![]() ![]() There's a tenderness in even their darkest films.Since Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney, there's been a steady release of exciting new content set in the galaxy far, far away. and Edwina's torrid relationship in Raising Arizona and Llewelyn and Carla Jean's cute-as-a-button marriage in No Country for Old Men. No matter how cerebral their scripts are, the Coen's never veer far from the topic of love and its awkward antecedents, and the bones of this Polanski masterpiece can be found in H.I. One of Deneuve's calling-card roles at the height of her run of femme fatale characters in the 1960s, the movie crossbred with the contemporaneous French New Wave and cast one of that movement's greatest actresses while simultaneously establishing Polanski's depthful directorial style, hastening for Polanski a run of more commercially-friendly Hollywood films that immediately followed in the late 60s. Polanski collaborated with French screenwriter GĂ©rard Brach to touch off the former's psychological thrillers that helped lay the groundwork for the severity of tone of the next 15 years of films. The film came during Polanski's early career while living in England, before his absorption into New Hollywood when he made Rosemary's Baby three years later. The Belgian manicurist's disaffection in Repulsion smacks of Birdy, Scarlet Johannson's clever-but-confused teenaged pianist in The Man Who Wasn't There. The Coen's have cited the influence of Roman Polanski's films as much as any other director, and if, tonally, their own films diverge from Polanski, both often feature cynical leading characters like Carol Ledoux, played by Catherine Deneuve. The following are the movies that helped breed the Coen brothers language, and the location in their own films where one can find their DNA. Every character in a Coen Brothers movie is a caricature, so we spend as much energy laughing at their carefully-choreographed slapstick as anything intellectual in their films. Take Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski - sure, he's a paradox based on something of an oral history of misled militant screenwriter John Milius, but he clearly owes just as much of his provenance to John Goodman's performance. Within these constructs they leave lateral movement for their actors. However grave the plot, the Coen brothers make fun films, though just as cognizant of the historical confluence that illuminates their characters' motivations. Still, this quality only extends to the boundary of character, whereupon the place becomes as important a topic as their stories, whether that place is Los Angeles or somewhere closer to home - say, Fargo, North Dakota. Tongue is always firmly ensconced in cheek in a Coen brothers film. Ironically, their list of favorite films, while fluid over the years has generally included movies more critical of their invariably-checkered lead characters than the Coen's own lovable-if-flawed icons like Jeff Lebowski and Marge Gunderson. The Coens topical range and delicate dance between micro and macro historical focus helped create a catalog of films that examined time and place as much as character. While the Midwestern Jewish ethos and outsider anxiety of their childhood has bled into a few of their films, namely A Serious Man, the duo have drawn more inspiration from a cadre of post-war, cerebral filmmakers ranging from film school-favorites like Akira Kurosawa to the New Hollywood directors that corresponded chronologically to their education in film. Their mother an art historian and their father an American-born, London-raised Professor of Economics, the historical bent of the Coen brothers' films is rooted in a literati Ashkenazi upbringing that tilted them more towards the archives of American culture than the semi-autobiographical films of other Baby Boomer filmmakers. Joeland Ethan Coen's Minnesota upbringing might belie the eclecticism derived from having been raised by worldly, academic parents. ![]()
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