The Coen Brothers

The ‘Coen Brothers’ are known together, professionally, as film makers/directors.

They apparently share a ‘similar vision’ for their film writing and are known as ‘the two-headed director’ for that factor.

Joel Coen started his interest in film at a young age, saving up to buy a Super8 camera at the age of 11. He used to always receive sole credit for their films, whilst Ethan was merely credited as the producer, until the film ‘Lady Killer’ in 2004 where they were both credited up until now for the directing and producing.

Looking more into the production of their films, I have found that Roderick Jaynes, who is constantly credited as being film editor, is actually non-existent and the name is just a pseudonym for Joel and Ethan.

Whilst trying to pick up on common factors from film to film, I’ve noticed that, in ways, there’s always a victim of some sort and nearly always a theme of carelessness and lack of compassion amongst that of the harmful character.

There’s often a small and quite un-noticeable key phrase repeated to some extent throughout the film, just like that of the “what’s the most you’ve ever lost in a coin toss?” from No Country For Old Men.

The films are extremely rarely set in a modern-day time, to my knowledge, like the way that No Country For Old Men is set in 1980, Fargo in 1987 and The Big Lebowski in 1991.

A number of the films open with a landscape, quite deadpan shot of the area/setting.

Something I really picked up on when just browsing through trailers for Coen Brother films was the fact that, in quite a number of the opening scenes for them, there’s quite the Southern American voiceover telling a story or doing narrating of some sort. (Blood Simple, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men).

I found a quote; “Several Coen Brothers films feature a mysterious, purely evil antagonist, who are typically laconic, physically imposing and extremely violent”.

I thought it was especially perfect for that of No Country For Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.

Another quote being; “Often has at least one male character with dated, unusual, or goofy hair” referring to the styling of the actors, I thought this was brilliant. You’ve got the hair of Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, Walter Sobchak’s hair played by John Goodman in The Big Lebowski and I’d maybe say Chad Feldheimer’s hair played by Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading, even if I do quite like it.

My father’s quite into films and recommended watching No Country For Old men a couple of years ago. My film taste is quite dry and that’s what he described it as.

It’s no coincidence that I come across the work of the Coen Brothers being described as ‘Dry’ as that’d definitely refer to their work on so many levels.

My research came from a mixture of The Internet Movie Database, a small amount from Wikipedia and ‘www.coenbrothers.net’.