True Grit (2010/Remake)
The Serious Man (2009)
Burn After Reading (2008)
No Country For Old Men (2007)
The Ladykillers (2004/Remake)
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)
SHORTS:
To Each His Cinema (2007) - (SHORT/segment "World Cinema")
Paris, je t'aime (2006) - (SHORT/segment "Tuileries")
Additional info below is taken from a MoMA-NYC film retrospective spotlighting the Coen Bros. major works:
This summer, Collaborations in the Collection spotlights Joel and Ethan Coen, whose partnership is one of the most prominent filmmaking collaborations in contemporary cinema. Going beyond writing and directing, the Coen brothers also share producing and editing responsibilities—although they frequently go uncredited or use pseudonyms.
Paul Newman said of the Coens, "They give each other permission to go off on their own or express different ideas. But somehow in the end they're always in agreement."
In addition to collaborating with each other, the Coens repeatedly work with the same actors (Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Frances McDormand (also married to Joel Coen), Jon Polito, John Turturro); casting directors (Donna Isaacson, John Lyons, Ellen Chenoweth); cinematographers (Barry Sonnenfeld, Roger Deakins); composer (Carter Burwell); costume designers (Richard Hornung, Mary Zophres); editor ("Roderick Jaynes," i.e. themselves); production designer (Dennis Gassner); and sound editor (Skip Lievsay).
Itinerants of place, time, and genre, the Coens defy neat categories or summaries. However, their films' credit lists reveal the common thread: collaborating with the same actors and crew allows the Coens to embark on each new collective challenge with efficiency. The trust that results from working with the same people is best summed up by Deakins, who said, "If you feel that you have the confidence of the people you're working with, it gives you more freedom to do your job.... If you don't feel you can take risks, you can't achieve anything of any interest as a cinematographer."
Organized by Jenny He, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Film. Special thanks to Miramax Films for the generous donation of No Country for Old Men.
Completed screenings:
Blood Simple
1984. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Barry Sonnenfeld.
With Frances McDormand, John Getz, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmett Walsh.
Collaborations synopsis: Nothing is simple in the Coen brothers' bloody debut. A cuckolded husband, cajoled by a slimy private investigator, enters into a plot to off his cheating wife and her lover—but the dead never really stay dead. On their first feature film, the Coens worked with McDormand, Burwell, Sonnenfeld, and Lievsay, who would all go on to become members of their core collaborative team. 99 min.
[Editing by Roderick Jaynes, Don Wiegmann. Casting by Julie Hughes, Barry Moss. Production design by Jane Musky. Costume design by Sara Medina-Pape. Sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
Raising Arizona
1987. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Barry Sonnenfeld.
With Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, Frances McDormand.
Collaborations synopsis: In this madcap comedy, incorrigible convenience-store robber H. I. McDunnough marries corrections officer Edwina, and they settle into a sublime domestic life. Only one thing is missing: a little bundle of joy. When they discover they cannot conceive, Ed convinces H. I. to steal a baby from Nathan Arizona, an unpainted-furniture tycoon and father of quintuplets. But soon psychotic cops, escaped convicts, swingers, inept government officials, and a relentless (perhaps imaginary) bounty hunter complicate their criminal quest for familial bliss. Wanting the film to resemble a children's storybook, the Coens relied on Sonnenfeld's cinematography to render everything overtly painterly—to the point of fakeness. Their collaboration with Sonnenfeld introduced many of the idiosyncratic touches that would come to characterize their work. 94 min.
[Editing by Michael R. Miller. Casting by Donna Isaacson, John Lyons. Production design by Jane Musky. Costume design by Richard Hornung. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
Miller's Crossing
1990. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Barry Sonnenfeld.
With Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Albert Finney, John Turturro, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi.
Collaborations synopsis: Byrne plays a 1930s Irish mobster at the center of a dense knot of twists and turns, double-crosses, and sleights of hand in this elegant take on the gangster film genre, complete with rat-a-tat-tat dialogue and mannered shoot-outs. Miller's Crossing is the Coens' last collaboration with Sonnenfeld, who characterized the crew as "a team of filmmakers." 115 min.
[Editing by Michael R. Miller. Casting by Donna Isaacson, John Lyons. Production design by Dennis Gassner. Costume design by Richard Hornung. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
Barton Fink
1991. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Roger Deakins.
With John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi.
Collaborations synopsis: A liberal New York playwright travels to Hollywood to write a wrestling screenplay for the actor Wallace Beery. The film starts off as a light satire on the movie industry, but soon takes a decidedly dark turn toward the bizarre. Barton Fink won the Best Film, Best Direction, and Best Performance (for Turturro) awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the first time a single film had swept those categories. The film features such Coen regulars as Turturro and Goodman, both of whom have since appeared in four of the Coens' twelve features to date. Gassner, whom the Coens have worked with on six films, displays in Barton Fink some of the Art Deco touches that would be fully realized in the next Coen film, The Hudsucker Proxy. 116 min.
[Editing by Roderick Jaynes. Casting by Donna Isaacson, John Lyons. Production design by Dennis Gassner. Costume design by Richard Hornung. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
The Hudsucker Proxy
1994. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Sam Raimi. Original Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Roger Deakins.
With Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman, Steve Buscemi, Jon Polito.
Collaborations synopsis: When the president of Hudsucker Industries jumps to his death from the forty-fourth-floor boardroom, the fat cats on the board of directors, hoping to gobble up company stock on the cheap, promote an imbecile to the presidency. But their patsy proxy Norville Barnes, the moron from Muncie, somehow comes out on top—with the help of some divine intervention. The Coens relied on their frequent collaborators to help create the now well-known Coen trademark of bending and blending genres to their needs: Gassner's impeccable Art Deco sets are gorgeously lit and photographed in an expressionistic manner by Deakins—all in service to a script that combines the warmhearted fairytale lessons of Frank Capra, the screwball elements of Howard Hawks's comedies, and the verbal sparring of Preston Sturges's films. 111 min.
[Editing by Thom Noble. Casting by Donna Isaacson, John Lyons. Production design by Dennis Gassner. Costume design by Richard Hornung. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
Fargo
1996. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Roger Deakins.
With Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi.
Collaborations synopsis: A man in dire financial straits schemes with crooks to kidnap his wealthy wife for ransom. When the thugs end up committing a triple murder during the kidnapping, the very sharp (and very pregnant) local police chief quickly closes in on the hapless, bumbling conspirators. Speaking on the value of working with the same cinematographer, Joel Coen says, "[Roger] understands what we are after, and frequently comes up with stuff on the spot that reflects what we want to do in a scene." In turn, Deakins reflects on the fluidity of the brothers' working style: "Either of them will be talking about the shot, lenses or whatever. They just swap around duties. I think having a relationship with them on a couple of films before [made it easier to respond to new dilemmas]. Once you've got a pattern of working, you know...what each other's wants are." 98 min.
[Editing by Roderick Jaynes. Casting by John Lyons. Production design by Rick Heinrichs. Costume design by Mary Zophres. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
The Big Lebowski
1998. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Roger Deakins.
With Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi.
Collaborations synopsis: A case of mistaken identity exposes Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski—a poor L.A. slacker—to a world of thugs and nihilists in this surreal chase tale, complete with signature Coen brother fantasy sequences. The Coens, along with Goodman, Turturro, and Deakins, return to the setting of Los Angeles to craft a film that's worlds away from Barton Fink in both tone and style—proving that comfortable collaborations and originality are not antithetical. 117 min.
[Editing by Roderick Jaynes, Tricia Cooke. Casting by John Lyons. Production design by Rick Heinrichs. Costume design by Mary Zophres. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
The Man Who Wasn't There
2001. USA. Directed by Joel Coen. Screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Roger Deakins.
With Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, James Gandolfini, Jon Polito.
Collaborations synopsis: The Coen brothers' black-and-white film noir homage has a familiar set-up: a blackmailer, a cheating wife, a loathsome big shot, and a scheme gone awry. But the narrative similarities do not indicate a remake of their previous films. Differing from the Dashiell Hammett–inspired Blood Simple, whose fantastical elements were overshadowed by its gritty realism, and the Raymond Chandleresque The Big Lebowski, whose irreverence and absurdities diluted its noir intentions, The Man Who Wasn't There, seemingly influenced by James M. Cain, upends genre expectations—an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances goes beyond his capabilities to resolve injustice—as the title character instead chooses to be an observer in his own story. 116 min.
[Editing by Roderick Jaynes, Tricia Cooke. Casting by Ellen Chenoweth. Production design by Dennis Gassner. Costume design by Mary Zophres. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
No Country for Old Men
2007. USA. Written and directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen.
Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Music by Carter Burwell. Cinematography by Roger Deakins. Editing by Roderick Jaynes.
With Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, & Tommy Lee Jones
Collaborations synopsis: Winner of the 2008 Academy Award for Best Picture, No Country for Old Men is a deceptively simple crime story about a drug deal gone wrong, the guy who stumbles across the ill-gotten cash, and the sociopath chasing after the money. It also transcends its narrative to reveal an elegy to simpler times and a meditation on innocence lost. This film, Deakins's ninth and Burwell's eleventh collaboration with the Coens, is a fitting example of the collaborative environments intrinsic in the brothers' films. 122 min.
[Casting by Ellen Chenoweth. Production design by Jess Gonchor. Costume design by Mary Zophres. Supervising sound editing by Skip Lievsay.]
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