The Coen Brothers, Second EditionSimon and Schuster, 2016 M01 5 - 360 pages Brought completely up to date, this insightful biography remains "a must for any self-respecting Coen fan" (Screentrade). This fully updated edition of the first biography of the Coen Brothers includes their complete work so far, from Blood Simple to Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), with a reassessment of their remarkable career as a whole. Joel and Ethan Coen have pulled off the ultimate balancing act. Despite having their movies financed and distributed by major studios, they have managed to remain true independents, rejecting commercial clichés and never giving up on their own fiercely idiosyncratic vision. While doing so, they have established themselves among the world's leading filmmakers. From their startling debut, Blood Simple (1984), all of their movies reveal a distinctive stamp: a flamboyant visual style, richly conceived characters, crisp dialogue, and brilliant casting. They have revitalized old Hollywood genres such as noir, screwball, and the western, giving them a contemporary sensibility. In this biography, Ronald Bergan traces the brothers' Jewish roots, their beginnings as film geeks in suburban Minneapolis, their battle to get their first feature made and released, through their early features and the movies of their maturity. He gives blow-by-blow accounts of the making of each movie. New chapters cover all those released since O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), with which the first edition of this book ended. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 80
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... scene with Blood Simple in 1984, they immediately established their credentials as the true descendants of the masters of the American film noir of the 1940s, and showed how profoundly they were imbued with the spirit of the hard-boiled ...
... scene with Blood Simple in 1984, they immediately established their credentials as the true descendants of the masters of the American film noir of the 1940s, and showed how profoundly they were imbued with the spirit of the hard-boiled ...
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... scene and that was tricky at times,” that didn't disqualify two middle-class Midwest Jews from making a superior western. “No horses were harmed” during the making of True Grit, just as “no Jews were harmed” during the making of A ...
... scene and that was tricky at times,” that didn't disqualify two middle-class Midwest Jews from making a superior western. “No horses were harmed” during the making of True Grit, just as “no Jews were harmed” during the making of A ...
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... scenes in their films. He then took Ethan's body into the country around Minneapolis, Minnesota, their hometown, and was feeding it into a mechanical wood-chipper when the police caught up with him. Joel then turned the gun on himself ...
... scenes in their films. He then took Ethan's body into the country around Minneapolis, Minnesota, their hometown, and was feeding it into a mechanical wood-chipper when the police caught up with him. Joel then turned the gun on himself ...
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... scene reminiscent of one in Pardon Us (1931), Laurel and Hardy's first feature. Stan and Ollie are sent to prison for bootlegging. When they make their escape, they find themselves in cotton fields, where they black up and join the ...
... scene reminiscent of one in Pardon Us (1931), Laurel and Hardy's first feature. Stan and Ollie are sent to prison for bootlegging. When they make their escape, they find themselves in cotton fields, where they black up and join the ...
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... scenes.” The brothers referred to here are not the Coens but the Italians Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Codirected films and sibling filmmakers are not as “singular” or uncommon as has been made out. After all, in the beginning were the ...
... scenes.” The brothers referred to here are not the Coens but the Italians Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Codirected films and sibling filmmakers are not as “singular” or uncommon as has been made out. After all, in the beginning were the ...
Contents
The Brothers Geek | |
First Blood | |
Hi Stakes VI Double Crossing | |
Hollywood Nuts | |
Yah Yah | |
Cool Dudes | |
Odd Odyssey | |
James M Coen | |
Intolerable Hollywood Bowel Syndrome | |
Blood Complex | |
A Comedy of Errors | |
A Good | |
CapraCoen | |
Common terms and phrases
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