frances McDormand as the pregnant police officer in Fargo (1996). Steve Buscemi as the hitman, and the list goes on and on.

Next, On the Coen Horizon, The Films