No Country For Old Men Film Analysis
Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, collectively known as the Coen brothers, began their foray into filmmaking in 1984 with their first movie Blood Simple. Throughout the following 27 years they have made another 14 films, ranging from dark comedies such as Fargo and Burn After Reading to their critically acclaimed No Country For Old Men, and, while their films showcase their expertise in several areas, can they truly be described as auteur?
Francois Truffaut was a French critic, who wrote for Cahiers du Cinema, and his most notable article “Une Certain Tendance du Cinema Français,”, written in 1954, introduced the idea of the auteur director. Truffaut argued that “An auteur is primarily and exclusively a director. Mise-en-scene is the …show more content…
auteur stripped bare; ...... and this alone defines the auteur”. Truffaut believed that an auteur director injected his own personal creativity into their work, and created a style that could be easily attributed to them. Andrew Sarris, an American film critic further developed Auteur theory, citing three principles an auteur director should possess. These are that the director should have knowledge of the technicalities of filmmaking, have an individual style which resonates throughout their work and that their work contains interior meaning.
One aspect that auteur theory concerns itself with is the amount of control a director has over a film. The Coen brothers direct, produce, write and edit (usually under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes). Various nominations and awards are testimony to their expertise. They have been nominated no less than thirteen times for an Academy Award and have won on four occasions, for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture. Although there are two directors, they are renowned for their compatibility with each other and have been referred to as “two sides of the same head”. The Coen brothers also maintain control over their films by producing storyboards and ‘sides’ for their crew so that everyone knows who is doing what and how many take are required. This ensures efficiency, so much so that filming of A Serious Man finished a week early and under budget. This degree of efficiency is required as the Coen brothers are often the producers of their movies, and while this may lead them to have to work from a smaller budget, it gives them the freedom to work without having to compromise their control due to outside commercial or financial reasons. This approach also ensures “the visual conception is affirmed and preserved by the many other creative talents—cinematographers, actors, editors—involved in the production of their films” again preserving control for the Coen brothers.
The Coen brothers’ films have several similarities with each other, including clever use of camera techniques and extensive use of brutal violence.
The Coen brothers’ heavy emphasis on dialogue, a key feature being their dark sense of humour and use of blatant irony. Many of the Coen brothers’ films feature a misunderstanding as a central plot line. These are all styles which help identify a Coen brothers ' film. It is also characteristic of auteur directors to work often with a select group of actors and the Coen brothers are no exception to this rule. (George Clooney, Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand are just some of the actors who have worked with the Coen brothers on at least three occasions), although a cynic might draw correlations to Frances McDormand 's reoccurring casting and her marriage to Joel Coen.
The Coen brothers coined the phrase ‘Rami Cam Rush’ shot, in tribute to Sam Raimi who had collaborated with them on a number of projects, where “in their tracking shots they ‘rush’ the camera forward” This type of shot can be seen in Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker …show more content…
Proxy.
The Coen brothers’ films are notable for their depiction of violence, indeed death incurs in all of their films. Even their screwball comedies The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers do not escape this, although deaths are not portrayed quite as brutal (in The Hudsucker Proxy, when the Company President commits suicide, I found the portrayal quite comedic, due to the limbering up in advance and the exaggerated start off, and there is no spillage of blood), compared to the woodchipper scene (see Fig. 1) in Fargo and Brad Pitt’s death (see Fig. 2) in Burn After Reading, although these deaths did invoke laughter due to the absurdity of the situations.
The unusual use of dialogue, especially diction and heavy accents are identified as Coen traits. These are evidenced in O Brother Where Art Thou (a thick Southern Mississippi accent is used for upmost comedic effect), especially by Holly Hunter. In the scene where she tells the children that their father is dead, her line "That ain 't your daddy, your daddy got hit by a train." would not have the same effect were it spoken in the Queen’s English. Another notable accent is the Minnesotan accent used in Fargo (critically appraised by Tom Dirk)
Misunderstanding plays a pivotal role and is a recurrent theme in several on the Coen brothers’ film. Their first film, Blood Simple’s starting premise is based on the misunderstanding in a phone call that John Getz’ has that Frances McDormand has murdered her husband. Although they do eventually meet up the truth is still not revealed to either character, causing more wires to be crossed, ending in two fatal shootings. In Burn After Reading, Frances McDormand is again, the victim of a misunderstanding, where she acquires a cd which she mistakenly believes contains highly sensitive material, which again leads to a fatal shooting, albeit this film was more slapstick than film noir.
Sarris’ final proof of Auteur theory was the notion of ‘interior meaning’, and while Sarris himself declares that “it is hard to say what it is exactly” I take it to mean how a director’s “particular outlook and sensibility” will affect the content of their film. Most of the Coen brother films are consistent in that they have a philosophical slant, not surprising considering Ethan studied philosophy while at University and wrote a 41 page essay on the subject. In No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers deal with the ethics of ‘doing the right thing’ and how the failure of this can bring dire consequences, with Josh Brolin’s character taking the money instead of helping a dying man, clearly the less moral of the two actions, and as a result brings havoc and death by way of the hitman Anton Chigurh. This theme is also evident in their 2004 film, The Ladykillers. Having looted the casino’s vault, the gang are found out by the pious Mrs. Munsen and offered the chance of redemption. As with No Country For Old Men, the morally correct choice is declined, leading to comedic but deathly results for the gang.
From their large back catalogue of films, it would certainly seem that the Coen brothers fit into the mould of auteur theory. However there are several disadvantages in prescribing rigidly to auteur theory. Primarily, it credits the director with the success of the film, at the expense of everyone else. While the Coen brothers often collaborate with the same people over several movies (i.e. J. Anderson has worked on every Coen movie from Raising Arizona to No Country for Old Men, and music for all Coens’ movies was courtesy of Carter Burwell), it is difficult to distinguish whether it is the Coen brothers or these collaborators that are imprinting themselves into the film. Secondly, if the basis of an auteur director is one who leaves a unique stamp on their work, this leaves membership to the auteur club open to personal interpretation and in theory, any and all directors could be described as auteur as no two directors are alike, each having their own distinct style (ironically, apart from the Coen brothers who have been described as the “two headed director”). Conversely, being labelled an auteur director can also place restrictions on a director, whereby there are certain themes, styles and standards are anticipated and directors can lose control to these expectations. Auteur theory also gives rise to certain elitism within film criticism, and places unnecessary constraint in film critique. It encourages “praise for the occasional bad film by a favoured director and censure of the occasional good film by an unpredictable director”. I think all films should be judged on their own merits alone.
For this reason I personally cannot prescribe to the auteur theory. Whilst I have viewed the majority of Coen brothers back catalogue and have not yet discovered one film I did not enjoy, I could not state that all of their films were in any way more distinguished than some non-auteur directed films. However, the Coen brothers do possess the ability to produce quirky, thought provoking, not always commercially successful but none the less entertaining films, and I would hope that there are another 27 years of their collaboration still to come.
Illustrations
635462407000Fig. 1 – Fargo, dir. By Joel Coen (PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Working Title Films, 1996)
Fig. 2 – Burn After Reading, dir. By Joel and Ethan Coen (Focus Features et al, 2008)
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Baecque, Antoine de and Serge Toubiana, Truffaut: A Biography translated by Catherine Temerson, (New York, Knopf, 1999)
Carr, David, ‘The Coen Brothers Shooting Straight’, The New York Times (10th December 2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/movies/12grit.html?pagewanted=all
Coughlin, Paul, “Joel and Ethan Coen”, Senses of Cinema, 26 (2003), http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/coens/
Dirks, Tim, Filmsite Movie Revue – Fargo (1996) - http://www.filmsite.org/fargo.html
Ebert, Roger. “No Country For Old Men”, Chicago Sun-Times (8th November 2007 - http://www.rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071108/REVIEWS/711080304/1023.
Mobile Reference, Encyclopaedia of American Cinema: Biographies of the best American directors and actors, reviews of the best American movies, and lists of awards for smartphones and mobile devices (Mobile Reference, 2009).
Stuhlbarg, Michael talks about working with the Coen Brothers on A SERIOUS MAN at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, MD. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8w23e4icrE
Thomson-Jones, Katherine, Aesthetics and Film, (London/New York; Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008)
Secondary Sources
Conrad, Mark T, The Philosophy of The Coen Brothers, (Kentucky; The University Press of Kentucky, 2009)
Edelstein, David, ‘Coen Heads’, New York Movies, 24th September 2007 - http://nymag.com/movies/filmfestivals/newyork/2007/38025/ [accessed 1st November 2011]
Geiger, Jeffrey & Rutsky, R.
L., Film Analysis A Norton Reader, (United States of America, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005)
Levine, Josh, The Coen brothers, two American filmmakers, (Canada, ECW Press, 2000)
Filmography
Blood Simple, dir. Joel Coen (Circle Films, 1984)
Raising Arizona, dir. Joel Coen (20th Century Fox, 1987)
The Hudsucker Proxy, dir. Joel Coen (Warner Bros et al, 1994)
Fargo, dir. Joel Coen (Gramercy Pictures, 1996)
O Brother Where Art Thou, dir. Joel Coen (Touchstone Pictures et al, 2000)
The Ladykillers, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Touchstone Pictures, 2004)
No Country for Old Men, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Miramax Films et all, 2007)
Burn After Reading, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Focus Features, 2008)
A Serious Man, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Focus Features,
2009)
Francois Truffaut was a French critic, who wrote for Cahiers du Cinema, and his most notable article “Une Certain Tendance du Cinema Français,”, written in 1954, introduced the idea of the auteur director. Truffaut argued that “An auteur is primarily and exclusively a director. Mise-en-scene is the …show more content…
auteur stripped bare; ...... and this alone defines the auteur”. Truffaut believed that an auteur director injected his own personal creativity into their work, and created a style that could be easily attributed to them. Andrew Sarris, an American film critic further developed Auteur theory, citing three principles an auteur director should possess. These are that the director should have knowledge of the technicalities of filmmaking, have an individual style which resonates throughout their work and that their work contains interior meaning.
One aspect that auteur theory concerns itself with is the amount of control a director has over a film. The Coen brothers direct, produce, write and edit (usually under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes). Various nominations and awards are testimony to their expertise. They have been nominated no less than thirteen times for an Academy Award and have won on four occasions, for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture. Although there are two directors, they are renowned for their compatibility with each other and have been referred to as “two sides of the same head”. The Coen brothers also maintain control over their films by producing storyboards and ‘sides’ for their crew so that everyone knows who is doing what and how many take are required. This ensures efficiency, so much so that filming of A Serious Man finished a week early and under budget. This degree of efficiency is required as the Coen brothers are often the producers of their movies, and while this may lead them to have to work from a smaller budget, it gives them the freedom to work without having to compromise their control due to outside commercial or financial reasons. This approach also ensures “the visual conception is affirmed and preserved by the many other creative talents—cinematographers, actors, editors—involved in the production of their films” again preserving control for the Coen brothers.
The Coen brothers’ films have several similarities with each other, including clever use of camera techniques and extensive use of brutal violence.
The Coen brothers’ heavy emphasis on dialogue, a key feature being their dark sense of humour and use of blatant irony. Many of the Coen brothers’ films feature a misunderstanding as a central plot line. These are all styles which help identify a Coen brothers ' film. It is also characteristic of auteur directors to work often with a select group of actors and the Coen brothers are no exception to this rule. (George Clooney, Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand are just some of the actors who have worked with the Coen brothers on at least three occasions), although a cynic might draw correlations to Frances McDormand 's reoccurring casting and her marriage to Joel Coen.
The Coen brothers coined the phrase ‘Rami Cam Rush’ shot, in tribute to Sam Raimi who had collaborated with them on a number of projects, where “in their tracking shots they ‘rush’ the camera forward” This type of shot can be seen in Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker …show more content…
Proxy.
The Coen brothers’ films are notable for their depiction of violence, indeed death incurs in all of their films. Even their screwball comedies The Hudsucker Proxy and The Ladykillers do not escape this, although deaths are not portrayed quite as brutal (in The Hudsucker Proxy, when the Company President commits suicide, I found the portrayal quite comedic, due to the limbering up in advance and the exaggerated start off, and there is no spillage of blood), compared to the woodchipper scene (see Fig. 1) in Fargo and Brad Pitt’s death (see Fig. 2) in Burn After Reading, although these deaths did invoke laughter due to the absurdity of the situations.
The unusual use of dialogue, especially diction and heavy accents are identified as Coen traits. These are evidenced in O Brother Where Art Thou (a thick Southern Mississippi accent is used for upmost comedic effect), especially by Holly Hunter. In the scene where she tells the children that their father is dead, her line "That ain 't your daddy, your daddy got hit by a train." would not have the same effect were it spoken in the Queen’s English. Another notable accent is the Minnesotan accent used in Fargo (critically appraised by Tom Dirk)
Misunderstanding plays a pivotal role and is a recurrent theme in several on the Coen brothers’ film. Their first film, Blood Simple’s starting premise is based on the misunderstanding in a phone call that John Getz’ has that Frances McDormand has murdered her husband. Although they do eventually meet up the truth is still not revealed to either character, causing more wires to be crossed, ending in two fatal shootings. In Burn After Reading, Frances McDormand is again, the victim of a misunderstanding, where she acquires a cd which she mistakenly believes contains highly sensitive material, which again leads to a fatal shooting, albeit this film was more slapstick than film noir.
Sarris’ final proof of Auteur theory was the notion of ‘interior meaning’, and while Sarris himself declares that “it is hard to say what it is exactly” I take it to mean how a director’s “particular outlook and sensibility” will affect the content of their film. Most of the Coen brother films are consistent in that they have a philosophical slant, not surprising considering Ethan studied philosophy while at University and wrote a 41 page essay on the subject. In No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers deal with the ethics of ‘doing the right thing’ and how the failure of this can bring dire consequences, with Josh Brolin’s character taking the money instead of helping a dying man, clearly the less moral of the two actions, and as a result brings havoc and death by way of the hitman Anton Chigurh. This theme is also evident in their 2004 film, The Ladykillers. Having looted the casino’s vault, the gang are found out by the pious Mrs. Munsen and offered the chance of redemption. As with No Country For Old Men, the morally correct choice is declined, leading to comedic but deathly results for the gang.
From their large back catalogue of films, it would certainly seem that the Coen brothers fit into the mould of auteur theory. However there are several disadvantages in prescribing rigidly to auteur theory. Primarily, it credits the director with the success of the film, at the expense of everyone else. While the Coen brothers often collaborate with the same people over several movies (i.e. J. Anderson has worked on every Coen movie from Raising Arizona to No Country for Old Men, and music for all Coens’ movies was courtesy of Carter Burwell), it is difficult to distinguish whether it is the Coen brothers or these collaborators that are imprinting themselves into the film. Secondly, if the basis of an auteur director is one who leaves a unique stamp on their work, this leaves membership to the auteur club open to personal interpretation and in theory, any and all directors could be described as auteur as no two directors are alike, each having their own distinct style (ironically, apart from the Coen brothers who have been described as the “two headed director”). Conversely, being labelled an auteur director can also place restrictions on a director, whereby there are certain themes, styles and standards are anticipated and directors can lose control to these expectations. Auteur theory also gives rise to certain elitism within film criticism, and places unnecessary constraint in film critique. It encourages “praise for the occasional bad film by a favoured director and censure of the occasional good film by an unpredictable director”. I think all films should be judged on their own merits alone.
For this reason I personally cannot prescribe to the auteur theory. Whilst I have viewed the majority of Coen brothers back catalogue and have not yet discovered one film I did not enjoy, I could not state that all of their films were in any way more distinguished than some non-auteur directed films. However, the Coen brothers do possess the ability to produce quirky, thought provoking, not always commercially successful but none the less entertaining films, and I would hope that there are another 27 years of their collaboration still to come.
Illustrations
635462407000Fig. 1 – Fargo, dir. By Joel Coen (PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Working Title Films, 1996)
Fig. 2 – Burn After Reading, dir. By Joel and Ethan Coen (Focus Features et al, 2008)
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Baecque, Antoine de and Serge Toubiana, Truffaut: A Biography translated by Catherine Temerson, (New York, Knopf, 1999)
Carr, David, ‘The Coen Brothers Shooting Straight’, The New York Times (10th December 2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/movies/12grit.html?pagewanted=all
Coughlin, Paul, “Joel and Ethan Coen”, Senses of Cinema, 26 (2003), http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/coens/
Dirks, Tim, Filmsite Movie Revue – Fargo (1996) - http://www.filmsite.org/fargo.html
Ebert, Roger. “No Country For Old Men”, Chicago Sun-Times (8th November 2007 - http://www.rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071108/REVIEWS/711080304/1023.
Mobile Reference, Encyclopaedia of American Cinema: Biographies of the best American directors and actors, reviews of the best American movies, and lists of awards for smartphones and mobile devices (Mobile Reference, 2009).
Stuhlbarg, Michael talks about working with the Coen Brothers on A SERIOUS MAN at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, MD. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8w23e4icrE
Thomson-Jones, Katherine, Aesthetics and Film, (London/New York; Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008)
Secondary Sources
Conrad, Mark T, The Philosophy of The Coen Brothers, (Kentucky; The University Press of Kentucky, 2009)
Edelstein, David, ‘Coen Heads’, New York Movies, 24th September 2007 - http://nymag.com/movies/filmfestivals/newyork/2007/38025/ [accessed 1st November 2011]
Geiger, Jeffrey & Rutsky, R.
L., Film Analysis A Norton Reader, (United States of America, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005)
Levine, Josh, The Coen brothers, two American filmmakers, (Canada, ECW Press, 2000)
Filmography
Blood Simple, dir. Joel Coen (Circle Films, 1984)
Raising Arizona, dir. Joel Coen (20th Century Fox, 1987)
The Hudsucker Proxy, dir. Joel Coen (Warner Bros et al, 1994)
Fargo, dir. Joel Coen (Gramercy Pictures, 1996)
O Brother Where Art Thou, dir. Joel Coen (Touchstone Pictures et al, 2000)
The Ladykillers, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Touchstone Pictures, 2004)
No Country for Old Men, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Miramax Films et all, 2007)
Burn After Reading, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Focus Features, 2008)
A Serious Man, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Focus Features,
2009)