Tag: Roger Deakins
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Craft and language
Coen Brothers genre pieces are rarely without an ironic twist or two, a knowing nod to the implausibilities of the conventions, or some acknowledgement of the shortcomings of of the genre’s paradigmatic works. True Grit is still recognisably a Coen Brothers movie, but it’s a much more straightforward homage to…
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The past present serious tense
Roger Deakins’s brilliant cinematography has been conspicuous in some of the Coen Brothers’s films—in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, for example, which is not one of their strongest releases, or the black and white The Man Who Wasn’t There, which was. But in other movies it’s just quietly excellent, conveying…
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A***holes looking pretty
It’s an interesting proposition, a romantic comedy starring Hollywood ‘A’-listers, written and directed by the Coen Brothers. What would these masters of generic subversion do with such a broad palette of obligatory tropes? Something intensely stylish, and fiendishly clever, no doubt. However, their previous mainstream comedy, also starring Coens fan…
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Pretty appropriation
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is an altogether more straightforward seeming film than the Coen Brothers’ typical output. Goofy comedies were an established facet of their oeuvre by the time they made this movie (released in 2000), but even there their only piece with a comparably linear narrative was Raising…
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Beautiful scaffolding
Certain themes and techniques recur throughout Joel and Ethan Coen’s films. Convoluted crime stories with arbitrary conclusions in which none of the characters possess any real agency are not their exclusive preserve—they specifically referenced Raymond Chandler when talking about their plotting of The Big Lebowski, for instance. Such tales have…
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An essay in unreality
People like to ascribe meanings to Coen Brothers films. I mean, they must mean something, right? They’re so tricksy and complex, full of so many layers, that surely Joel and Ethan must be getting at something. When an interviewer asked them, in respect of The Hudsucker Proxy, whether they’d intended…
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None of this matters
The Big Lebowski is such a legendary movie that it’s almost embarrassing to admit this is the first time I’ve watched it. It possesses all the accoutrements proper to a cult film: sold-out repertory screenings, enthusiasts quoting large contiguous chunks of dialogue at each other, multiple regular fan conventions, and…
Oliver Arditi 