The Coen Brothers 4th Quarter Writing Assignment

The Big Lebowski, A film by Joel and Ethan Coen much like the other one's we watched this semester, is a film showing the directors in their finest form. The movie is very different from their other movies in their repertoire, which in turn can be said about all of their movies. Even with it's differences, you can see the elements of their other films through it. The movie has the mystery aspect of searching for someone, in this case who ends up to be a 15 year old "brat", ala Fargo, and the quirky, offbeat humor and imagery of Raising Arizona. The film, unlike most of their others though, is really about nothing in a sense. But, as Roger Ebert puts it in his review, "The Big Lebowski'' rushes in all directions and never ends up anywhere. That isn't the film's flaw, but its style." http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980306/REVIEWS/803060301/1023
Throughout the movie a few aspects of film can be seen that reverberate through The Coen's other movies. One of these aspects is the dream sequence/retelling of them.

A multitude of times throughout the film the Dude either gets knocked out/drugged/ other incapacitating effect and slips into a dream world. This is not unlike the dreams that happen in Raising Arizona in that they have a very ethereal quality to them and, in this movie, are just plain ridiculous. In this video clip it is apparent the extent they go through in putting in the dream sequences, where in reality they really have nothing to do with the plot besides in a way summing up pieces of the events that happened so far.


This dream sequence in the Coen Brother films can be seen as previously mentioned in Raising Arizona and to a lesser and more serious degree in the end of No Country For Old Men with Ed Tom telling his wife about a dream that he had. This shows that dreams have a significant place in Coen Brother movies and are a common thread between all of their work.

Another reoccurring element that finds its place in their work is a hunt for someone or something. In Raising Arizona the main villain, Leonard Smalls, is after the baby that Nicholas Cage stole. In Fargo, Marge Gunderson is hot on the trail of a murder occurring bizarrely in her area. In No Country For Old Men Anton Chigurh chases Llewellyn Moss across the state of Texas in order to find money that he stole. This can be seen in The Big Lebowski yet again with the disappearance of Mr. Lebowski's wife Bunny, which later turns into a hunt for the person who stole the money Lebowski was given to find her out of his car. The difference in this movie unlike the other movies is that the supposed crook who stole his money is a 15 Year old "brat" named Larry (at least they assume it to be". Unlike the other villains who are chasing or being chased, Larry is a very dull looking boy, as shown here


The Coen brother's use this element of pursuit in all of the films that we watched but mix it up a bit in the process; sometimes showing us both points of view of the people in question (No Country for Old Men) and sometimes only showing us one side of the chase (The Big Lebowski). Which ever way they show it, it is important to note the importance of this element of pursuit that link together all their films.

One last element of the Coen Brothers that can be seen throughout their movies is the fact that they use very imaginative and unique camera angles. This is most apparent in the first dream sequence in The Big Lebowski where they mount a camera inside of a bowling ball sending it down the lane so we actually kinda get the feel of what its like to be a bowling ball. They do interesting shots, though perhaps not as original, in their other movies such as Raising with the chase scene in the super market where they have the camera at a lower angle as though it were a dog, or in the other chase scene in No Country For Old Men where the whole time in shifts between close up shots and long shots giving the claustrophobic hopelessness of Llywellyn's character with the range that Anton Chigurh has with his rifle. These elements really make the film's all that more interesting to watch and lets the viewer give respect to the technical prowess that has to go into these shots.

Overall the Coen Brother's have many elements that tie their films together even though they are so drastically different from one another. It is through this ability that they have gained so much acclaim and are considered some of the best film makers of this generation.

Mira Nair

Mira Nair, like Robert Altman who we viewed before her, was a less than familiar face on the list of directors we were to watch this year. I had heard her name and knew of but had never seen the movie Monsoon Wedding. I think that her films were a nice touch to the agenda, being of foreign heritage and of the opposite sex of all the other directors that we viewed.

One of the main aspects of Mira Nair's films that I found to be interesting was the way that she mixed her traditional Indian heritage with the contemporary, increasingly globalized world. This is especially apparent in her film The Namesake (2007). The main conflict in this movie revolves around Kal Penn's character and how he must go between his Indian heritage, which is deep and very traditional, and his lifestyle he must keep up in the United States to be considered "normal and accepted by other members of society.

This is also readily apparent in Monsoon Wedding, albeit to a less extent, with events such as the bride having to choose between her life in India or her new life in America as well as inter family conflict like the molester uncle which are atypical contemporary issues.

I think that through these scenes and themes throughout her movies Mira is perhaps adding, as all good directors do, a little piece of herself into her movie. Reflected here are perhaps hardships that she has had to go through and she thinks it best to move those feelings on to the big screen, and rightfully so.

The Coen Brothers: Joel and Ethan

On the flip side of the coin as Robert Altman, a director who as said earlier I was not at all familiar with, I was very familiar with the Coen Brother's entering into this unit. Now I would not say I'm anywhere near a scholar on their films, or even well educated on them at all, but I had seen the majority of their collection including all three films that we watched in class, only missing out on a few of their first few which I should probably watch one of these days.

What strikes me above really anything else about the Coen Brother's is their capability to so easily move between genres of film to make any topic look like they've been making films relating to it for years. On one hand you have your directors like Michael Mann and Tim Burton who, while good, for the most part make movies with similar themes, both narrative and visual throughout them. On the other hand you have the Coen Brother's, who are able to effortlessly move from a Quirky Arizona family to a dry humor filled Minnesota cold, all the way to a Very serious game of Cat and Mouse played out in Texas. There movies in no way shape or form "tie in" to eachother and are each there own separate stories.

Although they don't tie into each other story wise, many of the cinematic elements can be traced throughout all of their movies. Things such as Long shots of nature/wilderness, minimal music, having characters that talk very little who have exaggerated character traits, and hidden cuts. All of these make the Coen Brother's particularly interesting, considering that they are able to do this so readily between all very different movies.

Robert Altman

I must admit that before this year, Robert Altman was the only director on the list of directors work we'd be viewing that I hadn't been exposed to before. Sure, I was familiar with some of his movies I later found out that he had done such as Popeye and M.A.S.H, but it was refreshing going into a director almost completely blind with no knowledge of who he was or what he did stylistically.

One of the aspects of Altman's work that I really enjoyed and found unique to the director was the fact that in all of his films we saw, particularly The Long Goodbye and Nashville, the characters dialog seemed to collide together. As one person was finishing up talking, the next would start early almost interrupting them, giving a really, gritty, real life feel to his films.


I think this fits perfectly into the slogan that Mr. Klobuchar gave him to fit the unit; "Controlled Chaos", because the characters seem to be almost ad libing their own lines as though it is a real life conversation but are all infact presumably carefully instructed on what to say and do. This is perhaps a play on Hollywood, as Altman often enjoys doing, where as most movies are very structured and to form, his is still the same way but with the illusion to the audience that it is infact not.

Death to Videodrome, Long live the new flesh!

For my third film by David Cronenberg I watched his 1981 cult classic Videodrome. This movie, starring James Wood, tells the story of a sleazy TV station executive who is always looking for something new and edgy for his station. He stumbles upon a video feed of basically an orange room where he witnesses purely acts of rape, torture, and murder and nothing more. He is strangely compelled to watch the tape, but suddenly realizes that he starts hallucinating from it. These hallucinations start out small but eventually over take him, making him think that he has a whole in his stomach and other such abnormalities. We realize that the feed, Videodrome, is actually just a tape that gives people brain tumors that make them hallucinate and in a way mind controlled. This was his co-worker and the creator of Videodromes plans all along, and they try to make him an assassin and release Videodrome onto an unsuspecting public.

Once again, Cronenberg returns in fabulous, gory form, even more unrestrained in his 80's form as this was long before he acquired mainstream fame. Such examples as mutilation during sex and the eruption of tumors from a shot mans head and body exemplify his love of body horror and attempts to "gross" audiences out at every corner.

James Wood does a surprisingly good job as the protaganist of the movie, documenting a descent into madness not unlike , yet in a more humorous way, Ellen Bursten in Requiem for a Dream and keeps his character throughout the whole film. It is particularly amusing, in a sadistic way, to watch him shoot up his co-workers with a "Meat Gun" that is grafted to his arm through his hallucination.

In typical Cronenberg fashion, the camera angles change frequently but are for the most part static so they do not move around the actors much. Most of the movie, as opposed to his other films, are seen through the action and less through the dialogue which is atypical for him and is something that he might have grown more into as his career developed.

Videodrome was, bar none, my favorite Cronenberg movie and a great way to end the study on this director.

Akira Kurosawa

I'll start this by saying I rather enjoyed the Kurosawa unit. I had been meaning to watch some of Kurosawa's movies other than Seven Samurai, which I had seen in 10th grade and enjoyed, for awhile now. I highly enjoyed all of the movies that I was exposed to in this unit and I feel that they represent a wide range of the director, from his beginnings to his peak of fame and then to his later years.

A thing I noticed between all of his films was a use of an abnormal hero character in all of them and, in Ran's case, no protagonist. In Stray Dog, the main protagonist is a rookie cop who just came back from the war who's pistol is stolen and, in trying to find the person that stole it, realizes that he and who he pursues are very similar people, only having gone down different paths after the war. This sense of connection in ones adversary is something that we do not see very often in movies, bar maybe STAR WARS, and it really helps create another layer to the story.

In Yojimbo on the other hand the protagonist has seemingly no ties to the people around him, but is but an exterior force that comes in, mops up the towns mess, and leaves. He has no real motive or anything at stake to help the villagers, but does anyway and about as quickly as he enters, leaves. This is very uncommon to see in most films nowadays (Besides its 2 remakes) and really adds another interesting element to the story.

Finally in Ran Kurosawa does not make a main hero character as he was past that stage in his movie making Career. Because of this, there is no one really to empathize with in the movie because the audience is left feeling that everyone got what they deserved. The movie is based off of King Lear so this was not a new concept to story telling but after having made so many movies surrounding a hero or heroes this was an interesting move for Kurosawa and overall was my favorite film of the unit

Alfred Hitchcock

Overall, I was very impressed and pleased by my foray into Hitchcock that I was exposed to in this class. Having obviously, as most people have, heard of most of his work, I had only really seen "The Birds" by him, it being frequently on AMC and as something to curb my boredom during the summer months. The three movies that we watched, having heard of 2/3 of the before I took the class (The 39 steps was new to me) lived up to my expectations of what I had come to expect from him as a director.


One theme that is apparent to many that I thought made his films unique and enjoyable was the wrong man that stars in them. What I and others mean by this is the predicament that the main character, in these movies male, is put into after already having suffered a difficult ordeal (well, in 2 of the 3), being it either a broken leg or acquiring a case of vertigo. These men are normal, everyday guys who just happened to be in the wrong (or right) place at the right time. These men also seem to have in a sense an obsessive attitude that drives them, be it in Rear Window with his wanting to solve a mystery and becoming a stagnant peeping tom, or in Vertigo where his want to acquire ones love drives him to obsession.


I was also impressed by the camera work that Hitchcock uses in his films. Never one to have a fixed camera for a very long time, he fancied doing intricate tracking shots and long takes (as exemplified in one of his earlier films Rope) as well as doing creative things such as creating the "Vertigo" effect looking down the stairwell by tracking back and zooming in on a sideways stairwell, paying thousands of dollars just for a few seconds of footage.


Overall I think that Hitchcock was a worthwhile director to study as his pioneering craftsmanship and attention to detail really set him above alot of other directors that have existed.

A History of Violence

The 2nd video I have had the privilege to watch from David Cronenberg was his 2004 film. A History of Violence. A History of Violence follows a small town man named Tom Stall ( Viggo Mortenson). After a freak violent attack on his cafe that he locally owns and operates, Tom becomes the center of the towns attention as his actions are said to not have been capable of doing by any ordinary man, and the sudden appearance and trailing of strange men who seem to be part of the mafia don't help his case. He continually denies there claims that he is another man, as he is from the look of things the most normal a man can be. The mafia men start to get more and more brutal, eventually taking his son hostage which prompts him to reveal who he was in the past in order to save him. He kills the mafia men, but his family learns his secret. His family believes they cannot trust him and that they have been living a lie for a number of years. He in a way redeems this by going full circle and killing his former mob boss, gaining back a little trust in his family in that he wasn't the hitman that he used to be in the end of the film.

Typical of Cronenberg, his body horror is very evident in this film as even with it being not as extreme of a subject matter as some of his previous films he manages to but enough blood and gore in it for the whole family. An example of this is when Tom has the gangsters in his yard about 2/3 of the way through the film. He basically out of the blue decides to attack them and gives one of them a rather nasty "Tiger Palm" to the face resulting in a twitchy, gory mess that the camera focuses on for a few seconds.

Cronenberg also uses the character and dialogue do the story telling, not trying anything technical as far as camera angles or editing goes in the film. He does a great job in the characters of showing just how much Tom Stall is the epitome of "the average guy". You empathize with him throughout the whole movie because he, other than a brief part at the end, never shows his bloodlust and willingness to kill casually even during the scenes when he is defending himself.

Overall I thought that A History of Violence, said to be Cronenberg's foray into mainstream cinema, was an above average thriller/quasi-action movie. It kept me guessing with its twists, and the acting overall was very good, as Viggo always tends to put on a good show. It kept me interested in finding out more of Cronenberg's work and im highly anticipating the next movie we watch of his.

A Look At Cronenberg: Eastern Promises

Eastern Promises, the first film of three that I have viewed by director David Cronenberg, was an interesting take on the ins and outs of the Russian Mafia; vory v zakone as they say in their native tongue. The movie, starring Viggo Mortensen in a much different role than his most famous performance thus far in Lord Of The Rings, tells a story of lies and betrayal centered around the mysterious death of a pregnant girl. Anna (Naomi Watts), the midwife who delivers the girls baby, wants to know under what circumstances would make some one apparently murder a pregnant teenager. After finding a card for a Transsiberian restaurant on the body of the now deceased mother, Anna decides to investigate. Meeting Russian born Nikolai (Mortensen), a driver and "cleaner" for the mafia, shes convinces him to help her dispose of a mob bosses son who, through a diary, shes believes has raped and murdered the girl for fear of losing face. With Nikolai's motives still remaining a mystery until the end of the film, the movie picks up into a serious of violent twists, including one of the better fight scenes in recent memory, to an ending that almost rivals that of Fight Club (Fincher 1999) and The Usual Suspects (Singer 1995) in terms of mind bending plot twists.

Cronenberg's typical directing style is seen in great detail throughout this film, though toning it down a bit to make it a bit more easily accesible to the mainstream. Although the only movie I have seen from his other works is A History Of Violence (2005), From the research I have done about him it fits this model completely. His enjoyment of filming movies with elements of "Body Horror", or the fear of bodily transformation of infection, is clearly seen in multiple parts in this movie. Close-up shots of fingers being removed from a corpse with disturbingly realistic detail, along with a very grotesque fight scene in a shower room exemplify this distinct styling of his. The style with which he turns this into a suspensful thriller is also important to note, because without his distinct use of music and various dark overtones, this could have easily turned into a Brian De Palma style mobster thriller. Cronenberg injects into it a mix of extreme sex and violence that is not often seen in mainstream cinema that really sets his movies apart from the rest of the crowd.

Eastern Promises is one of the most compelling films I have seen so far this year. No, it doesn't have unique cinematography, and the dialogue can be hard to interpret which can be brutal with a movie with such a fast paced story, but it does something that can be rare with movies nowadays; every scene is compelling and important. From the Opening scenes with the girl in the pharmacy, to the closing credits, there is never a moment that feels like filler to make the movie longer and attempt to feed the viewer more back story. The viewer takes the movie as it is, which gives it a very raw feeling unlike others in recent memory. The viewers are also left to decide for themselves what happens in the end, but it is done in a way that is neither upsetting or confusing as other movies that have tried a similar approach seem to be. Overall, Eastern Promises was a rewarding and enjoyable movie that has made me ripe with anticipation to watch Cronenberg's other works.