Browsing through the massive amount of daily mondo cinema linkage over at the always fabulous GreenCine Daily, one thing that popped out was that The New Yorker recently put up Pauline Kael‘s original review of Blood Simple written at the time of the Coens‘ film debut, February 1985. It’s a fascinating read, one because the length of the review is about 3-4 times longer than most press and/or magazine film reviews these days (Kael can and does get into some of the minutiae of the films matter) and and two because she seems to totally nail the foundation of the Coens‘ idiom, yet fails to actually get (or what she does get, rubs her the wrong way) what makes them so damn enjoyable as filmmakers. I offer you some excerpts below, but encourage any film fan to read the full review (HERE – be sure to scroll down, unless you are interested on what she has to say about Peter Weir‘s Witness).
“But [they don't] seem to know what to do with the actors; they give their words too much deliberation and weight, and they always look primed for the camera. So they come across as amateurs.”
“[Blood Simple] works best when someone misinterprets who the enemy is but has the right response anyway. (It’s like a bedroom farce, except that the people sneaking into each other’s homes have vicious rather than amorous intentions.)”
“Coen’s style is deadpan and klutzy, and he uses the klutziness as his trump card. It’s how he gets his laughs.”
“Blood Simple is that kind of student film on a larger scale. It isn’t really about anything except making a commercial narrative movie outside the industry. ”
“The reviewers who hail the film as a great début and rank the Coens with Welles, Spielberg, Hitchcock, and Sergio Leone may be transported by seeing so many tricks and flourishes from sources they’re familiar with. But the reason the camera whoop-de-do is so noticeable is that there’s nothing else going on.”
Now the Coens‘ filmography does indeed read like a tacky tourist trip through many of the classic genres of cinema (Screwball Comedy, Noir, Gangster, Slacker Comedy), and they’ve certainly managed at least one great American classic (That’d be Fargo, although many would also argue No Country For Old Men, or perhaps Barton Fink). Ms. Kael’s initial write-off seems a bit harsh, perhaps a backlash to the brothers coming so quick out of the gate into high falutin’ cinema circles. Over their 23 year career (Oi, Ethan was only 26 when this film was made) They have married successfully comedy to pathos, style to substance and most importantly, art-film to pop-entertainment. No small feat that.
Discuss.
I intend to use the phrase ‘camera whoop-de-do’ more often, love that. well I imagine there is a lot of love on this site for the Coen Brothers but I stand firmly in Pauline’s camp on this issue. I have always felt that they sheath themselves, much like Tarantino, in genre tropes and much of the enjoyment of a Coen Brothers film depends on the pleasure derived for the cinephile of seeing film knowledge put to some use. Its the sort of whoop-de-do that usually does not aspire much enthusiasm out of me.
When they set their ambitions low and make something unabashedly entertaining, like O Brother Where Art Thou or The Big Lebowlski they excell. Even Fargo and No Country, for as good as they are, in my mind are still far more functional than profound. The themes of No Country which give one something to mull over are entirely taken from Cormac’s novel, so I do not give them a pass for being able to adeptly translate those themes.
@rot, re: No Country
(this is part of the reason why I think Fargo is their masterpiece, it being written for the screen. No Country (no fault of anyone involved) watches almost exactly like the book reads….Something that also applies to Todd Field’s Little Children….both films are fantastic films, make no mistake, just not cinema masterpieces!)
since when was Little Children NOT a cinema masterpiece?
Oh rot, please don’t insult the Coen brothers by comparing them to Tarantino!
I do think one would appreciate a Coen bros movie more as a cinephile (can’t this be said for most great movies though?), and sure you might “get” certain aspects of the film more, but I don’t think that is directly related to the enjoyment of their movies at all (even most of my friends with very very limited knowledge in movies seem to love all of the Coen brothers movies). Just look at this freaking line-up below. I can think of very, very few American filmmakers with an overall filmography so prolific and so diverse.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
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)
@ rot. After reading the book, you realize, like No Country for Old Men, that almost everything comes from the source novel. No knock against the actors, Todd Field, and whatnot…it’s a fabulous movie, and easily one of the best of 2006. Is it 8 1/2 or Vertigo? Not Quite.
Jonathan – you skipped Intolerable Cruelty and The Lady Killers? Reasons?
Intolerable Cruelty is good, its just not Coen Good, and for the most part doesn’t feel like their own style.
Ladykillers does feel their style, and just isn’t that great. They should have made it much more timeless.
The only ones I have seen are Fargo and Hudsucker Proxy. I enjoyed Fargo. Definitely some nice cinematography – I did think that parts of the ‘stupid’ humour was taken abit too far though. Minor complaints, it was very entertaining (the danish names rule as well
).
Hudsucker Proxy I can’t say I liked at all. Jennifer Jason Leigh wasn’t fun. Tim Robbins wasn’t fun either. Paul Newman is keeping the films head above water for the most part for me (along with the nice flash, camera following piping etc.) but ultimately, the film fell flat and was boring for me.
Looking forward to their new one though.
Kurt – yeah, that was purposeful. I actually even enjoyed both of those movies more than most people (Hanks’s character in The Ladykillers was a lot of fun to watch) and I’d be willing to defend both of them to a point, but for my argument above, I just left them out because both of those movies feel to me like it was more the studios behind the wheel and not Joel and Ethan (regardless of whether that was the case or not).
Henrik – out of all of those movies I listed in my comment above of the Coens, The Hudsucker Proxy is certainly the weakest effort. Just sayin’.
Hudsucker Proxie, and Fargo are fantastic… but they have Bruce Cmapbell in both films, so its not suprising
I love Hudsucker, and I love Intolerable Cruelty, which is a Coen Brothers film thru-and-thru. Methinks those who are too quick to write off I.C. just don’t dig on the Screwball genre. Johnathan/Henrik/Goon – are you guys fans of Sturges, Cukor, Capra and more recently, David O. Russell?
@Jonathan
It is a question of where you set the bar… if the bar is set at the level of entertainment, that one need only be carried away for two hours irrespective of how or why, then sure, the films you listed could be considered great films. A film can be entertaining and profound, the two qualities are not mutually exclusive, however I make a distinction between a film which entertains but evaporates the second my butt leaves the chair, and one which destabilizes me so much so that the implications of the film carry with me long after the film is over. For me, a work whose sole motivation is to play with form in a self-conscious way of the history of cinema (film for film’s sake) is hardly worth thinking about, and I carry that opinion across all arts forms (give me a Michelangelo over a Duchamp any day). If employed, it should only be a means to an end not an end in itself to be mulled over and esteemed. I feel the Coen bros. rarely get out of this fascination with style, and in the end have nothing to say. I’m tired of cinematic exercises which exist only to flex their muscles (excessive CGI is the most obvious example). I don’t think Tarantino has ever made a great film simply because his films do not aspire to have anything to say, they are not commenting on the human condition, they comment on other films (some of which may actually have something to say).
I set the bar at films which have something to say about life more so than about constructs of life. I am in this to feel, learn, mature, firstly, and to pass time only as a fallback.
And colleeny FYI: The Chin makes a ‘video cameo’ a la Fargo in Intolerable Cruelty too. Just look for Clooney’s barside epiphany and check out the same soap opera as in Fargo playing up on the screen.
@rot. Watch Jackie Brown again. And try telling me that again. There is a lot of truth in the Forster/Grier interaction which is not as common as I’d like in my cinema. Likewise on the DeNiro/Fonda thread.
And the scene in Fargo where Marge meets up with her old college chum (the asian-american engineer who works for Honeywell and turns out to be a total liar) is a sublime moment in Fargo. Much of William H. Maceys scenes, particularly with his father-in-law, are likewise. Fargo is a bona-fide-classic (I’ve put my foot down on this and counted to three.)
Thanks Kurt, another Coens film to buy at my lunchtime….
rot: You speak truth (I say that realizing, that me saying so may be the scarlet letter for you. Sorry if it comes back to bite you in the ass in the future). However, I think a comedy can be great without being insightful. Some Like It Hot, Our Hospitality or Pulp Fiction to me are all great films. However, to back up your claims further – I think all of them pale in comparison with Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, which is equally hilarious, yet has so much more content. Funny how Kurt points out Jackie Brown as the one that proves Tarantino has something to say, since it’s the one of his films that he didn’t originate. Coincidence? I guess I’d have to read the book and re-watch the film (which I have no interest in) to find out.
As for being a fan of ‘Sturges, Cukor, Capra and more recently, David O. Russell’, I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen a film by any of these people. Truth be told, I don’t think I know the first two at all. I have never seen Bringing Up Baby either. But I have not seen Intolerable Cruelty either, so I’m not sure how it applies. Is Proxy a screwball comedy? I think I can comfortably say that I like any comedy that is funny. Proxy to me was not funny.
@Henrik. Fair enough on the subjective nature of comedy. Not sure where you are getting at with the Scarlet Letter though. We’re not an angry mob or tribunal around here
.
There is a fair bit of Tarantino contribution in Jackie Brown, he has done a heckuvalot more than just adapt Elmore Leonard’s “Rum Punch” – there are many, many minute character, dialogue, and plot changes that the two barely resemble one another beyond the character roles and a few plot points.
Oh well, you never know though, do you? Besides, I think I still have a chip on a shoulder when it comes to being able to make fun of myself. People have been suggesting a lighter, less preachy tone – I am just trying to adapt to my surroundings, like any survivalist.
“I don’t think Tarantino has ever made a great film simply because his films do not aspire to have anything to say, they are not commenting on the human condition, they comment on other films”
I would be inclined to agree with you here (I’m one of the weirdos that find the most enjoyable film Tarantino ever had anything to do with to be True Romance – because punch for punch, it’s the most entertaining for me). But, I can’t say what you say about Tarantino applies to the Coen brothers and the parallel isn’t clicking for me.
First of all, I assume you’re excluding No Country for Old Men (maybe because they didn’t write it too), because it has a ridiculous amount to say about the human condition and fate and life and death and so on and months later I’m STILL left reflecting on it. Look at Barton Fink, a perfect example of commentary on the human condition! Look at Miller’s Crossing! Even The Man Who Wasn’t There. You can’t tell me these movies don’t have anything to say. The others are are a little tougher to classify. The Big Lebowski may not leave you questioning your existence or digging apart the psyche of The Dude, but scene for scene, line for line, I’d rank it as one of the cleverest laugh-out-loud comedies (homages?) I’ve ever seen, a movie so brilliantly put together that every time I watch it (and I’m probably at about viewing 15 or so now), I still find something new.
I could go into Raising Arizona or Fargo, but I’ve never been very good at fleshing out my arguments and I’m sure somebody can say it better than I (or if I googled it, it’s already been said, I’m sure).
No Country and Fargo I give some credit to, and Kurt mentioned the scene exactly I was thinking of in Fargo with regards to its depth. As for Jackie Brown, when Forster and Grier are onscreen together there is something going on, but the film as a whole, meh, it keeps reverting back to a caper story that is playing with time and space that does not inspire much enthusiasm from me.
I admit I have not seen Miller’s Crossing and do want to see it.
and Henrik, I agree with you more often then not, alas, its the rest of the world that is wrong.
@Henrik — Like food and wine – art, literature and cinema are somewhat of an acquired taste, what I’m getting at is that in some cases, you’ve got to have a certain base to catch all the flavours. I think Hudsucker definitely falls under this, probably Miller’s, Intolerable, and Barton Fink too.
(This is not designed to be condescending by the way, just a thought….no offense intended!)
Well, as long as you don’t define ‘certain base’, I guess I’ll just say the same about Lady in the Water. It requires a certain base to catch all the flavours.
I’d say fair enough, if I knew what the base was….care to enlighten?
E.T.? Cocoon? Starman? Lady in the Water was the lesser of all those films…
I don’t mind a film being complex enough that a foreknowledge of cinematic conventions adds to the experience, so long as it is not an end in itself to be admired, or a replacement for something to say.
a film that dazzles me with its histrionics of the medium will never measure up to a film which dazzles me with its insights into the human condition (this insight need not be heady and academic, but more often tacit and simple). My scale is prewired for this… I suspect for a lot of people on this site this is not the case…. the two kinds of being dazzled are interchangeable.
@rot. I know where you are coming from. A film like 3-Iron certainly hits the sweet spot. As does The Ice Storm. Every film does not have to be this way to be good in its own way. The Coen’s are going for something different most of the time…
@Kurt,
I think it is more important to establish where the bar is for evaluation, than what base of knowledge one has going into a film. There is no omniscent place to exist that you can judge how great a film is by the ‘certain base’ it has because you know all of the sources it is referencing… but you can approach each film, irrespective of some pre-requisite knowledge, as something in relation to yourself and your bar of evaluation, the golden mean is you… but not some solipsistic you but one which establishes some rules of engagement, some forethought of what is important to you.
Rot: Is your favorite director Ingmar Bergman?
I think you should do your utmost to track down the icelandic films ‘Children’ and ‘Parents’ by Ragnar Bragason. Both are raw, powerful films centered on achieving truth in the characters. Some of the best films that I have seen in the last couple of years – and from your comments, you will love them as well.
As for Lady in the Water, the base is not in relation to understanding the content, but rather the intent. Films that set aside logic in order to strip away all the comfortability factors for the audience, ultimately creating what could be seen as an experiment in crowd displeasing. Dangling storythreads, playing around with sensibility and mocking the audiences own expectations all at the same time. I hold the film in high regard, and I’m afraid I can’t really tell you what films that would enhance your experience. Things that play around with structure and acknowledge the audience (and even mocks it) – stuff like Persona, Chronicle of a summer or the recent Zoo. Structural intricacies, desguised as narratives – wherever you can find them.
it took me a long time to finally come around to Bergman, but even then I am selective. Of the works I have seen I find Seventh Seal, Autumn Sonata and Wild Strawberries great films.
Fanny och Alexander and Viskningär och rop are two of my favorite films. There’s insight in the human condition for you. Especially F & A is basically life explained. If you think his psycho terror is alittle much to sit through, I recommend Yasujiro Ozu’s films. Alittle more humourous, and not as authentic as Bergmans films, but really good films. Don’t go in looking for drama though, there is none.
Knocks against Tarantino are so lame. 1996 called, it wants it’s pretentious art cred back.
Now that I’m done making cheap shots. In an Onion A/V interview David Carradine made what I consider to be the definitive summation on QT, he said Quentin doesn’t distinguish between low and high art.
It’s true; he shoots car fetish movies with the same obsessive intensity that reputable directors reserve for social conscious rape scenes. Some people just can’t go there and therefore will always be divorced from his work. And that’s fine; it’s one of those things that comes down to personal preference. Certain styles don’t work for certain people. I feel very passionate about cinema but I draw the line at evangelism.
But even if it’s not our cup of tea we should be able to set aside subjective preference and acknowledge that certain film makers are masters of the medium even if we don’t appreciate what they have to say. For instance I hate “Chinatown” because of my strong opinions regarding water irrigation. But I acknowledge that Polanski is a great director.
I don’t think anybody is commenting on QT’s ability to shoot scenes in an interesting way – just that his characters never seem authentic enough to be relevant to the audience beyond their situations in the plot of his films.
@Rusty,
I never want to give in to the hypothetical value you are proposing, this supposing of greatness as if it existed in some disconnect from any human receptor, and it is up to everyone to squint a bit harder and uncover that greatness, or just assume it like everybody else. THAT is evangelism!
We should be neither fanatic towards our own ‘personal preferences’ nor towards some objective ‘greatness’ inherent in the film. We need dialogue between the two… I merely emphasize the personal because it is so often maligned by those who are infatuated with academic film analysis… its embedded in our culture, this relinquishing of our personal views to some clear common and identifiable properties (i.e. the film properties).
All I suggest is that each person be honest with himself and question by what bar they ascribe greatness. The contexts and responses can change according to the filmic worlds we encounter, but the bar need not change. I have explained above the manner is which i distinguish between low and high value, its not limited to a particular genre, or conceptual property but rather I need to FEEL affected, so much so, I feel destabilized long after the film is over. Tarantino has never done that for me, hence his mention, and for the most part neither has the Coen bros.
Have I enjoyed Tarantino films? sure. But I enjoy and feel changed by the 400 Blows. The difference? Intent and execution. I do not think it is the intent of any of Tarantino’s films to comment on life, directly or indirectly, it is not aspiring to do anything more than tell an engaging story, a story of archetypes revelling in arcane film trivia that exist like an alternate universe to our own… a filmic world… one that barely if ever touches up against ours. Kill Bill is not about revenge in any real way… it is about repurposing the cinematic precedents of the theme of revenge, its about creating a revenge picture.
@”I never want to give in to the hypothetical value you are proposing, this supposing of greatness as if it existed in some disconnect from any human receptor, and it is up to everyone to squint a bit harder and uncover that greatness, or just assume it like everybody else.”
umm.. I feel like we missed each other there. You make some good points, you make me reconsider some thing, but I don’t think my point got across.
I will say that I think to see a well executed film can be in and of itself a profound experience regardless of what the film has to say.
I watched Seconds for the first time not long ago and one thing I liked about it was that I could see the lineage of film language in it’s pictures. In Tarantino films I see that linage from the other end.
“I will say that I think to see a well executed film can be in and of itself a profound experience regardless of what the film has to say.”
perhaps. I cannot deny a certain hero worship in some of my experiences. Auteur theory is all about this worship, this added value to a work that some one made this, and that can definately play a part in nudging one towards some powerful experience… but I hesitate to suggest it is because of this solely, or because of the resulting grace of the film properties working in perfect harmony…
I have a Fine Art History background so I am always reminded of the various moments in time when art was brought to some level of perfection in its execution, only to be disrupted and disbanded by the next generation. You can have all the form working perfectly but there has to be that something else to linger in the mind, what Vasari spoke of as grazia or grace, that is not learned or engineered but which speaks to something transcendent. It need not be analytical, but it has to be more than clever.
We’ve all felt duped by a film that pulled out all the stops to make you feel something against your will even though you feel manipulated into that feeling… we know we can be lulled into an experience… its tricky… but I also think we can discern when that genuine experience occurs, that is qualitatively different from everything else. Its difficult to put our finger on it (and I have only partially tried here) but we tacitly know it when it is happening…
is that the ultimate con? Is everything just random feeling, feeling with arbitrary justification thereafter? I don’t think so. Its murky, sure, but patterns do emerge, some kind of personal narrative forms in the movies you are drawn to, and the more you think about it, the more fulfilling it can be.
Inevitably we are seeing ourselves in our stances, no matter how hard we try for objectivity or the high ground on what is great… this here is a battle of egos, and the films are mirrors. but maybe in the process we hit upon something true.
@Henrik
I Have not seen Fanny and Alexander yet… in my attempt to see all the Criterion Collection films I expect I will get to see most if not all of Bergman’s work. You should check out the Filmspotting podcast as they have been delving into Bergman quite a bit… their Bergman Marathon where each ep they look at one film in detail.
Yeah I have never listened to an episode of theirs, but I did look there from time to time. The Bergman marathon is an admirable feature, but alas, all the films they go through are ones I have yet to see myself. At least the last time I looked on there.
As for Criterion, that’s hardly most of his work that has been released on there. They have to make room for stuff like Armageddon and Chasing Amy. Boo.
found via GREENCINE DAILY:
“The critical reaction to the Coen Brothers’ film was symptomatic of the same kind of post-ideological shifting that Zizek referred to in his numerous examples [in "Passion In The Era of Decaffeinated Belief"] – it was symptomatic of criticism shifting its emphasis from content to form, from dominance over the work of art through interpretation to submissiveness beneath the work’s formal powers. To submit to a film’s aesthetic workings without thinking about what those workings imply, as [AO] Scott so happily did, is to turn off the critical faculties of one’s mind. It is the same kind of turning-off that allows propaganda films, which can contain reprehensible content but gorgeous stylization, to work so powerfully.”
yeah but more often than not ‘the film’ or ‘the auteur’ is explicitly wanting you to think about the form (i.e. Tarantino) and it would be foolish to think that you could or should ‘turn-off’ your critical faculties and follow content. Often content and form become indistinguisible.
A better approach is to ask: what does this film have to say, or what is it thinking about? When it is thinking about its place in the pantheon of cinematic history that to me is a superficial thought. When it is thinking about something pertaining to the human condition, then something good may come of it.
Not sure which Coen bros. film this quote references.
“When it is thinking about its place in the pantheon of cinematic history that to me is a superficial thought.” -good insight there. although when dealing in ‘genre film’ being ‘the best at the genre’ seems to often be the goal, and I don’t see any major problems with that.
I saw No Country For Old Men two days ago, and I was disappointed. It has one of the greatest antagonists I’ve seen in years. It has suspense. But in the end – to me – everything seems to come down to it being a film about violence. Something that I don’t think personally, is a big enough thing to pay attention to in films. I am tired of violence in film. Even when it is done good, it’s still nothing. But I do agree that the way it is done is suspenseful and somewhat exciting. If you’re looking for nothing but a thriller, it’s one of the best. My expectations were higher than that.