Coen Brothers and Roger Deakins

Coen Brothers and Roger Deakins have worked together on a lot of films. Here is a tribute to that work, with some of the greatest shots of their filmography.

First posted: 14 August 2014

Busby Berkeley and the Coen Brothers

I've been watching Busby Berkeley movies lately and noticed something interesting. The Coen brothers must have been big fans. Take a look at some comparison shots from The Big Lebowski:

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The shot where the Dude floats between the dancers' legs was the subject of a practical joke during filming.

One or two of the dancers got the idea that we should all wear outrageous, over-the-top pubic hair coming out of our panties underneath our skirts, so they approached the hair/wardrobe department who obliged us with black curly wigs, which we tore apart and shoved in our panties, hanging out the sides like a jungle. So, there is Jeff, laying underneath the first girl in the line-up and he starts smiling, thinking to himself. 'Somebody's not taking care of business.' As he rolls past the first few girls and sees that we all weren't 'taking care of business', he is now laughing out loud, and the ladies are trying to stifle our laughter, which also makes it difficult for us to balance in heels with a wide straddle. One of the Coens cuts the take. No one knows what's going on except the dancers and Jeff. So the dancers flash the choreographers and they fall on the floor laughing. But the crew and the Coens still don't know what's going on. So we all turn to them and flash them. The crew laughed, but Joel and Ethan were not amused. One of them said something to the effect of, 'million-dollar-a-day set, people, let's get going.'
                                                                                          ~Dancer Jamie Green

42nd Street (1933)

No one floats between these girls' legs, but they didn't have the equipment to shoot that back in 1933.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Saddam's shoe tower...

42nd Street (1933)

... had a predecessor in 1933.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

A scene of dancers making patterns in a circle....

Dames (1934)

... has numerous counterparts in Busby Berkeley musicals. This one is from Dames, a film once listed as one of the Coen brother's seven favourite films.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Dude makes an entrance...

Gold Diggers of 1935

... much like another made in 1935.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The young lady being tossed in the air from a circular blanket at a beach party...

Dames (1934)

... has a parallel in this shot in which another young lady appears to fly out of a circle of her peers.

Three women fly up to the camera, followed by a fourth who is carrying... wait for it...

Dames (1934)

... a bowling ball!

Believe it or not.

First posted: 15 December 2013

The Coen Brothers: POV Shots

With a filmography that covers everything from westerns and gangster flicks to comedies and film noir, it can be rather difficult to pinpoint what exactly contributes to the style of Joel and Ethan Coen. While there are reoccurring themes and ideas that surface throughout the filmmakers' work, a consistent visual aesthetic is not easily recognized. What makes a Coen Brothers film look like a Coen Brothers film? One stylistic element that seems to be rather prominent in all their films is the POV shot. The Coens tend to utilize the POV shot to better submerse us in a scene, but the shot is often used to simply give us a unique perspective that can only be created through cinema. Here is a look at the Coens' use of the POV shot throughout their career.                       ~Jacob T. Swinney

The Cinematography of True Grit

Take another look at True Grit, with an emphasis on the cinematography.

The Coen Brothers: An Auteur Analysis of Their Film Career

This is a small gem from Grant Pichla.

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Coen Brothers and Roger Deakins

Coen Brothers and Roger Deakins have worked together on a lot of films. Here is a tribute to that work, with some of the greatest shots of their filmography.

Script Analysis - 'Inside Llewyn Davis'

I came across an interesting post on the blog Searching for Charlie Kaufman. The subject matter was Inside Llewyn Davis, and part of it said:

Looking back on my original reading from over a year ago, it was clearly in the four parts of this structure question that I felt the script let me down. Inside Llewyn Davis has EXACTLY five reveals. In order of importance [not chronology] they are:

Llewyn is a father
Llewyn’s partner threw himself off the George Washington Bridge
Jean’s baby could be anybody’s
The script ends where it begins
Llewyn Saves the [Wrong] Cat

[I word it this way to draw attention to what they were doing. If you don't think this cat stuff was done on PURPOSE to have a little fun at Mr. Snyder's expense... you are mistaken.]

________________________________________________________________________

Joel Barish (@johlbearish) has a number of interesting things to say about the brothers C. Read his whole post here.

Busby Berkeley and the Coen Brothers

I've been watching Busby Berkeley movies lately and noticed something interesting. The Coen brothers must have been big fans. Take a look at some comparison shots from The Big Lebowski:

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The shot where the Dude floats between the dancers' legs was the subject of a practical joke during filming.

One or two of the dancers got the idea that we should all wear outrageous, over-the-top pubic hair coming out of our panties underneath our skirts, so they approached the hair/wardrobe department who obliged us with black curly wigs, which we tore apart and shoved in our panties, hanging out the sides like a jungle. So, there is Jeff, laying underneath the first girl in the line-up and he starts smiling, thinking to himself. 'Somebody's not taking care of business.' As he rolls past the first few girls and sees that we all weren't 'taking care of business', he is now laughing out loud, and the ladies are trying to stifle our laughter, which also makes it difficult for us to balance in heels with a wide straddle. One of the Coens cuts the take. No one knows what's going on except the dancers and Jeff. So the dancers flash the choreographers and they fall on the floor laughing. But the crew and the Coens still don't know what's going on. So we all turn to them and flash them. The crew laughed, but Joel and Ethan were not amused. One of them said something to the effect of, 'million-dollar-a-day set, people, let's get going.'
                                                                                          ~Dancer Jamie Green

42nd Street (1933)

No one floats between these girls' legs, but they didn't have the equipment to shoot that back in 1933.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Saddam's shoe tower...

42nd Street (1933)

... had a predecessor in 1933.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

A scene of dancers making patterns in a circle....

Dames (1934)

... has numerous counterparts in Busby Berkeley musicals. This one is from Dames, a film once listed as one of the Coen brother's seven favourite films.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Dude makes an entrance...

Gold Diggers of 1935

... much like another made in 1935.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The young lady being tossed in the air from a circular blanket at a beach party...

Dames (1934)

... has a parallel in this shot in which another young lady appears to fly out of a circle of her peers.

Three women fly up to the camera, followed by a fourth who is carrying... wait for it...

Dames (1934)

... a bowling ball!

Believe it or not.

Documentary on the Coen brothers

This is post #700.

Here is a documentary profile of film-makers Joel and Ethan Coen, who—according to the BBC—began their career with little money but ended up successfully taking on the Hollywood establishment.

Actually, they're just a couple of guys who make movies for fun. Movies such as:

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
True Grit (2010)
A Serious Man (2009)
Burn After Reading (2008)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Ladykillers (2004)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Fargo (1996)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Barton Fink (1991)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Blood Simple (1984)

This documentary was made just after The Big Lebowski (1998) first came out.

"Inside Llewyn Davis" - new Coen brothers film

A lot of people will be happy to know that the Coen brothers have a new film on the way, called Inside Llewyn Davis.

A singer-songwriter navigates New York's folk music scene during the 1960s.

The film stars Oscar Isaac as folk singer, Llewyn Davis, who travels around New York City during the 1960s, as well as Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Garret Hedlund, Adam Driver and F. Murray Abraham.

The film is reported to be loosely based on the life of folk icon Dave Van Ronk, though it could be a Bob Dylan-inspired picture. The Dylan song, Farewell, provides the backing track for the entire trailer. The film follows Llewyn Davis, a struggling, aspiring musician living in Greenwich Village.

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"Eight year olds, Dude."

My old writers' group is due to discuss The Big Lebowski (1998) next week. 

The film is a true cult classic. It has given rise to a religion (Dudeism), a drinking game, a trivia game, bobblehead dolls, a line of ice-cream, a gallery of paintings, and a festival.  The 2011 reunion of the cast was written up in Rolling Stone magazine. 

The Big Lebowski is, above all, a story about male friendship; in real life, as well as in fiction. The rug idea came from Peter Exline. Jeff Dowd, another of the inspirations for the story, has described it as "a Raymond Chandler-type story, you know, dosed on acid." It's an interesting reworking of The Big Sleep, a book which has been filmed twice before; once with Humphrey Bogart and once with Robert Mitchum. The Mitchum version is truer to the book by Raymond Chandler. 

People have different views, but The Big Lebowski is, indisputably, the finest film ever made in which a protagonist hatches a plot to confront an adolescent car thief, somewhere in the vicinity of the In-And-Out Burger, while watching his landlord (dressed as a tree) perform a dance quintet.

Part of The Lebowski Cycle - Joe Forkan

The film is eminently quotable. Which is to say, the screenplay represents a master class in the construction of memorable dialogue. A tiny selection:

• Look, let me explain something. I'm not Mr. Lebowski; you're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That, or Duder. His Dudeness. Or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing--
• Are you employed, sir?
• The old man told me to take any rug in the house.
• Way to go, Dude. 
• If you will it, it is no dream.
• Over the line!
• Mark it zero!
• Eight-year-olds, Dude.
• Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
• My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal. Which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.
• Do you like sex, Mr. Lebowski?
• It's a male myth about feminists that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise.
• He's a good man, and thorough. 
• Papers. Just papers. You know, my papers. Business papers.
• Isn't that what makes a man?
• Oh, you know, the usual. Bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.
• Oh, come on, Donny, they were threatening castration! 
• Am I wrong? 
• It's a complicated case, Maude. Lotta ins, lotta outs. Fortunately I've been adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind, you know, limber.
• There's a beverage here!
• Let's go bowling.
• Ahh, you know. Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.
• Yeah, well. The Dude abides.

The 2011 cast reunion of The Big Lebowski

When the film was first released, critics panned it. Later, after monster sales of video and DVD, and especially once the Lebowski Fests appeared, the critics revised their opinions. Here we have The New York Times film critic, A.O. Scott, talking about The Big Lebowski.

John Turturro, talking about his experience making The Big Lebowski.

 
And, to finish up, here's a montage of images from various Coen Brothers' movies, highlighting some common themes.

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