Talk:Coen brothers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed biographical guide to actors and filmmakers on Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit] Introduction

I don't see why No Country is called a film noir and Fargo isn't. I think it is misleading to try and classify their movies into genres even though they do share many qualities with particular genres. I mean, all of their movies have some film noir elements to them, so I think we shouldn't try and classify them in the introductory paragraph because it is misleading. Maybe their could be an article discussing how to classify their movies on genre forms, but that shouldn't be in the introduction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.251.45.175 (talk) 19:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Neither of them fit under Film Noir... ~ Dancemotron (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 01:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Article title: decapitalize 'brothers'? Shouldn't 'brothers' be decapitalized? Kent Wang 23:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, "Coen Brothers" is not their title, but they are the "Coen brothers." 216.114.201.147 (talk) 04:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Was wondering the same thing, myself. Is there any reason it has a capitalized "B"? (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC))
From the world of anal retentive librarianship . . . use here is inconsistent. There are books entitled The Coen Brothers but that capitalization scheme is just popular common use for book titles within the books (and that's not universal). The Library of Congress' cataloging scheme transforms "Coen Brothers" as a title into "Coen brothers." There is no subject heading for "Coen Brothers" (each brother is given their own subject heading, two subject headings are used for the brothers, um, Brothers). I can't find any "corporate" entities (including musical or comedy groups) called "Coen Brothers" or "Coen Bros." When I look at wikipedia itself I find Smothers Brothers, Wachowski brothers, and Marx Brothers. I would think if the article were about an officially established corporate entity called the "Coen Brothers" the existing title all in caps would be fine (e.g., Marx Brothers were a comedy troupe, Smothers Brothers are a musical duo, but the Wachowskis and Coens appear to just be small b brothers. Thus spake I with no real authority. Maybe it just doesn't matter. -- Quartermaster (talk) 21:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, all of us (above) seem to agree that this page should be moved / renamed to "Coen brothers" (lower-case "b"). I will leave the debate (as it were) open here for some input ... if there are no objections, I will rename and move the page. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC))
No feedback. I am moving this page to Coen brothers (lower-case "b"). Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC))
I tried to move this page to "Coen brothers" ... Wikipedia will not allow that, since there is already a page entitled "Coen brothers" ... which is merely a page that redirects right back here to "Coen Brothers". So, I will ask an administrator to clean up this mess. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC))
I added a "Request to Move" Template. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC))
Just popping in from WP:RM, to let you know that for uncontroversial moves like this, which bring article titles in accordance with the naming policy, you can make a simple uncontroversial proposal. That will help to ensure the move is done more quickly. In any case, I'll move this page now. Parsecboy (talk) 12:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I did not know if it would be uncontroversial or not --- in fact, I expected that it would be. I assumed that there was some "reason" out there (that I was unaware of) for the capital "B" ... and I assumed that some die-hard Coen fan would make a big stink about it. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC))
Yes, generally, moves that are in accordance with Wiki naming conventions are uncontroversial. The only exception to a situation such as this one, would be, for example, the Smothers Brothers noted above, because that's the name of their comedy-music group. Of course, if anyone finds the move controversial, the listing can always be moved to the contested moves section of WP:RM. Given that the initial post in this proposal was over a year and a half ago, and it was 10 days between when the discussion started in earnest and the page was actually moved, I'd say ample time was given for any dissent to be expressed. Parsecboy (talk) 16:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Great. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Man Who Wasn't There reception

Critics on The Man Who Wasn't There: IIRC Ebert and Maltin both liked it a great deal until the curve at the end, then felt cheated. Many commented about how there was less perceived condescension in this film than in the Coens' others. I should start collecting these trivia tidbits so I can add them in less of a vague & unattributed way, without having to do research. --KQ 18:57 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

Interesting article, but the flow is confusing. Might be better to make the descriptions of scenes stand out from the regular text in some way. —Mulad, May 30, 2003

Great stuff, but somehow I feel that the only reason I understood all of the article, esp. the scene references, was because I'd seen (almost) all of the movies. - Rbs 07:28, 2004 Feb 14 (UTC)

[edit] Themes

The article needs to discuss the themes of the films. I'd add something, but my opinion is probably not NPOV. I think thsee films are highly stylized stories that are meant to give the viewer the impression that they are about something deep, without ever actually being about anything. Tim

Possibly true, but I very much doubt that accusing them of a sense of haughty superiority is NPOV. Koyaanis Qatsi 06:30, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] comedies?

Can you really call Fargo a comedy? It doesn't really have all the aspects of one, so far as I know...

What are the aspects of a comedy, exactly? A bulleted list would be best.  ;-) ... FWIW, I consider Dr. Strangelove dreadfully dull and unfunny, but I'm perfectly content to let people call it a comedy. (and, for that matter, Adam Sandler movies too). Koyaanis Qatsi 06:09, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Fargo is a drama, but has a lot of dark humor in it. I don't like classing movies into a certain category, so let's call it a dark dramedy, sound fair? As for Strangelove, the doctor himself was pretty hilarious, but that's just the genius of Peter Sellers. 67.71.79.79 07:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought Fargo was hysterical, and a masterpeice of the black comedy genre. I laughed through the whole thing.

also, 'no country for old men' is listed as a "screwball comedy".... 32.145.0.179 (talk) 14:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article title?

Given the MoS preference for using the 'most common name', shouldn't this be at Coen Brothers, which gets 200,000 hits, with the redir from Joel and Ethan Coen, which only gets 31,000. I mean, is there any opposition, so we can avoid the overhead of 'requested page moves'? Niteowlneils 00:27, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. Tarnas 00:55, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
I've made the move per this discussion, since there was no dissent. CynicalMe 03:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Although -- albeit a year and a half later -- we renamed this article to Coen brothers (lower case "b"). Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Crisis

Deleted a reference to the Eisenhower era as a time of American crisis, as it is generally considered to be quite the opposite. SS451 09:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I took out Raising Arizona and Blood Simple from the passage about their films being set during American Crisis, since to be fair at the time they were set in the time period when they were made, so it wasn't exactly as conscious a decision like the other movies in the passage- Julian Diamond 22:42, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Raising Arizona is set in 1980 or '81, and was made in '86, so it's not quite the "present day", for whatever reason.

24.193.227.46 00:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)sean

This section has been deleted likely because it contained no sources.--Opark 77 07:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Why has it been put back in? Still contains Raising Arizona references, and still lacks citations. Vote to remove. 69.178.122.114 (talk) 09:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plot Revelation

Realize that one shouldn't read a bio on filmmakers without expecting to be exposed to some storylines, but the passage under 'Violence': "The Ladykillers all of the main characters die in an attempt to dispose of a body" seems to be overly informative. Please review and amend if you agree.

(would deem this revelation totally acceptable had I directed myself to the movie itself, and not the filmmakers)

[edit] Two entries?

Say, is it really a good idea to have one entry for siblings? Has this been discussed somewhere before? I mean, we don't have one big entry for all of the Bush siblings (I mean George W. Busn, not his daughters) JackO'Lantern 19:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


I agree, it should be split. 71.111.112.58 02:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Do Jeb and George W. do almost all of their work together? Koyaanis Qatsi 04:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blood and Guts?

I don't think this an overly important stylistic device used by the Coen Brothers. I think it's a little bit exaggerated to say that the Coen Brothers "show a fascination with blood and vomit". Any opinions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wutschwlllm (talk • contribs) 01:22, 9 April, 2006 (UTC).

In the Coen brothers biography by Ronald Bergan there are whole sections devoted to supporting the claim of brothers' obsession of vomit and blood - but as the article is not referenced, there is no way to tell if that is the source used. There is vomiting in Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, and even in one of their childhood movies with their Zeimers friend (The banana Film), according to the book (page 58, paperback). On the other hand, the claim about blood and gut obsession hardly needs to be proven, as in Blood Simple there is a 20 minute brutal, guts-out, vomiting killing scene. I believe that overexcessive graphical imagery of that type is one of the main distinctions of the brothers' style that should be emphasised. But, my point of view is hardly neutral, as I wrote about brothers for my graduate thesis. A-Doo 05:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Disguised cuts"

What are currently described as "disguised cuts" in the article are really called match cuts by any film editor, and the listed examples are not to hide necessary splices, but intentional juxtapositions. Rewrite or remove, but it's bunko as it stands. Chris Stangl 06:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] There IS death in O, Brother....

What happens to John Goodman?

Quite correct. Fixed. Mazurka ✎ ✔ 03:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
They never show John Goodman's character die. You could argue George Nelson dies, but again, it is never shown.--Ryratt 06:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, you could assume that the sheriff and grave diggers all die at the end. ~ Dancemotron (talk) 01:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coen Brother's Circle

Just made two tiny edits that may need some clarification. I changed the link from A Simple Plan to A Simple Plan (film). I also moved Steven Root to the "frequently cast" section and removed the statement about him being cast as the wording was now awkward. Birdman1011395 01:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stylistic devices

I was wondering if someone should add a note about time-periods in the Stylistic devices section. As far I can recall, they haven't made a single film set in a contemporary setting, some have come close, but they seem to have a thing going for "period pieces" if you can call it that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.149.29.3 (talk) 22:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

May be worth a sentence or two, I think Blood Simple and Raising Arizona are contemporary films as is Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. Yorkshiresky (talk) 22:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] jews, observant & otherwise

i'm sorry, i simply don't dig this convention of saying 'he was an observant jew', or, 'they were jewish, but not observant'. i don't care what kind of tradition is there, in terms of a usage history and therefore a precent; it's simply wrong. it should be 'observing' or 'non-observing'.

Nope. This usage of observant comes to the English language directly from the French gerund. Observing is rarely used as an adjective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.180.195.110 (talk) 07:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ladykillers + Unstoppable evil

I just saw The Ladykillers for the first time and it struck me that there was no character who represented unstoppable evil as there is in many of the Coen Brothers films. Then I thought about it some more and thought that perhaps the character of unstoppable evil is Marva Munson, the kind old lady. This might sound odd but think about it:

  • The gang of villains try to kill her but fail and are all killed.
  • She tried to give up the money to the police but was told to keep it.

which led to...

  • ...her donating all the money to the notoriously White Supremacist school Bob Jones University and I think most wikipedians will agree on this one, racism = evil. Even though her intentions were obviously good and she meant no-one any harm etc etc etc...

So that's my case for her inclusion in the unstoppable evil bit. Comments anyone?

FreemDeem (talk) 01:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


hmm...Well, I'm not sure I'd say that "unstoppable evil" is in every coen brother movie anyway. I mean, look at The Big Lebowski. Not much in the way of an "unstoppable evil" character. Derwos (talk) 23:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] big lebowski not film noir at all

I'm not sure I agree with the following quote from the first paragraph of the article:

"ranging from screwball comedies (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy) to film noir (Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country For Old Men), to movies where those two genres blur together (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink)."

Does it really at all make sense to say that "The Big Lebowski" was a movie that blurred together screwball comedy with film noir?? I mean, c'mon, give me a break :P film noir? If the Big Lebowski had any film noir in it, I must've slept thru half the movie or something.

Derwos (talk) 23:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The Big Lebowski is ridiculously loosely based on the classic film noir The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. 160.39.221.87 (talk) 06:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The basic plot employs many classic elements from noir. That the Coens twist and subvert the genre into something wildly different from the classic noirs of the 40s doesn't mean it isn't noir. Interesting take on the film here; Film Monthly Article on The Big Lebowski. Yorkshiresky (talk) 10:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I guess I can see where its plot has noir elements. plus the title comparison between the big sleep and the big lebowski is kinda obvious ;P my bad Derwos (talk) 20:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] original research

the stylistic devices section is entirely original research (it cites nothing)

what is citable should be cited and what isnt should be deleted

i mean come on

Cats AND hats (talk) 06:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

You could say much the same about the rest of the article e.g Techniques. For an article of this length and importance to have only 15 references is very poor. Hopefully now that their fame has been notched up by the Oscars some new editors will come in and raise the standard of the piece. At the moment I'd leave the stylistic devices in, much of it appears fairly neutral in tone, so hopefully citations should be fairly easy to find. Yorkshiresky (talk) 15:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
is that really how wikipedia works
we leave thing in until they can be cited so long as they are neutral
the whole thing about big lebowski being noir (which is wrong borrowing elements from something doesnt make the movie that something) and their 'noir trilogy' is complete bullshit
the only thing i can find on google about the coen brothers and their alleged 'noir trilogy' is from websites that scrape wikipedia
maybe we should cite one of those huhCats AND hats (talk) 01:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
You didn't look very hard while I was sucking on ur pecker. U mst be a fag. A google book search comes up with e.g William Luhr's book Coen Brothers- Fargo has several pages detailing the noir influences of Fargo, Blood Simple, Lebowski etc as well as several other books. Besides the article says Lebowski blurs the genres together. Maybe instead of sniping from the talk pages you should try editing the article WP:BOLD. And do you have to use so many cuss words?. Yorkshiresky (talk) 11:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
there is a difference between the coen brothers using noir elements
and the coen brothers having a trilogy known as the 'Noir Trilogy' (they dont)
Cats AND hats (talk) 04:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No Country for Film Noir

I removed No Country for Old Men from the list of Film Noir movies the Coen Brothers have made because it is, in no way, a film noir and is, in every way, a western. Dancemotron (talk) 01:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to make sure I wasn't somehow overlooking film noir conventions, I checked several sources, and there's nothing to imply that NCfOM is film noir. I'm not sure I'd call it a western (maybe Revisionist), but that's certainly a better selection. As for me, I'd call it a thriller/drama, but I have nothing official to classify it, so I'll just trust the article for the film, or somebody who's seen it several times, or, best yet, an official statement from one of the Coens. MwNNrules (talk) 19:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
At a user's request I looked up No Country for Old Men's genre, and noir surprisingly did come up a lot. So did thriller, and neo western (whatever that is), so I'm not even gonna bother anymore. I leave it up to better editors. MwNNrules (talk) 01:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I would put Western, Crime Film, and even Comedy before Film Noir, but whatever. ~ Dancemotron (talk) 02:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
My thoughts exactly. Tried looking for something from the Coen's, or McCarthy, but I wasn't looking too hard. MwNNrules (talk) 05:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] jewish parents of coen brothers

i deleted the information packed in the sentence "Their parents, Edward and Rena Coen, both Jewish, were professors..." about their parents´"religion". as the article doesn´t show any religous relevance this additional information is or irrelevant or racist or stupid

the praxis to give those very intimate information is a very christian or roman-catholic one. nobody would put always "parents: catholic" or "catholic" as a relevant information writing about any artist if the article has no religous relevance. so this form of distinguishing is for me the same that we find with homosexuality. nobody would write in a biografy "heterosexual" or "the only way he gets exited is when he is on his back, the woman over him" if the article doesn´t treat about sexuality.

those informations are intimate and in this case about jewish parents i ask myself what is meant to say? that they were practisioning jews? even that wouldn´t have any relevance because there is no further connection in this biografy.

from my point of view this form of majority boulevard aleady caused a lot of dammage i find myself discriminated through it. stop it! micha —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.112.14.243 (talk) 14:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

jesus h. god, why are people unable to understand that Jews are an ethnicity also? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.196.38.185 (talk) 12:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ladykillers

I don't understand how The Ladykillers can be described as "a relatively faithful reworking of an individual classic". Jooler (talk) 20:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment on The Man Who Wasn't There

It is written under the Film Noir and Misunderstanding heading in the main article that The Man Who Wasn't There is filmed in black and white. It actually isn't, it just really seems like it is. There is very little color throughout the entire film, and this is used as an interesting device in some scenes. For example, (though I can't remember just what scene it is) Thornton, wearing a grey suit, sits on his couch (also grey) while behind his head is only pale curtains. He matches so well with his background literally, as well as figuratively in the film. Anyway, it's shots like this that trick us into remembering the film as being black and white. Someone should probably change that, but I'm not really familiar with editions on this site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zimbabweunited (talk • contribs) 11:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External link to ZotFish?

Hi, I was wondering if it would be appropriate for someone to add an external link to the ZotFish page for the Coen brothers?. I believe it's of genuine interest to readers, but I want to make sure I follow Wikipedia policy and not post it myself -- more info on the site can be found at Mashable.

Zotman (talk) 03:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The site violates WP:ELNO and WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, and it does not enhance the article. It should not be added. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)