Joel’s film school experience would assist him in landing a number of editing jobs on small budget films, providing him with exposure to film production practices. Ethan, on the other hand, ventured to Princeton choosing Philosophy as his major, he composed a thesis on Wittgenstein. ![]() (2) Joel proceeded to New York University where, in lieu anything better, he enrolled in a film course. Their childhood was largely unremarkable and aside from the production of a few super-8 home movies, a future in filmmaking seemed unlikely (Ethan’s book of short stories entitled Gates Of Eden contains pseudo-biographical, though ‘fictional’, narratives of the Coens’ upbringing). The brothers were raised in a typical middle-American, middle-class Jewish household. Joel and Ethan Coen were born in Minnesota to academic parents. Nearly 20 years since they made their debut with the independently financed Blood Simple, the Coen brothers remain in critical limbo-considered to be neither serious artists nor commercial achievers. Yet, when they construct a world with no resemblance to reality they are charged with avoiding moral or ethical expression. ![]() The Coens’ detailed reconstruction of identifiable communities, with all their quirks and eccentricities, has led many critics to accuse them of adopting a lofty superiority to their characters. Ironically, it has been these twin aspects of Joel and Ethan Coen’s work-particularised communities and artificial constructions-which has provided the most potent ammunition for critics. Barton Fink is set in the ‘real’ world of Hollywood-an exquisite conception of an authentic world of pure make-believe, “a society where myth has blurred with reality.” (1) Barton Fink (1991) might be described as occupying a midpoint position in such an analytical survey of Joel and Ethan Coen’s films. Miller’s Crossing (1990), which spins a vast intrigue in an unnamed town, secures much of its conception from Dashiell Hammett’s novels, The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) owes its physical and thematic construction more to the universe of film noir than its Californian location, and The Hudsucker Proxy is a patchwork assembly of Capra settings, Sturges characters and Screwball Comedy tropes. Yet, the Coen brothers are just as assured in depicting artificial worlds with antecedents in popular culture. Many of the films of the Coen brothers are specific to particular regions and communities- Blood Simple (1983) owes much of its character to its Texas setting, Raising Arizona (1987) paints a very particular picture of the inhabitants of the American South-West, The Big Lebowski (1998) gains much of its absurdist comedy from its depiction of the very absurd Los Angeles community and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) relies on the meticulous recreation of Depression-era Mississippi. It is between these two extremes that the remainder of their films can be mapped. The Coens have been drawn to two seemingly irresolvable modes of expression: ethnographic regionalism and artificial fabrication. ![]() It is easy to imagine the brothers peering out their living-room window to witness the very particular and precise ethnographic detail which would find careful representation in their best received film, Fargo (1996), then turning to their television-set to observe a Frank Capra comedy or Preston Sturges farce and discovering moments, characters, narratives and themes which would find illustration in their most mannered and artificial work, The Hudsucker Proxy (1993). The adolescent experiences of the young Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, forced indoors by frigid Minnesota winters, provides a remarkably crystalline metaphor for their later film work. The Coens are clever directors who know too much about movies and too little about real life. September 21, 1957, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA November 29, 1954, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USAĮthan Coen: b.
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