Author: Ian Nathan
Publisher: Phaidon Press
ISBN: 9782866429034
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
An essential introduction to the world's greatest directing team - the Coen brothers. Ethan and Joen Coen is a comprehensive, yet concise and accessible monograph including insightful texts written by some of the world's most respected specialists. This guide is richly illustrated with 100 images, some of which have rarely been seen before.
Author: Schuy R. Weishaar
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476600600
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
The concepts and theories surrounding the aesthetic category of the grotesque are explored in this book by pursuing their employment in the films of American auteurs Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, the Coen Brothers and David Lynch. The author argues that interpreting these directors' films through the lens of the grotesque allows us1to situate both the auteurs and the films within a long history of the grotesque in art and aesthetics. This cultural tradition effectively subsumes the contribution of any artist or1genre that intersects it but also affords the artist or genre--the auteur and the genre filmmaker--a pantheon and an abundance of images, themes, and motifs through which he1or she can subversively represent the world and our place in it.
Author: Erica Rowell
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 146166408X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
In 1984 Joel and Ethan Coen burst onto the art-house film scene with their neo-noir Blood Simple and ever since then they have sharpened the cutting edge of independent film. Blending black humor and violence with unconventional narrative twists, their acclaimed movies evoke highly charged worlds of passion, absurdity, nightmare realms, and petty human failures, all the while revealing the filmmakers' penchant for visual jokes and bravura technical strokes. Their central characters may be blind to reality and individual flaws, but their illusions, dreams, fears, and desires map the boundaries of their worlds—worlds made stunningly memorable by the Coens. In The Brothers Grim: The Films of Ethan and Joel Coen, Erica Rowell unmasks the filmmakers as prankster mythmakers exploiting and subverting universal storytelling modes to further what seems to be their artistic agenda: to elicit laughs. Often employing satire and allegory, the Coens' movies hold a mirror up to American society, allowing viewers to both chuckle and gasp at its absurdities, hypocrisies, and foibles. From business partnerships (Blood Simple, The Ladykillers) to marriage (Intolerable Cruelty) to friendship and ethics (Miller's Crossing), the breakdowns of relationships are a steady focus in their work. Often the Coens' satires put broken social institutions in their cinematic crosshairs, exposing cracks in ineffective penal systems (Raising Arizona; O Brother, Where Art Thou?), unjust justice systems (The Man Who Wasn't There), a crooked corporate America (The Hudsucker Proxy), unnecessary wars (The Big Lebowski), a tyrannical Hollywood (Barton Fink), and the unbridled, fatuous pursuit of the American Dream (Fargo). While audiences may be excused for missing the duo's social commentary, the depth and breadth of the brothers' films bespeak an intelligence and cultural acuity that is rich, highly topical, and hard to pigeonhole.
Author: Joel Coen
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9781578068890
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
Collected interviews with the quirky and distinctive writer/director team of such films as Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty, and Barton Fink
Author: Mark T. Conard
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813138698
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 467
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Book Description
“Written for both fans of the Coen brothers and the philosophically curious, without the technical language . . . educational and entertaining.” —Library Journal Joel and Ethan Coen have made films that redefined the gangster movie, the screwball comedy, the fable, and the film noir, but no matter what genre they’re playing with, they consistently focus on the struggles of complex characters to understand themselves and their places in the strange worlds they inhabit. To borrow a phrase from Barton Fink, all Coen films explore “the life of the mind” and show that the human condition can often be simultaneously comic and tragic, profound and absurd. The essays in this book explore the challenging moral and philosophical terrain of the Coen repertoire. Several address how Coen films often share film noir’s essential philosophical assumptions: power corrupts, evil is real, and human control of fate is an illusion. In Fargo, not even Minnesota’s blankets of snow can hide Jerry Lundegaard’s crimes or brighten his long, dark night of the soul. The tale of love, marriage, betrayal, and divorce in Intolerable Cruelty transcends the plight of the characters to illuminate competing theories of justice. Even in lighter fare, such as Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski, the comedy emerges from characters’ journeys to the brink of an amoral abyss. However, the Coens often knowingly and gleefully subvert conventions and occasionally offer symbolic rebirths and other hopeful outcomes. At the end of The Big Lebowski, for example, the Dude abides, his laziness has become a virtue, and the human comedy is perpetuating itself with the promised arrival of a newborn Lebowski. The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers sheds new light on the work of these cinematic visionaries. From Blood Simple to No Country for Old Men, the Coens’ characters look for answers—though in some cases, their quest for answers leads, at best, only to more questions.
Author: Lynnea Chapman King
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0810885778
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
Joel and Ethan Coen have written and directed some of the most celebrated American films of the last thirty years. The output of their work has embraced a wide range of genres, including the neo-noirs Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn’t There, theabsurdist comedy Raising Arizona, and the violent gangster film Miller’s Crossing. Whether producing original works like Fargo and Barton Fink or drawing on inspiration from literature, such as Charles Portis’ True Grit or Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, the brothers put their distinctive stamp on each film. In The Coen Brothers Encyclopedia, all aspects of these gifted siblings as writers, directors, producers, and even editors—in the guise of Roderick Jaynes—are discussed. Entries in this volume focus on creative personnel behind the camera, including costume designers, art directors, and frequent contributors like cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Carter Burwell. Recurring actors are also represented, such as Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, George Clooney, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand, and John Turturro. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of published sources, both in print and online. From Blood Simple to Inside Llewyn Davis, The Coen Brothers Encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference on two of the most significant filmmakers of the last three decades. An engaging examination of their work, this volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and fans interested in this creative duo.
Author: Carol Siegel
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253060249
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
What are the consequences of how Jews are depicted in movies and television series? Drawing on a host of movies and television series from the 1970s to present day, Jews in Contemporary Visual Entertainment explores how the media sexualize and racialize American Jews. Race and sexuality frequently intersect in the depiction of Jewish characters in such shows as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, UnREAL, The Expanse, and Breaking Bad, and in films such as Hester Street, Once Upon a Time in America, Casino, Radio Days, Inglourious Basterds, and Barton Fink. When they do, American sexual norms are invariably challenged or outright broken by these anti-Semitic representations of Jewishness. Insightful and provocative, Jews in Contemporary Visual Entertainment disturbingly reveals the far-reaching influence of popular visual media in shaping how American Jews are perceived today.
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307390535
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road comes a "profoundly disturbing and gorgeously rendered" novel (The Washington Post) that returns to the Texas-Mexico border, setting of the famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, a good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law—in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell—can contain. As Moss tries to evade his pursuers—in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives—McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines. No Country for Old Men is a triumph. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.
Author: Elijah Siegler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781481302838
Category : Motion pictures
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit--Joel and Ethan Coen make movies. They make movies that matter. But do these movies matter for religion? Coen is a masterful response to this question of religious significance that neither imposes alien orthodoxy nor consigns the Coens to religious insignificance. The Coen movies discussed each receive a chapter-length investigation of the specific film's relation to the religious. Far more than just documenting religion in all Coen films--from blink-and you'll-miss-them biblical references to gospel tunes framing the soundtrack--the volume, cumulatively, mounts a compelling case for the Coens' consistent religious outlook with an original argument about precisely what constitutes religion. The volume reveals how Coen films emerge as morality tales, set in a mythological American landscape, that critique greed and self-interest. Coen heroes often confront apocalyptic and unredeemable evil, face human limitation and the banality of violence, and force audiences to wrestle with redemption and grace within the stark moral worlds portrayed on screen. This is religion on Coen terms. Coen teaches its readers something new about religion, about film, and about the kind of world-making that each claims to be.
Author: Diana Royer
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476684197
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
American classic films noir, beginning with 1941's The Maltese Falcon and ending with 1950's Sunset Boulevard, and the neo-noir films made from the 1970s onward, share certain thematic aspects, stylistic qualities, and cultural contexts. Their concern with politics, their depiction of con artists, and the way their characters are shaped by America's puritanical religious roots show that these films are examples of a unique American genre, even when the films' directors are German emigres with artistic roots in European Expressionism. The films' psychological depth is revealed stylistically through complex narratives, with select directors generating visual poetry as they deal with sex, violence and betrayal. Some films are based on popular novels inspired by true crime cases. A unique approach to film noir scholarship, this book discusses the genre's thematic aspects, cultural contexts and stylistic qualities. For those films based upon novels, in-depth analysis of the fiction is provided alongside the film version, resulting in a fuller, more thorough understanding of the genre.
