The Coen Brothers: Once More, With Feeling

The Coen brothers are on the top of the Hollywood mountain. They've got eight Oscars between them, the ability to chose their own projects with complete freedom, they're intimidatingly prolific, makers of several solid-gold modern classics in addition to the most quotable cult sensation since Rocky Horror Picture Show.  And Yet....  The Coens are held at arms length by a lot of critics who just can't bring themselves to put the Coens in the pantheon of great American filmmakers.  There's no there there, goes the typical complaint.  For all their visual acumen and pithy dialogue, the Coens are empty formalists at heart, interested only in playing with genres and snickering behind the camera at their idiotic characters.  It's true that the Coens love filming stupid people doing stupid things in a comical and/or blood-soaked manner, but there's more to it than that.  The key to finding the 'meaning' in a Coen brothers movie lies in answering the question of why their stupid characters do the stupid things that they do.   The Coens' filmography contains a remarkably consistent critique of post-war America.  No, they're not particularly interested in the inner lives of their characters, but they're mightily interested in the social order their characters exist within.  So over the next couple of weeks, I'll be taking a chronological tour of the Coens' oeuvre, hoping to tease out their worldview, and highlight the conviction and insight that underlies all the deadpan slapstick shenanigans. Tomorrow, we'll start with their 1984 debut Blood Simple.