The Coen Brothers.

The Coen Brothers - Directors Presentation

Ethan  Coen                           Joel Coen

                                                                                                   

The two combine to make the dynamic duo, named, The Coen Brothers.

 Joel Coen was born November 29th, 1954 and Ethan Coen was born September 21st, 1957, being raised in St.Louis Park, Minnesota, in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Joel Coen studied at New York University before moving into filmmaking in the early '80s whilst Ethan Coen went on to study philosophy at Princeton University. Joel and his younger brother began writing screenplays while Joel worked as an assistant editor on good friend Sam Raimi's 1983 film The Evil Dead. In 1984, they made their debut with Blood Simple. Both of them wrote and edited the film (using the name Roderick Jaynes down to the production guide rules), while Joel took the directing credit and Ethan billed himself as the producer. It earned considerable critical acclaim and established the brothers as fresh, original talent. Their next major effort (after Crimewave, a 1985 film they wrote that was directed by Raimi), 1987's Raising Arizona was a screwball comedy miles removed from their usual, violent content of their previous movie, and it won over critics and audiences alike. Their fan base growing, the Coens went on to make Miller's Crossing (1990), a stark gangster epic with a strong performance from John Turturro, whom the brothers also used to great effect in their next film, Barton Fink (1991). Fink earned Joel a Best Director award and a Golden Palm at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the festival's Best Actor award for Turturro.

Main Credits

• Blood Simple (1984)
• Raising Arizona (1987)
• Miller's Crossing (1990)
• Barton Fink (1991)
• The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
• Fargo (1996)
• The Big Lebowski (1998)
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
• The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
• Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
• The Ladykillers (2004)
• No Country for Old Men (2007)
• Burn After Reading (2008)
• A Serious Man (2009)
• True Grit (2010)
• Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

To me, from a directorial perspective, the Coen's have an array of stylistic features which are used so frequently throughout their films. Firstly, Camera-wise, the brothers love to mix it up, regularly employing a moving camera, longer lenses with a larger depth of field, accentuated perspective changes, and visual plays between light and darkness. Also Pre-production is the one most important part of the process for the duo; they often storyboard the film entirely, preparing meticulously, yet still allowing for some improvisation and spontaneity while on set. 

As well as this, Casting is essential to their films, which consist of very strong ensemble casts including the likes of Frances McDormand (Married to Joel Coen), Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, John Turturro, Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, Holly Hunter and George Clooney. They also tend to write roles for specific actors in mind.

“Frequently we are writing characters and we are thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to see such and such play this kind of a person?’, and the character starts to grow out of that as you are writing it. It’s a combination of things that you are making up and what you know about the actor.”

'Ethan Coen'

Another feature that stands out to me is the mise en scene throughout their films, it is always so stylised and  unique. The characters within the films have such creative aesthetics and it's extremely pleasing visually to watch. This reinforces some of the characters powerful personalities created by the brothers, which are so far from the typical personality traits of your generic man/woman. What I also noticed, in two particular films are that certain characters have 'wrinkles', The Big Lebowski being one, with 'The Dude' played by Jeff Bridges, always having a White Russian in his hand whenever the opportunity arrises. Also in No Country For Old Men, a captive bolt pistol is used by Chigurh, Played by Javier Bardem. Overall the character depth portrayed throughout the entirety of their lengthy film careers is astonishingly deep and magical, which entranced me so much that I have now watched almost all of their feature lengths! Just a little something as well I picked up on, was there love for long corridors! 

Barton Fink

No Country For Old Men

A quote from the big Walter Sobchak (TBL) which will stay with me forever - " There are rules, this isn't Nam dude, this is bowling ". 

Chosen Scenes - No Country For Old Men

House Sequence

15:14m - 16:04m

This scene was chosen to just set precedent of what is going to continue throughout, it ends with Josh Brolins character inferring that his life is at danger an he might get killed. 

Shop Sequence between Chigurh and Old man

20:55 - 25:05

This scene was chosen as I felt I could play around with the steadiness of the camera, and manipulate it to create an even greater sense of intensity and fear. This sequence is already superb as it's lack of sound creates such a dreaded atmosphere between the 2 polar opposite characters. We as the audience know what unspeakable atrocities Chigurh is capable of and the innocent soul of the old man is on the edge of his blade, being played with by the principles of Chigurh.   

Hotel Sequence

56:06 - 58:08

I wanted to end on this scene as it lacks dialogue (which is frustratingly hard to find in a coen brother prod.) and I felt I could come at it from a different perspective, possibly the perspective of Chigurh instead of being blind from him in the original. I know that is how the intensity is captured but I felt there is a lot to be played with on this scene, in different aspects.

All in all just under 7 minutes!