This article is a contribution to Film at 11’s blogathon, updating Andrew Sarris’ The American Cinema with selections on post-1968 directors. Given the theme of the month here at MovieZeal, you can guess which director(s) we will be evaluating. For those unfamiliar with Sarris’ work or the canons within which he placed directors, see Film at 11’s initial post here.

LIGHTLY LIKEABLE

Joel and Ethan Coen (1954, ’57 – )
FILMS: (noteworthy entries in italics) 1984 – Blood Simple, 1987 – Raising Arizona, 1990 – Miller’s Crossing, 1991 – Barton Fink, 1994 – The Hudsucker Proxy, 1996 – Fargo, 1998 – The Big Lebowski, 2000 – O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2001 – The Man Who Wasn’t There, 2003 – Intolerable Cruelty, 2004 – The Ladykillers, 2007 – No Country For Old Men

The most impressive accomplishment by Joel and Ethan Coen is how, in spite of working in wildly disparate genres (exploitation, noir, gangster, screwball, remake), they manage to not just make films, but to make Coen films. One would say of most directors, “Their first film was just practice, so we can forgive it if it bears little resemblance in content or quality to their later work,” but Blood Simple, the Coens’ debut, is so scarily assured and effortlessly confident that we can see unmistakable similarities between it and their Oscar lauded No Country For Old Men. How many other directors can claim a distinct style that has been preserved over the course of 12 films and 23 years?

Each of their films showcases idiosyncratic writing, atypical characters, loving homage to genre, obsession with abstract symbolism, loyalty to specific actors, self-reference, and ethnographic regionalism. Some are slight (Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers) while others reveal great depth (Fargo, No Country For Old Men) but all are quintessentially Coen.

The greatest criticism one can make against them is that they are an acquired taste. Their cinema isn’t universally indicative of the human condition (although they flirt with it); it is indicative of themselves. As such, what can you say to the cinephile who does not think Raising Arizona is funny? How can you convince a filmlover to embrace The Man Who Wasn’t There if their first viewing of it was dissatisfying? You may as well try convincing a person who abhors pickles that they are the tastiest morsel on the planet. The niche appeal of the Coens’ style is a double-edged sword: it produces both legions of cultish fans (look no further than Lebowski Fest for evidence of this) and disinterested filmgoers who shrug their shoulders and wonder what the fuss is all about.

Categorizing the Coens, then, is difficult, if not impossible. By their very nature they defy the act. The temptation would be to place them in Sarris’ canon of Pantheon Directors, of which he says, “To speak any of their names is to evoke a self-contained world with its own laws and landscapes.” Certainly true of the Coens, but they are too irregular to join the ranks of Chaplin and Griffeth and Hitchcock. Directors who go from The Ladykillers to No Country For Old Men are, if nothing else, uneven.

Thus the choice lies between Lightly Likeable and Strained Seriousness, the latter of which Sarris describes so: “These are talented but uneven directors with the mortal sin of pretentiousness. Their ambitious projects tend to inflate rather than expand.” Those who have read my writings on the Coens’ early efforts (Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink) will easily note that if I have lambasted the brothers for anything, it has been pretentiousness. Barton Fink bleeds pretension like a murdered writer’s assistant. There is, however, a disarming charm to their films that cuts through the pretension, and so I cannot condemn them to what is one of Sarris’ most belittling categories.

Therefore, in my estimation, Joel and Ethan Coen are Lightly Likeable, “talented but uneven directors with the saving grace of unpretentiousness,” even though Sarris’ description here is only 50% accurate. It seems quite fitting, however, to place the Coens in a category that does not fully describe them, since they are filmmakers who proudly defy description.

The elephant in the room, however, is No Country For Old Men. Coming off a string of critical and commercial failures, the Coens crafted what many consider to be their opus magnum (I would personally trump it with Fargo, a less grandiose work that better personifies their style, due in no small part to the fact that it is original to them, whereas No Country was spawned from the mind of another). Following their greatest success, both critically and commercially, their future output appears to stretch confidently into the distance, but whether it will be stocked with Ladykillers or No Countrys remains to be seen. Suffice to say, a decade down the road may find the Coens comfortably snugged within the Pantheon.