Whole Durn Human Comedy: Life According to the Coen Brothers
Product details
- ISBN 9781839983313
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 153 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Mar 2022
- Publisher: Anthem Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The Coen Bros. have attracted a wide following and been rewarded with Oscars and other honors. Some of their films are cult favorites and box office hits, such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men. Yet the team of filmmaking brothers remains misunderstood in some circles. Ethan and Joel Coen deliberately unsettle conventional expectations and raise disturbing questions about human nature while mischievously mixing film genres and styles. Their films display shocking tonal shifts as they blend comedy and drama and, most controversially, comedy and violence. This potent mélange of themes and stylistic approaches makes the Coens’ films adventurous, unpredictable probes into contemporary social anxieties. As brilliant satirists, they are heirs to Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder. But they resist easy definition and raise the ire of some critics who like films to fit more comfortably into preexisting formats. Film historian and critic Joseph McBride — author of acclaimed biographies of Frank Capra, John Ford, and Steven Spielberg, along with critical studies of Orson Welles, Ernst Lubitsch, and Wilder — jousts with the Coens’ detractors while defining the filmmakers’ freshness and originality. The quirkily individualistic Coens are the kind of personal filmmakers the increasingly conglomerated American cinema rarely fosters anymore, and this critical study illuminates their artistic personalities and contributions.
Joseph McBride is an internationally renowned film historian, biographer, and critic who has written twenty-two other books, including acclaimed biographies of Frank Capra, John Ford, and Steven Spielberg.
