Movie Review: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen.

Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen.

Starring – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: Tim Blake Nelson (Buster Scruggs), David Krumholtz (Frenchman in Saloon), Clancy Brown (Curly Joe), Harry Melling (Harrison), Jesse Luken (Drover), Jefferson Mays (Gilbert Longabaugh), Danny McCarthy (Ike).

Starring – Near Algodones: James Franco (Cowboy), Stephen Root (Teller), Ralph Ineson (The Man In Black).

Starring – Meal Ticket: Liam Neeson (Impresario), Harry Melling (Orator), Paul Rae (Impressario), Jiji Hise (The Bawd).

Starring – All Gold Canyon: Tom Waits (Prospector), Sam Dillon (Young Man).

Starring – The Gal Who Got Rattled: Zoe Kazan (Alice Longabaugh), Bill Heck (Billy Knapp), Grainger Hines (Mr. Arthur), Billy Lockwood (Father), Ethan Dubin (Matt). 

Starring – The Mortal Remains: Brendan Gleeson (Irishman), Tyne Daly (Lady), Saul Rubinek (Frenchman), Chelcie Ross (Trapper), Jonjo O'Neill (Thigpen).

 

I have seen every Coen brothers film multiple times, and its fair to say that I am a devoted fan of their work – the pair has wriggled into my upper pantheon of directors like Scorsese, Kubrick and Hitchcock over the years. One of the reasons why that is the case is because they never stop surprising me in their work, and yet it’s all very clearly their own work. Yes, the tones of just their last two films – the morbid Inside Llewyn Davis and the screwball comedy Hail, Caesar couldn’t be more different – but they are clearly the work of the same people, who have a dark, absurd sense of humor, and delight in punishing their characters, and pushing the buttons of those in the audience. Their latest film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is a Western anthology – six stories – that was originally meant to be a short TV series for Netflix, before the brothers made (what I think is the right call) and just turned it into a movie, telling dark, absurd, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, always violent stories of the old West. The film is, in many ways, genre pastiche – and you’ll recognize elements from famed films, directors and stars littered throughout the six stories, and yet they’re all Coen brothers.

 

The first story is about a singing cowboy – Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) – who we see riding on his course, strumming a guitar, and crooning like he’s Roy Rogers, before he directly addresses the camera to introduce himself. He seems like such a nice guy – but then he holds up a Wanted Poster – for himself – which describes him as a misanthrope (an insult, not coincidentally, that is often leveled at the brothers themselves), which he thinks is absurd. When he arrives in a small town, and wants to sit down and play poker, it starts an absurdly violent and over the top series of bloody gunfights.

 

From there, the Coens move onto a story of a would be bank robber (James Franco), who finds himself in one near death experience that would seem to be impossible to escape from after another after another, until even he starts to think the whole thing is little more than a sick joke. The third story goes incredibly dark, and stars Liam Neeson as a man who runs a travelling show – in which an armless, legless man delivers a long monologue of greatest hits from other writers, before an ever decreasing number of people – leading to a ruthless, if logical, business decision on Neeson’s behalf. Then there is Tom Waits (a perfect Coen brother’s actor) as an old prospector, who digs and digs and digs, convinced that Mr. Pocket is hiding out there somewhere – and paranoid someone else may stumble on him first.

 

The longest of the stories is the next to last one about a Wagon Train headed to a new territory. A quiet, shy woman, Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan) is travelling with her brother, who dies early in the trip, which leaves her with no money. One of the two men running the Wagon Train (Bill Heck) takes a shine to her – but when wanders away from the path, it is the other, older man (Grainger Hines), who follows with tragic consequences. The last story is the most surreal – and has five people sitting on a stage coach together, all heading towards a rooming house of some sort, all discussing their various thoughts and outlooks on life and death – their being a weird circular logic that brings it all back to the beginning in a strange way.

 

The decision to do an anthology of these stories makes a lot of sense – by themselves, there isn’t enough to fill in a whole feature in any of the stories, and really, I’m not sure any could have even filled out the hour that Netflix would have wanted for standalone TV episodes. But there’s more to it than that – as the films gradually build on each other, each telling an ugly tale of greed, arrogance, stupidity or weakness. The Coen’s view of humanity has always been bleak – the universe often seems to be stacked against their characters, who nevertheless, also author their own fates, and such is the case here – all these characters are doomed from the start, and still, do more to make themselves suffer. It’s telling that the Coens have never ventured outside of America to tell their stories – and often use the most American of genres to tell their stories. Here, they are making a Western and are fully embracing the clichés of the old West in many ways (I’m sure there will be some who don’t like the brother’s depiction of Native Americans in this film – which is understandable, because they are one note savages, but not understandable, as that is clearly the point and not meant to be taken literally). It’s a revisionist Western, but not in the way we have come to expect revisionist Western to be.

 

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs isn’t going to win the Coen’s any new fans – if you think the brothers are smug and superior misanthropes, nothing here is going to change your mind. But it is a film that surprises in all the different ways it is able to depict America greed, violence, stupidity and self-delusion. It is a film that is very much a period piece – and very much not a period piece. While it isn’t good that the film is being released almost exclusively on Netflix – denying us a chance to see the film on a big screen, which it deserves – it is good that it’s on Netflix so we can begin watching it again and again and again right from the start. I cannot wait to revisit it.

Updated Coen Brothers Ranking

In early 2014, I went back and watched all of the Coen brothers movie, and did a re-ranking of them. No, two years later, their latest film, Hail, Caesar! opens, and I need to re-rank everything again. I always bounce around on the Coen’s depending on my mood, and so this is probably not the same as the last ranking I did, nor will it be the same as my next ranking. I always love reading Coen rankings, because no two are remotely the same – there’s always a film or two on every list that I think is shockingly low, and another film or two that are shockingly high.

17. The Ladykillers (2004) – I remember thinking this movie wasn’t so bad when I watched it back in 2004 – and when I re-watched it, I still don’t think it’s horrible. But other than the minor joy of seeing Tom Hanks play against type, and the major joy of Irma P. Hall doing everything, there just isn’t much here – and the film is more mean spirited than I recall. I cannot think of a reason I’d ever re-watch it again  that - is until the next time I decide to go through the Coens films one at a time.

16. Raising Arizona (1987) – Everybody’s Coen brothers list has to have an outlier – either the film that is largely dismissed that ranks in your top 5, or the supposed masterpiece near the bottom. Many think Raising Arizona is a masterpiece – and I just don’t get it. Normally, the Coen’s in silly mode makes me laugh (and there are funny moments here to be sure), and normally, I find their blending of comedy and drama effortless. Here though, it mostly just hits the wrong notes, and I just don’t think it works. I’ll probably keep re-watching this film – I’ve seen it at least 4 or 5 times now – and hope to change my mind. But so far, no dice.

15. Intolerable Cruelty (2003) – This film probably feels less Coen brother-y than any of their other films. Yet, when I re-watched it two years ago, I was surprised by how utterly delightful it was. No, it’s nowhere near the brothers best work, but damn it all if it isn’t a hell of a lot fun.

14. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) – Out of all of the Coens films, The Hudsucker Proxy is probably where I get closest to the Brothers detractors – and will admit that yes, in this case, it is all style over substance. The more times I watch the film, the less the plot or characters or themes affect me – but the more I marvel at the amazing style in which they pull it all off. It’s fun, and brilliant to look at. That isn’t too bad, is it?

13. Miller’s Crossing (1990) – I know a lot of people will scream at me for having this so low. So be it. Miller’s Crossing is a brilliant looking film – a blending of the Coen style with 1930s gangster movies, and it looks amazing. It is also, without a doubt for me, the coldest film of the Coen’s career – deliberately so to be sure, but still, perhaps too icy for me to really get into. I still quite like it – love it in some ways – but it’s nowhere near the brothers best for me.

12. Burn After Reading (2008) – I know I like Burn After Reading more than most people do – to me, it was pretty much hilarious from start to finish, with a brilliant ensemble cast, playing a bunch of idiots who crash into each other for two years, ending with a great final scene of a minor character wishing he knew “just what the fuck we’ve done here”. Take it as a surface level comedy, and it’s hilarious. But I think there’s something deeper – and angrier – here as well. Not much deeper, perhaps, but much angrier – a movie of its moments and the culture of idiots that surrounded it.

11. True Grit (2010) – The Coen Brothers remaking an Oscar winning, John Wayne classic probably doesn’t sound like a good idea – that is, unless you’ve read the book, in which you know it was already half-way to a Coen movie anyway. This Western is a lot of things – starting off being extremely funny and entertaining – with Jeff Bridges playing the John Wayne part basically as The Dude, and young Hailee Steinfeld killing it as the young girl at the center of the movie. Then, gradually, the film becomes richer and darker as it goes along – and ends up being surprisingly moving. If you’re only going to see one version of True Grit – this is the one to see.

10. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – The Coens series of comic misadventures, inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey, make this film more episodic than most – although it’s as funny as anything they have ever done. The film, brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins, is a depression era, musical comedy with George Clooney (starting his fruitful collaboration with the Coens), John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson as a trio of convicts escaping from the chain gang going on the run. The film is frequently hilarious, and if it’s hard to see a larger point to it all that hardly matters because of just how much fun it is.

9. Hail, Caesar! (2016) – I can see this either moving up or down a couple of spots on subsequent viewings (and there will be many) – but on first blush, right at the half way mark seems the perfect spot for their latest – a goofy comedy of the studio era, with many great comic set pieces, and a Christ storyline that makes the whole thing deeper. I loved the film the first time through – and hope to love it again later.

8. Blood Simple (1984) – The Coens debut film was this brilliant, modern day noir – with a cheating wife (Frances McDormand) and her lover (John Getz) trying to stay ahead of her rich husband (Dan Hedaya) and the P.I./killer (M. Emmett Walsh) he has hired to catch them. It’s amazing how complete the Coens’ worldview was right from the start of their career – how pitch black the comedy is here, how great performances and cinematography. Blood Simple is often on lists for the best debut films of all times – and it deserves that spot.

7. The Big Lebowski (1998) – An endlessly re-watchable, “Stoner Noir” – that would make a great triple feature alongside Altman’s The Long Goodbye and Anderson’s Inherent Vice – The Big Lebowski is the Coen’s at their goofiest, as The Dude – Jeff Bridges in his best, most iconic performance – wanders into a kidnapping plot, and has no clue what the hell he’s doing. The film has one great character and scene after another, all coming together in one of the overall most entertaining and funny packages of the Coen’s career. Not as deep as some, but never less than exuberantly entertaining.

6. Barton Fink (1991) – Barton Fink is a film that gets better every time I see it – I started off mystified, and then as time moved on, I loved it more and more. John Turturro’s title character – a mostly talentless playwright turned Hollywood screenwriter, slowly going insane in the hotel, is a masterwork of production design, and cinematography – and it’s funny as hell, and disturbing, as it almost literally descends into hell in the final reel. John Goodman has done any number of great performances for the Coens over the years – but this is his is best, easily. This is a film that I still don’t think I got a complete handle on – in fact, I think I’m going to watch it again soon.

5. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) – This is a personal favorite of mine, for some complicated personal reasons. I know it’s probably not as deep as Barton Fink, nor as endlessly re-watchable as The Big Lebowski, but it’s a Coen film that moves me immeasurably every time I see it – much more than most, it seems, who have largely dismissed or forgotten the film as minor – despite great black and white cinematography (so great in fact, I wish the Coens would do another black and white film). This is great film noir, centered on a man so quiet and calm, that people barely realize he’s there – who finally tries to assert himself, with disastrous results. A brilliant examination of the type of character we hardly ever see in movies.

4. A Serious Man (2009) – It shouldn’t surprise anyone that if the Coens were going to turn any book of the bible into a movie, it would be the Book of Job – they no doubt enjoy how God basically torments Job for the sake of tormenting him. A Serious Man takes place in the suburban Minnesota of the 1960s that the Coens grew up in – and follows a physics professor (played, brilliantly, by Michael Stuhlbarg), whose entire life is falling apart, and he has no idea why. For the entire movie, he resists temptation, until the final moment – in which he may just unleash the apocalypse. And, it’s a comedy – not a goofy Coen comedy, but something deeper and richer. Like Barton Fink, this is one of those films that just gets deeper every damn time I watch it.

3. No Country for Old Men (2007) – Not many people have had success adapting Cormac McCarthy – but with No Country for Old Men the master novelist seemed to meet the brothers half way – writing a book that was perfect for them, and they were smart enough to realize it, and turn it into if not their best movie, then their most perfect one. The movie runs like a Swiss watch, and doesn’t hit a false note from the moment it begins, right to the final shot of Tommy Lee Jones at his kitchen table. One of those rare films that is perfect – and a perfect blend of multiple brilliant artists – McCarthy and the Coens, and their sensibilities.

2. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) – My favorite film of the decade so far, is masterwork from the brothers, about a 1960s folk singer who has talent – just not quite enough to make it. It is a quiet, devastating film about giving up and giving in. In the lead role, Oscar Isaac delivers perhaps the best single performance in a Coen movie ever. The film didn’t make much money when it released – although it was hugely critically acclaimed – but I think it’s still finding its audience. Don’t be surprised if one day, this moves up to the top spot on my list – I’m just not quite ready to do that yet.

1. Fargo (1996) – I have seen Fargo more times than any other Coen brother movie – and perhaps more than any movie period – it is one of the few films I would describe as perfect. The film is a crime thriller – and a violent one, but also a hilarious comedy, and even a quietly touching look at marriage. It is endlessly quotable – features two of the best performances of all time by Frances McDormand and William H. Macy (not to mention to Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, and hell, everyone else). I will never get tired of watching this film.

Movie Review: Hail, Caesar!

Hail, Caesar!
Directed by: Joel & Ethan Coen. 
Written by: Joel & Ethan Coen.
Starring: Josh Brolin (Eddie Mannix), George Clooney (Baird Whitlock), Alden Ehrenreich (Hobie Doyle), Ralph Fiennes (Laurence Laurentz), Scarlett Johansson (DeeAnna Moran), Tilda Swinton (Thora Thacker / Thessaly Thacker), Frances McDormand (C. C. Calhoun), Channing Tatum (Burt Gurney), Jonah Hill (Joseph Silverman), Veronica Osorio (Carlotta Valdez), Heather Goldenhersh (Natalie), Max Baker (Head Communist Writer), Fisher Stevens (Communist Writer #1), David Krumholtz (Communist Writer #4), John Bluthal (Professor Marcuse), Alex Karpovsky (Mr. Smitrovich), Aramazd Stepanian (Eastern Orthodox Clergyman), Allan Havey (Protestant Clergyman), Robert Pike Daniel (Catholic Clergyman), Ian Blackman (Cuddahy), Geoffrey Cantor (Sid Siegelstein), Christopher Lambert (Arne Seslum). 

On the surface, Hail, Caesar! is the Coen brothers in silly mode for the first time since 2008’s Burn After Reading, and it’s a welcome return. When the Coens decide to make pure comedy, they are better than just about anyone currently working at them, with humor both high and low, but frequently funnier than anything else around. Hail, Caesar has any number of those moments - the out and out funniest, Ralph Fiennes’ refined British director trying to coach Aldren Ehrenreich’s seemingly dimwitted Western star to say “Would that it were so simple” ranks among the funniest moments in any Coen film ever – and when they return to it, 45 minutes later, delivers a hell of kicker as well. This isn’t a Coen movie that has a plot that runs like a fine Swiss watch – there’s not a whole lot of plot in the movie to begin with, and the Coens aren’t above abandoning it for pleasurable diversions when they appear. That isn’t to say that Hail, Caesar is all surface level fun however – there is a level just beneath the surface that I cannot shake, and make the whole movie a richer, deeper experience – and makes the film perhaps the most hopeful film of the Coens career.

The film takes place in 1950s Hollywood – mainly on the lot of Capitol Pictures (the same studio that employed Barton Fink a couple decades previously). The main character is Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), who the “Head of Physical Production”, whose job it seems is to put out all the fires and solve all the problems on all the movies, and with all the movie stars. There was a real Eddie Mannix, who was a studio fixer in his day (the 1930s) – but the Coens, as they are wont to do, are basically screwing with the audience by naming him after a real person, who doesn’t have all the much in common with the fictional one here (that Mannix was a hell of a lot worse). The films takes place over a 24 hour period, and there is a hell of lot of problems that Mannix has to deal with – the biggest being that a group calling themselves The Future, has kidnapped Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), the studio’s biggest star, just as they are wrapping production on Hail, Caesar, their huge budgeted prestige picture for the year.

It’s no coincidence that the Coen’s open the movie on the image of a large crucifix, with Jesus dying on the cross, nor that the scene then segues into Mannix at confession – talking to an exasperated priest who is tired of seeing him every single day to hear his confession. Mannix is the film’s Christ figure here – taking on the sins of all those around him – none of whom feel the slightest bit of guilt about them – while he himself feels guilty on their behalf. Throughout the day, Mannix has a few conversations with a man from Lockheed –trying to tempt Mannix away from Capitol pictures, with an offer of more money, and less stress – as well as constantly offering Mannix a cigarette, even after he has explained that he’s trying to quit. To drive the point home, the first time we actually see the title of the movie onscreen, it’s not in the context of the title of the Coen movie, but of the film within the film, with the subheading “A Tale of the Christ” – much like 1959’s Ben-Hur. Although Jewish, the Coens have never really shied away from Christian imagery or even Christian messages throughout their career – and Hail, Caesar is no exception. Mannix may not be dying for the sins of the people under his care – but he is taking those sins upon himself.

This, as mentioned above, may just make Hail, Caesar! the most hopeful film of the Coens’ career to this point. The two taglines for their 2007 masterpiece, No Country for Old Men – “No One Gets Away Clean” and “You Can’t Stop What’s Coming” – sum up their career fairly succinctly. In the Coens’ world, you do not really get away with your sins – you are eventually punished for them one way or another – and sometimes even innocent pay for the sins of others (like William H. Macy’s wife in Fargo, or poor, dumb Donnie in The Big Lebowski). Not in Hail, Caesar! however, where everyone sins, and no one pays for it. Here, it seems, redemption really is possible – Mannix just has to except his fate.

It’s entirely possible however to ignore all of that, and just enjoy Hail, Caesar as the goofy comedy that it is. The Coens’ have always been in love with old movies, often using them as templates for their own, and here they indulge themselves and do a brilliant job of recreating a little bit of everything for the studio era. One of the most memorable scenes in the whole film has nothing to do with anything else in the film, but is glorious just the same – the large scale, hilariously homoerotic dance number featuring a large group of sailors, led by the game as always Channing Tatum, tap dancing with the best of them. Tatum’s is just one of the great, little supporting roles in the film. Tilda Swinton is having a blast as twin gossip columnists, who seemingly appear out of nowhere, one at a time (they hate each other) to throw whoever off their game. George Clooney adds another of his glorious nitwits to his work for the Coens (following O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading) – spending the entire movie in his Hail, Caesar costume, and being introduced to Communism for the first time (it sounds pretty cool to him).Surprisingly, it’s Alden Ehrenreich who practically steals the movie as Hobie Doyle, who we are introduced to as a singing, stunt doing cowboy, before he’s cast in a drawing room comedy. At first, he seems like a complete and total idiot – but he’s actually the only one who can seemingly figure anything out, in his simple sounding, homespun fashion. That doesn’t even mention Scarlett Johansson, adopting the most exaggerated accent of her career (that has had a few), or Jonah Hill in a nearly silent, yet hilarious cameo, or Frances McDormand, as an old school editor. Brolin is wonderful as Mannix – funny and weary at the same time – but the supporting cast helps make the movie as wonderful as it is.

When the Coens go goofy, like Hail Caesar undeniably is, there is a tendency of some to dismiss it as minor Coens – enjoyable, but lightweight and meaningless. I don’t think Hail, Caesar is that. No, it isn’t the masterpiece that several of their films are – but it’s wonderful in its own way, and consistent with the rest of their work. I cannot wait to dive headlong into the film again – as I think there’s more here than is readily apparent on the surface.

The Films of the Coen Brothers: Conclusion and Updated Ranking

2014 marks the 29^th Anniversary of the Coen Brothers first film, Blood Simple. In that time, they have made 16 features, and none of them are completely without value, even if a few of them I don’t like very much. They are perhaps the most consistently excellent filmmakers of their generation – they hop from genre to genre, but make each genre their own. The Coens are cynical, some may even say nihilistic at times, but I’ve never bought the argument that they are all style and no substance or that the Coens hate and mock their characters– as I hope these 16 reviews over the past 8 weeks have made clear. They are both approaching 60 now – but unlike many directors their age, I think they’re more relevant now than they’ve ever been – and are riding a hot streak that stretches back to 2007’s No Country for Old Men. While some will complain that they “make the same film over and over again” – true, to a certain extent, their films are variation on a theme to be sure – they find new, distinct ground each time out. This is why I think they’re the best filmmakers in the world at this moment – and hope they remain so for a while longer anyway.

I said at the beginning I would do an updated ranking of the 16 films at the end, so here it is. The number in brackets is where I had the films (minus Inside Llewyn Davis, which I had not seen at the time) last time to show you the movement (and there was some movement) since I started this re-watch. The Coens filmography, more than most, is one that doesn’t always lend itself to consensus – ask five different Coen fans for a list of their top five films, and you’re likely to see every film they’ve ever made (minus Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty) show up on someone’s.

16. (15) Raising Arizona (1987) – Still the film of The Coens I just don’t like – it’s a comedy where the Coens try to add in some serious elements, and it doesn’t work. Whenever one looks to take over, and a scene develop in a logical fashion, the other comes in and ruins it. I’ve seen it 4 or 5 times now – and I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll never like  a film that many think is among their best.

15. (13) The Ladykillers (2004) – A goofy lark of a film, with two great performances by Tom Hanks and Irma P. Hall, and not a whole lot else. It was fun the first time through, less so the second.

14. (14) Intolerable Cruelty (2003) – This actually improved a little on second viewing – it still seems like the Coens cruising, but it was a lot of fun.

13. (12) The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) – The charges of this being all style and little substance are true – but what wonderful style!

12. (11) Burn After Reading (2008) – An underrated, hilarious, extremely cynical farce. Would be a triumph for most filmmakers, but is minor only when compared to the Coen’s masterpieces.

11. (7) Miller's Crossing  (1990)   - A stylistic masterwork, that left me a little cold on this most recent viewing. John Turturro is still great though, and that coldness is deliberate.

10. (10) True Grit (2010) – Perhaps the least personal of all Coen films, but still an exciting Western, and a necessary corrective to the John Wayne film. Most filmmakers couldn’t do this at all, so while it isn’t as “Coen-esque” as most of their work, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

9. (9) Blood Simple (1984) – A brilliant debut – a stylistic tour-de-force that announced a major new voice in American film, and still works as a film unto itself.

8. (5) O Brother Where Art Thou (2000) - A hilarious, stylistic masterwork, taking a cue from Preston Sturges, another from Homer, and delivering something wholly unique – and consistently entertaining.

7. (4) The Big Lebowski (1998) – The funniest film the Coens have ever made – and one of the funniest anyone has – an endless rewatchable film that is almost all diversions, subplots and out of left field plot twists, that somehow works amazingly well – and gave us The Dude.

6. (6) The Man Who Wasn`t There (2001) – Outwardly, a typical film noir, whose detours that many disliked are actually what make it a much better, much deeper film that it gets credit for.

5. (3) A Serious Man (2009) – The book of Job is 1967 Minnesota, with poor Larry Gopnik cannot catch a break, and ends up destroying us all.

4. (8) Barton Fink (1991) – The film most “improved” on a second viewing for me – a Hollywood horror story, a surrealistic nightmare – and the only film of the Coens that I hope the Coens make a sequel to (there has been talk).

3. (2) No Country for Old Men (2007)  - A perfect film that seems like a crime thriller, but is really so much more than that – a wonderful combination of the work of Cormac McCarthy and the Coens.

2. (-) Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) – The Coens saddest, most deeply felt film. I may well end up moving this even further up the list in the years to come.

1. (1) Fargo (1996) – My first Coen film is also my favorite. One of the reasons I fell in love with movies in the first place, and a movie that works as well on the 20^th viewing as it did on the first.

So that’s it. I hope you enjoyed reading this series of reviews on the Cones as much as I enjoyed watching their movies and writing about them. I hope to start another series, on another director, shortly.

The Films of the Coen Brothers: Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Directed by: Ethan Coen &  Joel Coen.
Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen.
Starring: Oscar Isaac (Llewyn Davis), Carey Mulligan (Jean), Justin Timberlake (Jim), Ethan Phillips (Mitch Gorfein), Robin Bartlett (Lillian Gorfein), Max Casella (Pappi Corsicato), Jerry Grayson (Mel Novikoff), Jeanine Serralles  (Joy), Adam Driver (Al Cody), Stark Sands (Troy Nelson), John Goodman (Roland Turner), Garrett Hedlund (Johnny Five), Alex Karpovsky (Marty Green), Helen Hong (Janet Fung), Bradley Mott (Joe Flom), F. Murray Abraham (Bud Grossman), Nancy Blake (Elizabeth Hobby), Stephen Payne (Mr. Hobby), Stan Carp (Hugh Davis).

Llewyn Davis cannot stop himself. He is a talented folk singer in 1961 New York, but his career is not going well. Neither of his albums – the one he recorded with his old partner Mike who has since thrown himself off the George Washington Bridge and his solo album have sold at all. He cannot get a gig playing anywhere except at the Gaslight – where the performers pass the hat at the end of their set to be paid. He sleeps on the couch of whoever is willing to put him up for the night. Like any young, struggling musician, success is a longshot. But Llewyn makes it even harder for himself. He is almost instantly dismissive of everyone he meets. Sitting in the Gaslight one evening watching an earnest performance by Troy Nelson (Stark Sands), Llewyn wonders aloud if he has “higher function”. When his friends Jean (Carey Mulligan) and Jim (Justin Timberlake) join Troy on stage, for a Peter, Paul & Mary style rendition of 500 Miles, Llewyn looks around the Gaslight in disbelief as the audience starts to sing along. This is what these idiots want to hear you can practically hear Llewyn asking himself in his head. We’ve already seen, in the film opening scene, Llewyn sing a haunting rendition of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me”, so we know he has talent. But talent isn’t always enough to make it in show business – and Llewyn does little to help himself.

As played by Oscar Isaac, Llewyn Davis is one of the Coen brothers most fascinating creations. Loosely based on David Van Ronk – a legend to many in the folk scene, unheard of by most others – Llewyn is a character that refuses to compromise what he sees as his artistic integrity. We often admire that quality – there have been many movies made about it, and we romanticize the true life stories of artists who stuck to their guns and won. But for every one of them who made, there are 1,000 Llewyn Davis’ – those who stick to their guns, and lose. Llewyn looks down on those around him – not just other folk singers, like Jean and Jim who he views as “careerist”. A middle class professor and his wife, the Gorfeins (who, for the record, I see no evidence to suggest they are Mike’s parents), welcome Llewyn into their home, and introduce them to their friends, and he instantly mocks them – and then loses their cat. He is a man who depends on the kindness of others for a place to stay, but provides no kindness back. When he’s onstage, he can make beautiful music, but he’s rather hopeless when he’s not on stage. He is depressed – about his career failings, about the suicide of his partner, about the state of his father, etc. He pours that pain into his music – which makes it so memorable – but also makes him miserable.

The movie has a definite three act structure – the first being Llewyn time in New York, when he’s still hustling, still trying to make it – while at the same time dealing with Jean and her wish for an abortion (she doesn’t know if the baby is Llewyn’s or Jim’s – and blame Llewyn for that), and the newly discovered knowledge that the previous girl he arranged an abortion for, never went through it – and simply went home to Akron. And searching for that damned cat that got away. With everything else that has gone wrong, you would think the cat would be the least of his worries (“That is what you feel guilty about?” Jean asks him in disbelief). But it gives him something to focus on – something he may actually be able to fix. And the cat never calls him an asshole, so there’s that.

The second act has Llewyn go on a journey to Chicago – he wants to meet Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham) and play at his famous Gate of Horn club. He thinks that he can convince Grossman to represent him, and then his career may take off. He shares the journey with Roland Turner (John Goodman), a heroin addicted jazz musician, who is perhaps an even bigger asshole than Llewyn is – poking and prodding Llewyn about how folk music is awful (“In jazz, we play all the notes – not three chords on a ukulele”)  - and deliberately mispronounce his name as Elwin. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, when Turner’s sidekick, Johnny Five (Garret Hedlund, largely silent, but great as he plays off his character in Walter Salles’ adaptation of On the Road), Llewyn just walks away – leaving Turner, and a (different) cat to fend for themselves. Llewyn eventually does make it to the Gate of Horn, meets Grossman, and plays him a beautiful version of The Death of Queen Jane – only to be told bluntly “I don’t see any money here” – and leave more dejected and depressed than ever before – and have to hitchhike back to New York. While driving, he passes a sign for a turnoff for Akron – and distracted, runs over another (or the same) orange cat. Llewyn drives on.

The Gate of Horn sequence is talked about every time Inside Llewyn Davis is discussed – and with good reason, as it may be the best scene in the film. Llewyn’s performance of The Death of Queen Jane – shot mainly in close up, as Llewyn pours his soul into it – is beautiful, and Abraham’s blunt assessment is harsh and rather brutal. Yet, watching the film a second time, I wondered why Llewyn would pick that song to sing to Grossman. He’s trying to convince this man that he has a future, and can make money, as a folk singer. Why would be pick something as blatantly depressing (it’s about death in childbirth after all). Has Llewyn deliberately sabotaged himself? Does he even want to succeed, or is he happier being depressed?

When Llewyn drives by Akron, the Coens leave it to the viewer to decide why he doesn’t pull over. Is it out of selfishness – he never wanted a kid, and doesn’t care that he has one in Akron, or is it perhaps the best thing Llewyn does in the film? What can he realistically offer a child? The mother clearly didn’t want him around and has moved on. Is it really selfishness on Llewyn’s behalf that makes him not pull over, or a strange kind of sacrifice?

When Llewyn returns to New York, the film is more even more downbeat than it was when he left. He has determined to give up – rejoin the merchant marines – and has to deal with bureaucratic red tape before he can ship out. He goes to see his father, and sings another song to him, yet leaves even more depressed than when he arrived – seeing what is perhaps his future laid bare in front of him. He returns to the Gaslight one last time – as we have now caught up to the first scene in the film – and hear one last song from Llewyn – who finally manages to sing the song that was his and Mike’s signature songs – Fare Thee Well – to an appreciative, but not overly enthusiastic crowd. As Llewyn is leaving the stage, he sees the future take his place on it – before heading out to the alley, where, as we know from the opening sequence, he’ll be punched in the face. We now know why he’s being punched – and it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t deserve it, and yet here, like in every scene in the movie, I felt for Llewyn. He’s an asshole, but such a fully realized one, and such a sad one, that I could not help myself. I cried both times I saw the movie as he plays Fare Thee Well – a song that has dual meanings in the film, as Llewyn, I think, is finally ready to move on from the death of Mike, and yet he’s also getting ready to leave music behind him for good. His last line in the movie, a sad, sardonic “Au Revoir” is one of the most perfect endings I can recall.

Inside Llewyn Davis is ultimately about failure, depression and eventually giving up. Is Llewyn depressed because he’s a failure, or is he a failure because he’s depressed, and as a result, acts like an asshole? I’m not sure – and I don’t think it really matters. But Llewyn may not have always been so miserable – listen to the two versions of Fare Thee Well in the movie – the one recorded with Mike sounds much more hopeful, and optimistic, than the one he performs by himself at the end of the movie. When he sings it by himself, he cannot bring himself to sing the third verse, that references his “unborn child” and has the line “Life ain’t worth living, without the one you love” – instead he circles back to the first verse, about Noah’s dove – “flying up the river to the one I love”. Llewyn Davis may well be an asshole – but he’s an asshole I understood and felt for. His dream is coming to an end, he’s decided to give up, and resign him to just “existing” – who wouldn’t be an asshole?

 

I’ve gone on a lot about the movie already, and haven’t touched on many things in it. It’s humor – from the hilarious “Please Mr. Kennedy” – with Adam Driver’s wonderful vocal sound effects. The style of the film, which is as meticulous as any Coen movie, yet more subdued. They’re not going as overtly stylistic with the art direction or costumes this time around, instead looking to evoke the time and place of New York in 1961 – taking their visual guide from seemingly some album covers – like Inside Dave Van Ronk or Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’. They’re more interested in realism here than the more overtly stylized movies they have often made in the past. Bruno Delbonnel’s cinematography is wonderful – from Llewyn’s backlit performances in the smoky Gaslight Café, often focused solely on Llewyn himself with the crowd cut out – it’s onstage where he is most himself, and with his eyes closed, he is blocking out everything around him. The streets of New York have never seemed so cold and foreboding – the romanticism of being on the road on his journey to (and from Chicago) has been completely drained - the road is a cold and desolate place. All the music, produced by T-Bone Burnett, is beautifully orchestrated and hits the different subgenres of folk music at the time. The performances in the movie are all top notch – Oscar Isaac in particular delivers what may be the best performance in a Coen brother movie. The supporting cast is filled with memorable faces and moments. One of my only problems with the film at a first look was I thought Carey Mulligan’s Jean was perhaps a tad underwritten –but watching it a second time, I noticed how many different notes she hits – how underneath all that righteous anger in the scene in the park, there really is an overarching feeling of sadness, and Mulligan plays it beautifully.

Unlike most of the films I wrote about in this series, I’ve only seen Inside Llewyn Davis twice. I feel there’s even more here to write about, to parse through. It is, for me, the most emotional of any of the Coen films – the most deeply felt. It is, in a word, a masterpiece.

The Films of the Coen Brothers: True Grit (2010)

True Grit (2010)
Directed by: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen.
Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen based on the novel by Charles Portis.
Starring: Jeff Bridges (Rooster Cogburn), Hailee Steinfeld (Mattie Ross), Matt Damon (LaBoeuf ), Josh Brolin (Tom Chaney), Barry Pepper (Lucky Ned Pepper), Paul Rae (Emmett Quincy), Dakin Matthews (Col. Stonehill),  Jarlath Conroy (Undertaker),  Domhnall Gleeson (Moon (The Kid)), Elizabeth Marvel (40-Year-Old Mattie), Roy Lee Jones (Yarnell), Ed Corbin (Bear Man).

True Grit is the type of remake I would like to see more of. The original 1969 film directed by old school studio hand Henry Hathaway and starring John Wayne (in an Oscar winning role) already seemed dated when it was released. Wayne was capable of greatness – in films as varied as Red River (1948), The Searchers (1956), Rio Bravo (1959) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) among others – but he was also had no real problem coasting on his iconic image. That’s pretty much what he did in True Grit – which in his and Hathaway’s hands was a nostalgic Western with a clear division between good and evil and a simplistic way of looking at the world. In the same year that Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch pretty much put a nail in the coffin of the traditional Western as it had been made since the dawn of movies, Hathaway and Wayne pretty much didn’t take notice, and made one the old way. The result is an okay film – that would probably not be very well remembered today had the Academy decided not to give Wayne his only acting Oscar for the role – a move largely seen as a sympathy vote as Wayne had never won, and had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The Charles Portis novel on which the film was based was not quite as simplistic as the movie Hathaway and Wayne made out of it – Rooster Cogburn was not quite the one dimensional hero Wayne played him as. The ending of the novel was not supposed to be as triumphant as the 1969 film showed it as. If nothing else, than the Coens 2010 remake shows that the world of True Grit is not as black and white as we always assumed it was.

The story is about Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) – a 13 year old girl whose father has been gunned down by the cowardly Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) – who has since teamed up with Lucky Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) and his gang, and lit out for the Indian territory. The Sheriff doesn’t care – he isn’t his problem anymore as he’s out of town. And without an incentive, the U.S. Marshalls won’t spend much effort tracking him down either. So Mattie asks the Sheriff who the best Marshall they have is – and is told that Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) is certainly the meanest. We are introduced to Rooster in a courtroom scene, where he’s being cross examined by a defense lawyer who dwells on how many men Rooster has killed in carrying out his duties. It’s so many Rooster isn’t quite sure of the number. That’s enough for Mattie – who hires Rooster to track down Tom Chaney for her – on the condition that she is coming along with him when she does. They are joined by a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) who doesn’t much care for Rooster. The feeling is mutual.

In many ways, True Grit is the most straight forward of the Coen brothers films. They have often worked in genre films, but take those classic genres and twist them to make a film that is unmistakably their own. They don’t really do that with True Grit – which to a certain extent is as much as a throwback to an earlier time as the original True Grit was. This film would sit more comfortably alongside the Westerns of the late 1960s and 1970s – when the genre was becoming darker than it previously had been, and more cynical.

As played by Jeff Bridges, Rooster Cogburn is not a straight ahead hero, as John Wayne’s version was. He seems older, is certainly an alcoholic, and has the appearance of a pile of old, smelly clothes. He is, as the defense attorney accuses him of being, a cold blooded killer – but not one without a certain degree of charm and humor – at least to the audience. As Mattie Ross, Hailee Steinfeld (in her debut performance) is even better than Bridges – the movie is hers, and she carries it effortlessly – from bargaining with a crooked horse dealer, to her single minded pursuit of Tom Chaney, her Mattie Ross is tougher than Kim Darby’s was in the original – more capable of taking care of herself, and less willing to take a backseat to the men. Matt Damon, who unlike his two co-stars wasn’t nominated for an Oscar (although he should have been) is their equal as LaBeouf – a man whose tough guy act really is more of an act than anything else – one that he uses to disguise his own insecurities. When he finally arrives in the movie, Josh Brolin’s Tom Chaney is more pathetic than anything else – a sad loser, unwanted by everyone. He is a “bad guy” to be sure, but not that hateful of one.

To watch the two different versions of True Grit is to see how completely different two films that tells the same plot, have the same characters, and has much of the same dialogue – both screenplays borrow heavily from Portis’ novel in terms of dialogue. But the original film was a straight ahead, heroic Western – that ends in triumph when Cogburn finally admits that Mattie Ross really does has “true grit”. In The Coen brothers world, this same conclusion is played on a note of sadness – a feeling that Mattie, not to mention Rooster, have essentially wasted their lives. When we see Mattie in the closing scenes of this movie as a 40 year old woman, she doesn’t seem to have changed at all since she was 13 – she is still stubborn, still alone, still has the same viewpoint on the world around her. She will, most likely, die alone, as we learn that Rooster eventually did. As for LaBeouf, we don’t learn what happened to him – and I take that as perhaps the only hopeful note in the films closing scenes. He always did have slightly more insight than either Rooster or Mattie – and perhaps he was smart enough to move on with his life.

As I mentioned off the top, this is the type of remake I would like to see more of. I see little point in simply remaking a classic film and simply repeating everything the original film did the first time around. If you’re going to do that, you may as well not do it at all, because the original film already did it. But when you remake a film like True Grit – one I don’t consider to be particularly good in the first place – you can find interesting differences to explore. That’s what the Coen brothers do in True Grit. As a Western, True Grit is exciting, action packed, old school entertainment – with great performances and cinematography. Perhaps the Coens simply made it because they were sticking to the old formula of “one for you, one for them” – and True Grit was the most successful of the brothers film at the box office. Or perhaps they did it because they wanted to make an old fashioned Western – or because they felt Portis’ novel deserved better than it got from Hathaway and Wayne. I really don’t know why the brothers made it – and I really don’t care. Perhaps, as some have said, True Grit is the least personal of the brothers films. Fair enough. It doesn’t quite have the hallmarks we normally associate with the Coen films – unless you include in those hallmarks great performances, fine storytelling and amazing Roger Deakins cinematography, in which True Grit certainly delivers. It may well be the least “Coen-esque” of all of the Coen films – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a wonderful film in its own right.

The Films of the Coen Brothers: A Serious Man (2009)

A Serious Man (2009)
Directed by: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen.
Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen.
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg (Larry Gopnik), Richard Kind (Uncle Arthur), Fred Melamed (Sy Ableman), Sari Lennick (Judith Gopnik), Aaron Wolff (Danny Gopnik), Jessica McManus (Sarah Gopnik), David Kang (Clive Park),  Alan Mandell (Rabbi Marshak), Amy Landecker (Mrs. Samsky), George Wyner (Rabbi Nachtner), Steve Park (Clive's Father), Allen Lewis Rickman (Shtetl Husband), Yelena Shmulenson  (Shtetl Wife), Fyvush Finkel (Dybbuk?), Raye Birk (Dr. Shapiro), Simon Helberg (Rabbi Scott), Adam Arkin (Divorce Lawyer), Warren Keith (Dick Dutton).

I cannot help but think that in some ways, A Serious Man is a film the Coen brothers made in response to some of their detractors. As more than one critic at the time pointed out, A Serious Man is the type of film you get to make only after you’ve won an Oscar. That’s when, if you’re smart, you try and get a long gestating passion project made. Although between A Serious Man and their Oscar winning No Country for Old Men, the Coens made Burn After Reading – that was a film with two of the biggest movie stars in the world, and it debuted just months after the Oscars – meaning it was already well into production when they won. A Serious Man on the other hand has no movie stars, is set almost entirely in the Jewish Community in Minnesota of the 1960s – when the brothers were growing up – and is a painfully funny modern day reworking of the Book of Job – Job being the man that God punished basically because God made a bet with Satan that he could punish Job and he still wouldn’t lose his faith. The old (and tired) criticism of the Coens has always been that they hate and mock their characters – that like some cruel, detached Gods above them they toy with and punish their characters for their own personal amusement. It’s a line I’ve never believed – as I have quoted from The Dissolve more than once during this series, I think the Coens “love their sinners, but don’t let them get away with their sins”. Their characters, from Blood Simple to Burn After Reading (and beyond, in True Grit and Inside Llewyn Davis) bring the wrath that befalls them on themselves. The same is not true for Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlberg) – who is punished in many ways even more severely than other Coen characters and for sins he has not (yet) committed. It’s almost as if the Coens are responding to two old criticisms of them – that they are impersonal, by setting movie in the time and place of their youth, and that they are cruel Gods mocking and punishing their characters for no reason, by doing exactly that – but blowing it up to more epic proportions. In doing so, I think the Coens have made one of their masterpieces.

When the movie opens, Larry Gopnik is a mainly happy physics professor – married, with two kids and about to get tenure. That he teaches physics is no coincidence – physics attempts to explain the mysteries of the universe using mathematics, and Larry is about to be faced with a series of problems that no math can explain. A friend, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), wants to get in contact with him so they can have a “good talk” – about what he has no idea, until his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) gets infuriated with him for not talking to Sy. According to her, they both know that things between them have not been right for a while. It’s time to get a divorce, so she can marry Sy. But poor Larry knew no such thing – he’s blindsided by this revelation. And when he finally does talk to Sy, it’s impossible to get mad at him, because Sy is so even keeled, has such a reassuring voice – and is able to say practically anything and make it seem like you’d be a complete asshole to disagree with him. His career is also in jeopardy – a Korean student, unhappy with a failing grade, has tried to bribe Larry into passing him – Larry doesn’t want the money, but he’s almost stuck with it. And someone has been writing the tenure committee about his “moral turpitude”. His kids don’t seem to care about him – his son just wants him to fix the TV so he can watch F-Troop, his daughter just wants Uncle Arthur out of the bathroom so she can wash her hair. And Arthur is in the bathroom a lot, because he has to drain a cyst. He is incapable of holding onto a job, but he has some large scheme, writing in either incomprehensible gibberish, or absolute genius, in a series of notebooks that allows him to win at gambling – before the police show up for that, and more serious crimes. And that’s just the start of Larry’s problems.

In response to this crisis, Larry goes to see one rabbi after another – starting with the youngest (Simon Helberg), who offers no concrete advice, but advises him to see Hashem all around him – I mean, just look at the parking lot! Rabbi Natchter tells Larry a long story – almost a short film in itself – about a dentist who finds Hebrew words written in a goy’s teeth. Larry wants to know the point of the story – “We can’t know everything” the rabbi tells him. Larry wants to see the oldest rabbi – even goes to see him and after explaining his situation to his secretary, sees her go back to see the old rabbi sitting still behind his desk, only to be informed that he cannot see Larry because he’s too busy. “He doesn’t look busy” Larry says. “He’s thinking” is the response het gets.

Larry spends the movie searching for an answer as to why he’s being punished – and never gets one. Everyone else in the movie seems to know he’s doomed – everyone seems to regard him with sympathy, not anger. Perhaps he’s being punished because an ancestor allowed a Dybbuk into his house, as we see in the film’s opening scene. Or perhaps it’s something else entirely. The ending of the movie certainly suggests that some force is testing Larry – seeing how far he can be pushed before he breaks. The moment Larry does indeed break – and commits his first real sin in the movie – is when Larry’s problems really start – an ominous phone call from his doctor, and a final shot that suggests that Larry was being tested on behalf of us all.

As Larry, Michael Stuhlberg delivers a great performance. It would have been easy to portray Larry as a pathetic loser or a Woody Allen-style neurotic, but Stuhlberg and the Coens do not do that. Larry is a good man - one who is striving to do the right thing, and just wants answers to the undeniable truth that he is being punished for what appears to be no reason. That everyone is so damned polite to him is infuriating and he tries to hold everything together until finally, he just cannot do it anymore. He is surrounded by a cast of actors that I mainly had never seen before – but all of whom seem perfect for their roles. The film is stylistic, but more grounded in reality than many Coen films have been. They are interested in recreating the world as they knew it in the 1960s, and they don’t go for exaggerated effect in the film. The film is quite funny – but not in the overtly comic way other Coen films have been. This is a film whose comedy comes from a painful place – you laugh, or at least smile, because the alternative is too painful. This is a comedy that makes you wince.

How anyone could watch A Serious Man and accuse the Coens of having no sympathy for Larry – for simply being cruel Gods toying with the character for their own amusement is beyond me. Larry is the most wholly sympathetic protagonist in the Coens filmography. Even that doesn’t ultimately save Larry. Someone really has it in for poor Larry.

The Films of the Coen Brothers: Burn After Reading (2008)

Burn After Reading (2008)
Directed by: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen.
Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen.
Starring: George Clooney (Harry Pfarrer), Frances McDormand (Linda Litzke), Brad Pitt (Chad Feldheimer), John Malkovich (Osborne Cox), Tilda Swinton (Katie Cox), Richard Jenkins (Ted), Elizabeth Marvel (Sandy Pfarrer), David Rasche (CIA Officer), J.K. Simmons (CIA Superior), Olek Krupa (Krapotkin).

Burn After Reading is the red headed step child of late Coen brothers movies – the one no one talks about very much. Debuting a year after No Country for Old Men – and a year before A Serious Man – two of the brothers very best films, Burn After Reading felt to many to be little more than a lark for the brothers – a fun way to recharge their batteries after something as heavy as No Country. The presence of movie stars like George Clooney and Brad Pitt assured that the film was a sizable hit for the brothers – but the film came and went getting mostly good, but not great, reviews, and then was pretty much forgotten. While I will admit that Burn After Reading is obviously a “minor” Coen film – that doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderful in its own way. It is the funniest film they’ve made since O Brother, Where Art Thou for one thing – filled with great comedic performances, no one more so than Pitt, who is gloriously stupid in the film. While No Country for Old Men is what I would call a timeless film – a film that will remain relevant for a long time, and really could have been set at any time after WWII right up to the present day, Burn After Reading is much more a product of the time and place it was made. In many ways, it is even somewhat ahead of its time – if only by a few years. If Burn After Reading were released in 2013 for example, you could have easily have lumped it in with films such as Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring – three very different films, but all of which concentrate basically on rather dumb characters who all feel entitled to their share of the American Dream – but don’t feel they need to work for it – they just want to reap the awards. Bay’s film in particular feels like a pumped up version of Burn After Reading in many respects – something I noted at the time. Watching the film again, I enjoyed it just as much as the first few times I watched it back in 2008.

The film opens with CIA operative Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) being informed that he is being moved to a less sensitive area – he’s a drunk and they don’t want him handling classified information. He’s furious, and quits on the spot – much to the dismay of his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), a doctor who laughs at Osborne when he tells her he wants to write his memoirs (which Malkovich pronounces in only a way he could). Katie pretty much already hates Osborne – she’s been sleeping with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) – a U.S. Marshall for a while, and him quitting makes her finally decide to get a divorce. Harry, is also married (and building a complex marital aid in his basement for his wife), but in addition to sleeping with Katie, he also goes online to pick up random women for sex.

Two idiot gym employees – Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), who wants a host of plastic surgery because she’s “gotten as far as this body” will take her, and is furious with her HMO for denying her claim and Chad (Brad Pitt), who likes to bike everywhere, and dance around like an idiot – find a disk in the gym’s locker room. On that disk they find Cox’s memoirs – and a host of what Chad assumes is some “super-secret shit” – and decide that this is their ticket to financial freedom. If Osborne Cox wants his shit back, he’s going to pay for it.

What happens from there, I won’t spoil, as the film twists and turns – and becomes surprisingly violent, in a comedic way, as the bodies start to pile up. The two best scenes in the movie may well be between David Rasche and J.K. Simmons, as two C.I.A. agents who cannot figure out what the hell is going on, who all the players are, or if they should do anything about it or not – so it’s probably better just to sweep the whole thing under the rug (“I’m fucked if I know what we did”).

Burn After Reading is about a culture of idiots – where CIA agents are really no smarter than idiot gym employees, everyone feels entitled to something they cannot have, and no one takes responsibility for anything. In short, it’s about the culture the Coens see around every day, as the CIA gets involved in one conflict after another, but cannot figure out what the hell they’re doing – and the American people are too stupid to figure it out either. It is a deeply cynical film about modern American culture, wrapped up in a screwball comedy package. It’s a wonderful package at that – Clooney is normally an actor who radiates intelligence – but here, he’s at his most gloriously stupid and dense. Pitt makes a fool out of himself for our enjoyment – and damn it, if he shouldn’t have gotten an Oscar nomination for his troubles. McDormand has never been out and out funnier than she is here as an insecure woman, willing to do anything to get what she wants. Malkovich has great fun screaming for his entire performance. And Tilda Swinton looks at everyone with withering contempt. It’s a great ensemble cast – as all Coen movies have.

To a certain extent, the critics who complained that Burn After Reading was little more than the Coens goofing off are correct. This isn’t them at their best – their most incisive. But it is them at their funniest. If this is them just goofing off, it’s still better than most filmmakers at their best.

The Films of the Coen Brothers: No Country For Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2007)
Directed by: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen.
Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen based upon the novel by Cormac McCarthy.
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones (Ed Tom Bell), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells), Kelly Macdonald (Carla Jean Moss), Garret Dillahunt (Wendell), Tess Harper (Loretta Bell), Barry Corbin (Ellis), Stephen Root (Man who hires Wells), Rodger Boyce (El Paso Sheriff), Beth Grant (Carla Jean's Mother), Gene Jones (Gas Station Proprietor).

Cormac McCarthy’s novels don’t lend themselves easily for the movies. This in part explains why the best book he has ever written – Blood Meridian – has gone through various directors over the years and never been made. That book, a violent masterpiece, is probably unadaptable. James Franco made Child of God into a movie last year (where I saw it at TIFF) – but could not make McCarthy’s dark tale of alienation and necrophilia into a coherent movie. Billy Bob Thornton’s adaptation of All the Pretty Horses may have worked – had Harvey Weinstein not interfered, and essentially cut the running time in half – what’s left looks like a pretty trailer for what might have been. John Hillcoat did a good job with The Road – or at least as good as I think can be done out of McCarthy’s masterpiece – but it still doesn’t come close to the novel. When McCarthy himself wrote a screenplay last year, the result was The Counsellor – a movie I loved, in part because it’s clear McCarthy had no idea how to write a “typical” screenplay and no desire to, and the result was a bizarre, over-the-top, nihilistic little gem – that was hated by pretty much everyone. The one time everything came together just write was with No Country for Old Men – the movie Joel & Ethan Coen turned into a masterpiece – and an very unlikely winner of Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor at the Oscars. It is one of the few films I would call perfect – where there is not a scene, performance or even a shot that seems out of place. It’s a daring film in that it doesn’t give audiences what they want or expect – but precisely what they need for the movie to work. McCarthy undoubtedly met the Coen’s halfway here – the book reads like it was written just so the Coen’s could adapt it – something that cannot be said about any other McCarthy book. The result is a perfect combination of the worldviews of the Coens (fairly nihilistic) and McCarthy (completely nihilistic).

The first three scenes introduce us to the three main characters in the story. First, we hear, but do not see Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) as he tells us a story about incomprehensible violence – the story of a young man who killed a girl, and had no feelings of remorse – and admitted that if they let him go, he’s do it again. We then flash to a police officer who is arrest Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) – although we don’t know his name yet – along with what appears to be an oxygen tank – whose purpose we don’t know. Chigruh goes willingly enough – but in the next scene, at the Sheriff’s office, he comes up behind the deputy who arrested him and strangles him using his cuffed hands. He then steals a police cruiser, pulls a man over, and it’s only then we get to see that oxygen tank – and its strange attachment - at work. Through it all, Chigruh barely says a word – he kills with ruthless efficiency and no emotion. Finally we meet Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) – a good ol’ boy out in the desert hunting, when he comes across a bloody scene – lots of dead men and guns, clearly a drug deal gone wrong. There is one man alive – but barely – but Moss leaves him and explores a little more – eventually finding another dead body – this one next to a suitcase with $2 million in it. He takes the money and runs – but makes a crucial mistake when he returns to the scene later that night, one presumes to kill the lone survivor if he was still alive, and gets spotted. Thus sets up the main action in the movie – Moss is on the run, from Chigruh who has been hired to get the money back, from the Mexican drug cartel who also want the money and from Ed Tom, who knows that if anyone else finds him first, Moss is a dead man.

Scene after scene in No Country for Old Men is perfectly constructed, and seems to be pulling us along to the moment when the three men will come together in a violent conflict. Llewelyn Moss is a typical Coen brothers protagonist – a normal guy, who gets in over his head, and tries to get himself out of it. But like many Coen characters, he has sinned – his sin being greed when he took the money – and the Coens are not ones to let their sinners go free – they make like them, but they still punish them. In a way, he’s like Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo, in that he brings his ultimate fate down on himself – and those around him. Except Moss is somewhat more innocent – he was naturally tempted by the money, and took the opportunity that presented itself to him. Brolin plays Moss as not altogether that bright, but a street smart and resourceful – a man who will do what it takes to survive. He lasts much longer out there, with Chigruh on his tail than anyone thinks he will. I’ve heard complaints about Chigruh, as played by Bardem, as being something akin to the Terminator – an unstoppable killing machine. To a certain extent, that is true. But Bardem’s performance is excellent – deserving of the Oscar he won for it. Chigruh is clearly a man without morals or normal human emotion – he often seems to be examining his prey like an animal predator before he kills it. His best scenes are dialogue driven – like his tense standoff with a friendly gas station attendant (played brilliantly by Gene Jones), who makes the mistake of being friendly to the wrong man. He’s also great when he faces down Woody Harrelson, as another hired killer, this one to track down Chigruh and near the end his scene with Carla Jean, Llewelyn’s wife. Here and in his final scene – where he interacts with two kids – he seems perplexed by the behavior of the people he’s talking to. Why won’t Carla Jean call the coin toss to save her own life? Why are these young boys willing to help him when there’s nothing in it for them? Bardem got all the awards for the film, but perhaps Tommy Lee Jones is even better as Ed Tom Bell – the most complex of the three characters (probably because he isn’t really involved in the chase – he’s always behind, too late, and seems resigned to this fact). He has been a lawman for years, has seen untold amounts of violence, but is now starting to see it in a different way. Has the world changed? A conversation late in the film with a former lawman, older than Ed Tom Bell, makes the point that the West – and America – has always been violent, has always had cruel men who kill without remorse – and that thinking otherwise is naïve, and even vain. Ed Tom is struggling with the violence he sees around him – the callous nature of it, and how he is supposed to stop people from killing each other when they do not seem to care. In the end, he makes the only sane decision he can – the one that proves the title of the movie.

No Country for Old Men has the appearance of a crime movie – and the Coens structure it as such for much of its running time, with scenes we expect to see – tense standoffs and chases, violent gunfights – but from the beginning, it’s also clear that this isn’t “just” a crime movie – if Ed Tom’s monologue at the beginning of the movie doesn’t clue you into that fact, than the ending of the film surely does. Audiences expect these three men to come together in violent conflict – but the Coens and McCarthy aren’t really interested in that. The Coens, daringly, follow McCarthy’s lead – leaving Moss’ fate off-screen. By the time we arrive – along with Ed Tom – we’re too late to see him as anything but a corpse. The Coens even take things a step farther than McCarthy did – leaving Carla Jean’s fate off-screen as well (it’s possible to read how her scene ends with Chigruh in two different ways – but I think we know what happened from the way Chigruh examines his boots). In the end, the Coens allow Chigruh to literally walk off, not unscathed, but free and clear to continue what he does. Ed Tom has no interest in pursuing him – he never really did, he was only interested in trying to save Moss, and when that’s too late, he simply leaves – retires, and waits for death at his kitchen table. I saw No Country for Old Men three times in theaters – once at TIFF, and twice more in its theatrical run – and all three times there were many people audibly saying “That’s it!” They want the resolution they expected – or at least something more conventionally definitive – but I think the ending of the movie is what elevates it from a great film into a masterpiece.

No Country for Old Men takes place in 1980 – but in reality it could take place really any time after WWII in America. It is a crime film in a way – a violent one at that – but more than that, it’s an examination of masculinity, violence, old age and death. While this may not be the most violent Best Picture winner ever – both Godfathers, The Silence of the Lambs or Braveheart may give it a run for its money – it is perhaps the darkest one ever to win, the one that offers no hope, no escape. To some that makes the film depressing – to others who want a tidier resolution, it makes the film disappointing. To me, it makes it one of the best films of the Coens career.