In the early 1950s, people in France were exposed to a huge
influx of American movies. During World War II and the subsequent years of
rebuilding, few Hollywood films made it overseas and so there was a massive
accumulation of classic American movies that Europeans saw basically all at
once. A group of French film critics noticed similarities between movies made
by the same director.
They noticed that films by John Ford, for example, has
similar themes, shots, and camera angles regardless of whether it was a
western, a war picture, or a comedy. This may seem like common sense to us now,
but back then directors really weren’t that big of a deal. In some cases, they
were just glorified managers who made sure the camera was pointed in the right
direction. However, these French film critics developed what is known as auteur
theory, the idea that despite the fact that moviemaking is a very collaborative
process sometimes involving hundreds of people, the director is the film’s
author, the person who puts his or her individual stamp on it.
There was a lot of debate in the 50s and 60s about whether auteur
theory was a valid way of looking at movies, but our culture has completely
bought into it. Directors are brands these days. We know what it means when a
Tarantino movie or a Spielberg picture comes out. We know the difference
between a film by Martin Scorcese and one by Wes Anderson before we even see
them.
Two of our most consistent and interesting auteurs are Joel
and Ethan Coen. The Minnesota-born brothers have shared writing, producing,
directing, and editing tasks on sixteen films starting in the mid 80s. They had
a mild mainstream hit with 1987’s Raising
Arizona and made even more of a splash with the dark, quirky, and
award-winning Fargo in 1996. Since
then, they’ve had some big hits like No
Country For Old Men and True Grit
and some less successful films like The
Man Who Wasn’t There and The
Ladykillers.
The Coen brothers’ movies have several consistent elements
that mark them as auteurs. They work with a stock company of actors who
regularly appear in their work like John Goodman, John Turturro, and Steve
Buscemi. Also, their movies usually take place in distinctly American settings:
the vast, bleak American west, cities dedicated to excess like Los Angeles and
Las Vegas. They love characters with
sharp regional accents whether it’s from Texas, Minnesota, or New York.
Thematically, the Coens are preoccupied with the mundane, greedy evil that
resides in the human heart. Most of their movies seem to suggest that we are
all just a choice or two away from becoming a force of evil in the world.
Sometimes the darkness is played for laughs, but the Coens are at their
strongest in their dramatic films that show the results of too much
unrestrained desire.
Their first film, the little-seen Blood Simple, came out in 1984. It is a film noir tale of
infidelity, double crosses, and murder. The main characters quickly morph from
everyday people a little dissatisfied in their job or their marriage into killers
who scramble over each other just to stay alive. It’s surprisingly accomplished
for a first movie and absolutely has all the hallmarks of later Coen brothers
films. In fact, the brothers reused several shots and sequences from Blood Simple in other movies. One
sequence involves the main character Ray trying to haul a bloody body off the
road before an oncoming car gets close enough to see. Coen fans will know that
sequence was remade almost shot for shot twelve years later in Fargo. You should watch Blood Simple, especially if you’re a fan
of the Coen’s other films. You’ll find that those 1950s French film critics
were onto something and in Blood Simple
you’ll see Joel and Ethan Coen’s distinctive auteurist stamp.
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