Coen Country: The Films of Joel and Ethan Coen

Blood Simple (1984)
by Brian

It all began in 1984 with Blood Simple. Ethan and Joel Coen were no-names in the film world, trips to Cannes and Oscar gold were years away. With a small budget, the brothers went to Texas to film what can easily be mistaken as just another B-movie. Yet, the themes, moods and style of all future Coen projects can find their routes stemming from Blood Simple. Guns, pain, betrayal, dark humor, sweaty guys, unique standoffs and lots of the titular blood share screen time in the Coens debut piece.

Abby (Frances McDormand in her screen debut) is a young woman married to bar owner Julian Marty (the fantastic Dan Hedaya). Julian discovers his bartender Ray (John Getz) is sleeping with his wife. Disgusted, Julian hires Loren Visser (the pore soaking, greasy M Emmet Walsh) to kill Abby, an idea that does not go off quite as planned. The quality of Blood Simple stirs from the precision the Coens use to unravel the lust, greed and rottenness within each character. Epitomizing the picture’s morality is Walsh’s Visser, one of cinema’s under-appreciated villains. With a white cowboy hat and button-up shirt soaked to the point of transparency, Visser reveals his ethics to Julian early on, in a classic Coen conversation.

Julian: I got a job for you.

Visser: Uh, well, if the pay’s right and it’s legal, I’ll do it.

Julian: It’s not strictly legal.

Visser: Well, if the pay’s right, I’ll do it.

Although Ethan and Joel had not started working with Roger Deakins, the brothers cinematographer on Blood Simple was their good friend and future director Barry Sonnefeld. The images the three craft of a broken down Texas are haunting. The frames bleed with a desperation of life that basks in simple pleasures, a world fraught with emptiness. Endless black fills up the screen, with dashes of light often only provided by fluorescent fragments on the walls. The mood is clear - keep your problems to yourself, don’t cause problems to others and you just might be fine.

Oddly, despite the Coens success, many have not caught up with Blood Simple. Perhaps the brutal nature of the story, lacking the coolness of Miller’s Crossing's Gabriel Byrne or the warmth of McDormand’s Marge in Fargo, have kept people at bay. The movie’s closest relative in the Coen oeuvre is their latest, and arguably greatest, No Country for Old Men. Each carries a sense of urgency and hopelessness that rip with a gripping tension and nobody-is-safe atmosphere.

Raising Arizona (1987)
by Scott

It's impressive just how much storytelling is accomplished in the first 10 minutes of Raising Arizona.  Before the main title even appears on screen, the viewer is given all the back-story needed and the central premise and motivations of the main characters are made perfectly clear.  Plus, it's damn hilarious.  My personal favorite laugh in the opening sequence comes when H.I. (Nicolas Cage) bursts into the police station to propose to Edwina (Holly Hunter) and takes a quick moment to say hello to the crook having his mug shot taken.  This mixture of humor and quality storytelling sets the tone for what is easily one of the best comedies of the past 25 years.  Hell, it probably even ranks up there with the all time best.

After their mostly serious debut effort Blood Simple, this is where the Coens first began to showcase their penchant for offbeat humor.  The idea of a married couple kidnapping a baby so that they can have one of their own is open to some really dramatic material, but the Coens are just too unique to play it completely straight.  The characters are more like over-the-top caricatures than real people, and their ridiculous intentions are made funnier and likable because of just how silly they are.  For example, H.I. and Edwina justify their kidnapping by reasoning that the Arizona Quintuplets are more than the family can handle, so what difference does it make if they take one to raise as their own?

Nicolas Cage is probably the most inconsistent actor on the planet, and lately he has become laughably terrible (just look up the Wicker Man remake on YouTube…), but H.I. McDonough is one of his best performances.  Cage's forte seems to be characters that are a bit "out there," and H.I. definitely fits that description, but there is also just the right amount of pathos to the role.  The same can be said for Hunter's Edwina.  It becomes quite difficult to root against this couple of misfits.  Of course, it helps that all the other characters are much worse than them.

What always gets me most about this film though, and what elevates it so high on my list of comedies, is the striking amount of poignancy that is achieved in the film's final act.  In particular, I find H.I.'s description of his dream at the end to be mesmerizing in its effectiveness.  I'm even comfortable enough to admit that it makes me tear up a bit every time I watch it.  It's one of my all time favorite endings, and the film itself is still one of the finest achievements by the brothers. 

Continue to Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink