The Big Picture - The Top Five Coen Brothers Films | Discussion (Ep. 98)

Episode Date: November 15, 2018

With 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' set to hit Netflix November 16, Sean Fennessey taps Chris Ryan and Adam Nayman to share and dissect their top five Coen brothers films. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm talking about character. I'm talking about... Hell, Leo, I ain't embarrassed to use the word. I'm talking about ethics. You know I'm a sporting man. I like to lay the occasional bet. But I ain't that sporting. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the best damn brother directing duo in the whole wide world. I'm talking about the Coen brothers, who have a new film out this Friday called The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. You may have heard it is going to be on Netflix.

Here to talk about our top five Coen brothers films, my pal, Ringer editorial director, Chris Ryan, co-host of The Watch. Chris, what's up? What's up, man? And Ringer contributor, Adam Naiman. Adam, one of my favorite film writers in the world. I think Chris is as well, who is also the author of a book that came out this year,

one of the best film books in recent memory as well, called The Coen Brothers. This book really ties the films together. That book is published, Adam, by Abrams and designed by Little White Lies. Adam, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you guys for having me. Guys, we're doing top fives on this show and it's been fun so far and it's been a great way to get people annoyed with us. Shout out to all the 310 to Yuma fans. Yes, exactly. We did westerns a couple of weeks ago for some reason. The recent remake of 310 to Yuma is the most important movie in the world that we did not discuss,

but we're going to do Coen Brothers movies today. And I think what your top five Coen Brothers movies are says a lot about you and their movies are, I have been recently describing them as absurd and joyful examinations of the meaninglessness of existence. And they can be both funny and dark. Chris, I'm going to let you start us off without much more presentation. Okay. What's your number five? My number five is Inside Llewyn Davis.

Okay. How you doing, Llewyn Davis? Oh, hello. I've heard your music and heard many nice things about you from Jim and Gene and from others. Oh, you have not heard one nice thing about me from Gene. This is my favorite of sort of late period Coens, if that's what we're in right now. I guess you could include Hail Caesar. You could include, I haven't seen Scruggs yet.

You could include True Grit in this. Post No Country, I suppose, would be a good way of looking at it. And I think that this movie was incredibly, I think it was almost disappointing to me on first viewing, because it wasn't what I expected. The Coen brothers are actually quite good

at selling themselves, or at least someone in their camp is quite good at selling their movies. What do you mean by that? I think they make amazing trailers. They put together these incredible casts where you're just like, well, I just can't wait to see Oscar Isaac and John Goodman and friggin' Garrett Hedlund looking like James Dean

make a folk music movie set in the Lower West Side in the beatnik era. That sounds like it's going to be one thing. This movie is not that. This is the loneliest movie I think I've ever seen. And it describes and depicts a kind of lonely wandering of its meaning, if it's titular character, in a way that actually is much more true to life

than I think a lot of road movies are, a lot of wandering artist movies are. It doesn't quite look like a lot of Coen Brothers movies do. I think it's a little softer. It's a little bit hazier. But I love how it eschews everything that it could have done. It could have had all of these cameos. It could have had so

many more signifiers of the time period. And instead, it's just this kind of, as you mentioned in your intro, this existential journey into nothing. It's like if Odysseus went home and found out, no, nobody really cares if you come home or not. And it's just one of those things that only they could really pull off. Adam, is Llewyn Davis on your list? I have it at number three. I'd agree with Chris that it's probably the best of late Coens. It's a film that i think absolutely mentioned uh odysseus and it's very close in some ways to um oh brother where art thou uh the cat in the film that he's chasing

after is named ulysses right so there's a kind of greek reference there even the club in chicago that he auditions at which is a real club but it's an amazing reference it's called the gate of horn which in the iliad is the place where heroes are tested and when you think about that scene where he's playing the song for um the f marie abraham character as like this mythic test that he has to pass or fail it gives that scene sort of a whole other level of resonance it's like real life like bends to the cohen's will it's like oh maybe there's a jazz club in chicago called the gate of horn that can tie to the greek references in our movie and there it is um but man i i love that film and i find it depressing and moving and very humane which is not that rare for them but also maybe not that common

yeah i think it's such an amazing testament to the power of normal failure you know like he yeah lewin davis is just such a he's just he is the kind of person that you don't read about until 30 or 40 years later when there's some sort of attempt to revivify a guy who never quite made it you know that story of like ah he just missed you know he just he just wasn't dylan there's there's something so clever about that structure and also so common but they give it i don't know this this like low-key grandiosity the fact that there are all these allusions to greek myth feels very um very purposeful yeah and also such an interesting movie about collaboration if you watch the movie carefully he's constantly given these professional opportunities that if he would just accept that he could collaborate with people sing within a trio

or or be part of something bigger than himself he'd actually be be quite well paid, which is what he says he wants. But it's this idea of like succeeding on your own terms. Does that make you an artist or does it make you an asshole? And then when you think about the fact that the Coens have only ever worked together for 30 years,

and this is a movie about a guy whose partner has just died, I find that deeply moving and deeply personal on some level. That's really insightful. Adam, what's your number five? My number five is a tie, which is a cheat. I'm going to be fast in explaining it.

It's a tie between their two big Oscar films, which is Fargo and No Country for Old Men. You don't have to do this. I'm a day trader. I could just go home. You're good. I'm going to it worth your while. Take you to an ATM. There's 14 grand in it.

The reason I link these two films beyond the fact that they're very similar, that they echo each other in a lot of thematic ways and narrative ways, which we can talk about later because I'm sure at least they'll be on your list. They're films without references or with a minimum of references and this is kind of like a weird spine to their career that Blood Simple Fargo and No Country every 10 or 15 years it's like they make something that's not so annotated and filled with allusions and references and it's not a coincidence that these are the films of theirs that I think really win awards and sort of touch audiences and make a big impact. They're great films, but they're also more spacious than usual for the Coens. It's like you don't need a graduate degree to get what they're saying

the way you might with, say, Hudsucker or Lebowski or some of their more filled-up movies, if that makes sense. They're also physically open. They take place in these open spaces rather than uh some i'm sure some of the more urban set films that we'll be talking about but like that the hudsucker proxy miller's crossing um that dense cityscapes that that i think contain multitudes these no country in fargo it's just wide open plains and it's kind of like you fill your imagination into it yeah they're also movies that are missing that kind of jittery patter that you get in a lot of their movies too. You know, there's no, um, there's no John

Pulido character in any of those movies. There's nobody who's kind of talking a mile a minute. And there's also, they don't feel filled with as many illusions to film history too. You know, like not only Greek myth or things like that, but like something like Scruggs is obviously so bound by the history of Westerns. No for old men is too but not in a way not in ways that are overt right adam yeah i mean no country is as well more in the iconography but even the way they play with the iconography like that scene where um chigurh goes into the trailer and he sees himself reflected in the tv and then later tommy lee jones sits there sees himself reflected in the screen the first part is in the novel the second part is the coen's own choice and this idea that like the villain and the lawman chasing him are almost

like these pop cultural figures that we watch on television it's a very small sophisticated little addition they make to the material when they won the oscar they joked that all they did to adapt the script was like hold the book open and copy it which is typical coen self-deprecation but one of the reasons i love no country so much is not just for its fidelity to cormac mccarthy but the small little changes it makes and to link that to fargo i think that what they do with kelly mcdonald's character with moss's wife and her last encounter with chigurh only the people who wrote marge's scene in the police car at the end of fargo would rewrite Carla Jean's scene with Chigurh the way they do in No Country. I talk about that in the book.

And when I think of those two scenes together, I just get chills because they're so simpatico and so wonderful one after the other. It's interesting that you pair them together, too. They're five and four on my list. No Country is five and four is Fargo. And I think you're right that for some metaphysical reason, we pair those two films together. They seem like great triumphs for them, even though they're not necessarily in keeping with a lot of the things that I identify and love about their films. And I don't know if that is partially because I'm a little brainwashed by the Oscars.

I fear that unfortunately I've spent too much time thinking about what is value in great historical filmmaking. And I may have stitched it to those movies, though I remember seeing both of those movies in theaters and being overwhelmed and wanting to see them again immediately. It's an interesting thing. I mean, Chris, we're No Country and Fargo for you. Fargo is not on my list and No Country is third. We talked about No Country quite a bit last time we did this. I mean, I don't know what else there is to say. It's masterful, but also very different. It's also an interesting peek into an alternate career for those guys.

Like, you know, that they could have been their version of, I wouldn't say Ron Howard, but like, excellent, you know, just expert Hollywood craftsman. There's this idea that they could just make, that they could have made Aaron Brockovich, that they could have made Traffic, that they could have made Oceans 11 like Soderbergh did, like that they could have gone off

on this more mainstream track. I've thought about this a bit when Bridge of Spies came out because they, of course, you know, co-wrote that script, the Steven Spielberg film. And there is something, I think that movie is good. I don't know if it's a triumph or anything like that, but there is something well-made about it and important seeming and they probably could have made more movies like that if they wanted to i'm delighted that they haven't although adam your theory is

cut your every 10 years theory is interesting because we're just about at that 10 11 year period and i would say scruggs is not really one of those movies like blood no you know no no it's not. If I could, one thing I'll add about No Country, just quickly, if I can, that it's my favorite thing I discovered in the writing of the book. In the writing of a 300-page book, my favorite thing that I was sent was by their production designer, Jess Gonshore, who sent me, and it's reproduced in the book, and I love it so much.

It's this little reproduction of a Rothko painting, like a very horizontal painting, these kind of muted earth tones on the bottom and blue sky on top. And it's flecked with these sort of smears of red as blood. And that's what he came up with when they said, what should the movie look like? Or it's what they came up with, the three of them. And he kept it. It's like an abstract Rothko canvas that is sort of flecked with red around that and he also talked to me about the abstract painting element when Chigurh is choking the deputy at the beginning and those kind of Jackson Pollock smears all over the floor

with his shoes and how the Coens kind of created that effect and this is the thing I love about No Country is that it's it's artful not just to a fault it's like artful beyond default i only have it as their fifth best movie but i think it's the best made thing they've ever done yeah that's a good way of putting it which ties into what chris was saying about craft you can just watch this movie shot for shot edit for edit the color timing in it and the way deacons photograph shadows and stuff and you're like they can't do better than this which in some ways to for me to only have it at five means it does lack something that the movies above it on my list have but it does not lack craft it's incredible i think that there's a sort of personal sentimental idiosyncratic feeling that these movies give us though and that's why even though we can all agree that no

country is just undeniably special it isn't always our it isn't our favorite for a million reasons chris what, what's, what's your number four? My number four is Barton Fink. A writer in the room, and I'm asking Lou what the goddamn story should be. Which is it, Bart?

Orphan? Dame? Both, maybe? Barton Fink is, uh, you know how some people talk about, uh,

Twin Peaks episode eight from the most, the most recent season Peaks season? Yes, I do. Yes. That's how I feel about Barton Fink. I feel like it contains multitudes. I remember the Roger Ebert review of Barton Fink was the first time I actually got my lid torn off by a piece of film criticism. Where I was just like, you know, he writes about basically how his reading of the film is about the rise of fascism uh and you know it's this really compact economical socio-political allegory about the rise of fascism in europe in

the 30s and uh i just couldn't believe it you know it's and it certainly made sense once i started like placing it together with my then sort of adolescent mind and i've just been thinking about it since then but beyond its direct sort of readings you can do, you kind of can just like stand there and stare at it for a really long time. It's the life of the mind. You can just stare down the hallway and kind of try and derive meaning

from so many different pieces of symbolism in it. Or you can just watch it because it's like actually a weirdly entertaining film. Like I think that it's got maybe one of the most difficult protagonists that they've ever come up with. But the actual stuff happening around him, the machinations of making movies around that time period and probably the similarity of making movies

in the time period that they made it still, is fascinating to watch. And it features maybe my favorite Coen's ensemble. We could do a top five Coen's ensemble. It's, that's a very, we could do a top five Coen's ensembles. We'll save that for 2020.

But, Mulaney, Judy Davis, and Goodman are pretty high up there for me. Barton Fink is right outside of my top five.

Is it in your top five, Adam? It's not in my top five, but it's major. And, you know, what Chris was saying about that Ebert piece is very true and it's one of the films that in my research five but it's major and you know what chris was saying about that ebert piece is

very true and it's one of their films that in my research it has like incredibly deep detailed analyses because it's all there for the analyzing it's like the opposite of fargo right fargo's very spacious and minimal plot barton fink everything is a reference to something yeah starting with the fact that barton's modeled on Clifford Odette's and it's also the movie that if you look at the major critics who have problems

with the Coens, not trying to speak for them, but just, you know, citing their pieces the way you cited Ebert's. If you look at writers like Jonathan Rosenbaum and Jay Hoberman

and their issues over the years with the Coens, a lot of it stems from the fact that they just are so nasty about Clifford Odette's in that film. Yeah.

About this kind of left-wing socialist playwright. I think that rules. Like, I'm glad the Coens are actually, like, there's a lot of meat there to chew on. Like, you can get angry about a Coen Brothers movie. I think people think, oh, the Coens are just the most consistent filmmakers and people just love their movies

and it's just they happen kind of often in Aquarium here and you just watch them. No, like, you can get into it about whether or not they like their characters or don't like their characters and whether or not this is a repudiation of Odetsu's idealism or, you know, go ahead, Adam, I'm sorry to cut you off. No, you didn't cut, no, I agree. I mean, in some ways people are like, what's their problem with Clifford Odetsu? On the other hand, it's almost an Odetsuian narrative. Like it's very modeled on the big knife, right? And the fear about selling out in Hollywood and cynicism.

I love it as a thought experiment. It's kind of like, you know, what if Clifford Odets got to Hollywood and he was, you know, paranoid and terrified of selling out, which has its roots in a kind of historical truth. But the way that they then filter that through the legends of Faulkner and the writing of Nathaniel West, like the John Goodman character is like right out of day of the locust at the end. When you're talking about the rise of fascism in Europe, you also sort of see this homegrown American fascism, like the same kind of mob mentality that creates the riot at the end of the novel day of the locust,

like in terms of blending signifiers and stuff together, that's them working at a super high level. And it also has its place in history. They changed the rules at Cannes after Barton Fink because it won three awards for Roman Polanski's jury.

And then people were like, we can't have that happen again. Cannes sweep it. Not allowed to have Cannes sweeps. Interesting how those ideas of fascism and riots don't expire either,

even though this film is set 80 years in the past. No, not at all. Okay, let's go to the next one. What's number four on your list, Adam? I've got The Man Who Wasn't There. Wow. Yeah, I worked in a barbershop.

But I never considered myself a barber. I stumbled into it, or married into it more precisely. It wasn't my establishment. Like the fellow says, I only work here. I just re-watched this and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it. This is not in my top five.

I mean, first of all, again, it's exquisite looking. Deacons, right? Deacons. And Billy Bob Thornton is exquisite looking in the film. I mean, he's like a Bogart's like a Bogart carbon copy, especially the way he acts with his eyes. But the two things that I like about it the most, I mean, he's like a Bogart carbon copy, especially the way he acts with his eyes.

But the two things that I like about it the most, I mean, for one thing, I think it's just a wonderful sort of, you know, plunge into that kind of existential fear and angst that you guys were talking about. It really lays those cards on the table in scene after scene. But I also love the range of references in it. It is so eclectic. It's everything from James M. Kane to Albert Camus to Lolita, which is a big building block,

especially in the scene where Thornton's driving with Scarlett Johansson, but also like 50s sci-fi and the funny way that dry cleaning becomes this weird, like iteration of the future. You know, something I write about in all the Coen in my book is that in a lot of the Coen's movies, whether they're set in the past or not, characters face the future in a very anxious way. They're terrified of change. And this is a movie about a guy who tries to make a change in his life, a change in his marriage and in his job and in his financial situation by buying into this dry cleaning scheme and the complication that comes

out of that i also stick up for it because i don't think a lot of people do right so if you're really asking me is it a better movie than no country for old men i mean maybe i could be talked out of saying that it is but i like elevating it maybe a little bit above its station because i just don't think it gets the credit or respect that it deserves. I think it's one of their best scripts, that's for sure. And I love the black and white. I have been fascinated

by this movie. It is not necessarily very high in my rankings, though I liked re-watching it and I hadn't revisited it in many years. The James M. Cain thing really sticks out

because in many ways it feels literally like The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity all at the same time. And there's something interesting about that. However, I would say that my sort of general criticism with the movie is that it is just not as purely entertaining as a lot of their movies.

And that's not necessarily, that's not a demerit per se, but when you look at their work on the whole, a movie like No Country, while tense certainly is propulsive, and a movie like The Big Lebowski is larded with all of these jokes and these references and this sort of familiarity, there's a critical distance from the man who wasn't there that there's a remove that I had watching it that was fascinating. I found myself examining it in new ways and thinking about it in interesting ways, but it just didn't have that pure popcorn appeal, which I, while I acknowledge is frivolous is still somehow meaningful to me. I don't know, Chris, when's the last time you saw this movie? Oh, years ago. I mean, I think I agree with you. One of the things that's really cool to

hear you guys both talk about the Coens is that it's really making, and maybe this, cause I've been thinking about Llewyn Davis, but it's making me think of Dylan Records where everybody's going to kind of circle around this trinity maybe of masterpieces, but then everybody has their fan, they're like, I'm going to ride for this one. I love infidels, man. It's like people are going to have their personal preferences, so it's just really cool to hear you guys

talk about it in this way. Let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. You know what's not smart? Job sites that a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor. ZipRecruiter finds them for you. It's powerful matching technology, scans thousands of resumes, identifies people with the right skills, education, and experience for your job. And it actively invites them to apply. So you get qualified candidates fast. So that means there's no more sorting through the wrong resumes, no more waiting for the right candidates to apply. It's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is rated number one by employers in the U.S. This rating comes from hiring sites on Trustpilot with more than 1,000 reviews.

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Yeah? That doesn't figure for me. You dumping Leo for the guy who put a bullet in your brother? Didn't tell you. We'll go to my number three, which is Miller's crossing which uh man maybe it should be number one it was number one in this piece that i've been writing and then for whatever reason at the last minute i swapped it with something back into number three this is all very meaningless and then i watched it again last night and now i'm like maybe it should be number one again and chris you just signaled to me that it is your number one. Adam, does this movie live on your top five? It does not.

Interesting. Okay. So Miller's Crossing is, here's a silly way to put it. This is like a good one for the Irish people. I don't know if I had necessarily seen father-son relationships depicted in quite this way. And that isn't the way that I received it the first time I saw it. It's a classic gangster picture. And it's got a lot of great referentiality to old films, like a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about.

There's a dame and there's a mob boss and there's the guy on the side who knows all the moves and knows all the angles. And he's making all the right choices. All the archetypes. All the archetypes. They're all there. And it's very fun. There's making all the right choices all the archetypes all the archetypes they're all there and it's very fun you know there's the there's the scammer

there's the buddy there's the performances are incredible it's the best Gabriel Byrne in my opinion it's the best late Albert Finney in my opinion

it's the best Marcia Gay Harden in my opinion it's the first time I remember seeing Steve Buscemi it's and holy shit

incredible Buscemi it's Totoro in many ways I think it's them discovering that Totoro is Barton Fink by playing a character who could not be less like Barton Fink. Wonderful, fascinating movie. But it was really the Albert Finney, Gabriel Byrne thing that jumped off the screen to me watching it again. And this is how Irish men talk to each other, which is with affection, but, but a very similar distance. And it's brotherhood and father son relationships in some ways set against

a crime land and it's Chicago, right? I think they shot it in Louisiana, but it's supposed to be standing. Well, the opening title says an unnamed American city. Yeah. Yeah.

It felt like Chicago to me though. I suppose you could define it any which way you choose. Chris, why is Miller's Crossing your number one? It's the Coen Brothers movie I love deepest. So this crucially came out very close, if not a couple of weeks apart from Goodfellas, which I think these two movies remain the two probably like defining movies of my life. I was very young when I saw it, but old enough to start to understand what was going on in it.

And I like what you said about the sort of levels that people are operating at. It's also got my favorite Carter Burwell score, Barry Sonnenfeld. I believe this is, Adam, this is the last movie Sonnenfeld shot for them? Yeah, that's correct. So before, I mean, it's just kind

of crazy to watch this movie and be like, yeah, this guy directed Men in Black. How do we talk about this movie? I think lots of movies, there are a lot of brave movies now. But for me, when I saw Miller's Crossing, I felt like I was just watching a film without any net, any

floor underneath of me. It is so well realized. It's in code. This movie is, you need to watch this movie 15 times to decipher the dialogue. And every time you watch it, another line pops out. And yet it has this dreaminess and this deep investigation of why we make the choices we make in our lives and whether or not you can have a personal moral compass in a world that's ethically bankrupt. Like it actually has quite a bit

of like philosophical stuff to chew on. But at the same time, there's just fireworks going off this entire movie from like the first scene, which is so virtuosic on a production design level, the rooms, the lighting, the clinking of ice cubes and glasses, the people's bedrooms, everything that they wear. And then you've got these lines like, you know...

Come on, Tommy, you know I don't like to think. Yeah. I'm thinking about whether you should start. You've got this dialogue peppering throughout it. It also has my favorite coen brother sequence which is the the danny boy shootout adam what's your take on miller's crossing i mean my take is i'm glad you guys love it so much um you know it was the hardest chapter in the book to write only insofar as i've read everything there is to read about it and despite

the coen's evasions about you know the meaning of the hats and bear heads and how hats signify a kind of power and all that like they claim it means nothing but it obviously means something and i feel like there's a finite number of readings of that stuff and so i was sort of struggling in some ways with this film which is so deeply discussed for all the reasons that you guys have said because it's a bottomlessly deep movie i felt like i'd kind of gotten to the bottom of it and read a lot about it. So what could I add that was my own? It's a rare Coen film where I've never felt like I have a particularly personal or unusual take on it. I agree with what a lot of others have said.

I love the structure of the two love triangles, the foregrounded one, which is two men and a woman, and the background one one which is this sort of gay love triangle that totally drives the action of the film and i find the again the craft of it good it also seems to me a bit like what it is which is a movie that they got so sick of writing while they were writing it they actually had to start writing by barton fink to just lose their creative block because it's so intricate and so dense and top heavy and every scene mirrors every other scene and every bit of dialogue is echoed later on there's the line uh do you guys know the original title for the film was going to be the big head no i didn't know that the gabriel burn character uh tom's apartment is sort of supposed to be like the interior of his head it's all about a guy who kind of lives in his head to the point where he's passive and can't act like a kind of hamlet

character and i've always just associated the movie not just because of the hat motif but with this idea of big head and trapped inside your head and it's maybe why i don't love it so much i don't feel like it ever totally completely gets out of their heads. But to be fair on anyone else's resume, this is like the best movie that an American director could have made in the nineties. Right. It's great. I,

it's just not one that I have personal, personal love for, but, but Chris, I do love that. I love that Danny boy scene too. And in terms of ensembles, this one's right up there.

Yeah. And it is kind of ready player one for crime movies you know just when you go into these scenes it's like Marcia Gay Harden seems to be completely aware of what she's playing and is even confronting Gabriel Byrne you know

about that when they're having their banter and then there's on the 20th viewing or when I turned 18 and I finally figured out like the anti-Semitism that's happening, the homophobia that's happening. I don't even know that I knew that the Dane was gay until five years after the first time I saw this movie. It took me a long time to understand it. There's a level of simultaneous subtlety and self-awareness that they're operating at with most of their films, they're the only directors I think routinely who I walk out of their movies and think, unlike almost every other movie I see, are these guys too self-aware?

Are they too smart? Have they layered this in a way that they make a lot of movies that demand repeat viewings, which is increasingly uncommon as we know. The other thing that I really like about it is I don't read crime fiction or detective novels anymore. I did as a teenager and in my 20s, but this most closely replicates the kind of Dashiell Hammett. I remember trying to read Red Harvest as a 22-year-old, and this is kind of what it felt like, and it's actually easier to consume. The one last thing too that I love is The Third Man is my favorite film of all time. And this is the most overt reference to The Third Man ever, that funeral sequence. Absolutely. So I have a kind of emotional connection to that as well.

Let's go to number twos, right? So, yeah, my number two is Big Lebowski. Your name's Lebowski, Lebowski. Your wife is Bunny. My wife, Bunny? Do you see a wedding ring on my finger? Does this place look like I'm fucking married? The toilet seat's up, man.

In the same way that Adam was talking about Fargo and New Country as partner movies, I kind of think of Big Lebowski and Miller's Crossing in tandem. It gave me the same feeling almost 10 years later of being completely immersed in a world that was living inside of these guys' heads. And I just don't feel like there are enough movies like this and there are not enough filmmakers.

I mean, for as self-effacing as these guys are, they might be the cockiest filmmakers in the world. Because how do you do this? How do you make the big Lebowski? You're stitching together a bunch of these character traits. make the big Lebowski? It's like, it's a, you're stitching together a bunch of these character traits. I mean, I know that they were like,

oh yeah, we knew a guy who taught at USC a little bit and he kind of reminded us of him and so we just sort of like took it there. It's a Philip Marlowe story set in,

you know, during the Gulf War in the Valley. Some of the most indelible characters they've ever come up with, but it's so deeply committed to its own bit that it just is wondrous. And in the same way as Miller's Crossing, it demands repeat reviewing. It's just that these lines wound up becoming bumper stickers and Miller's Crossing is the kind of thing that me and Sean say to each other when

we're like waiting for coffee ethics uh Adam does the Big Lebowski sit on your list yeah so here's the thing I have Lebowski for the purposes of this podcast at number two and I definitely want to talk about it let me just say quickly I also have it at number two great we're we're we're agreed however I think probably it's actually their best film and the movie that I have at number one, which is also right up there is more for personal reasons. And I'll, I'll get to that in a minute, but I mean,

Lebowski, my God, the balancing act in that film between surface messiness and incoherence and an underlying rigor about every single damn thing that that movie is about everything political about it, ideological about it historical about it everything about the relationship between the dude and walter and the roots that it has in in the 60s everything about the references to crime fiction everything about the blending of

genres like a tumbleweed literally rolling into a noir or a western writer literally on life support in the middle of los angeles you know the the guy who wrote all the TV Westerns living in an iron lung. And the way that bits of dialogue get repeated like a virus by people throughout the movie. So like the dude hears Bush say one thing on TV and then suddenly he's saying it to a guy who looks an awful lot like Dick Cheney. This aggression will not stand, Adam. Yeah. This is one of the only films where I kind of become an absolute jerk about when people,

not whether people like it or not, people can like what they like or not like what they don't like. But when people say, Oh, there's not much there. It's a dumb bro stoner movie. I just get really irritated because it's so rigorous and well thought out and smart.

It might be the best screenplay for any American comedy ever. And so it's like a don't hate the band, hate the fans kind of thing. Because it has become kind of this like dorm bro staple movie. And it's so much better than that. You know, it's funny. You mentioned band there. And I always associate the Coen brothers with Pavement,

the band Pavement. And that's because they both came into my life at a pretty similar time. And it's this thing that not a lot of people do anymore, because I think that as well as becoming comfortable selling out, people are also comfortable just kind of like trying to promote their ideas and sell themselves and get their thoughts across clearly because they are so nervous about misinterpretation today. But these guys are so cryptic. And Adam, you know, I mean, your book is a testament to how much there is to investigate about them intellectually and emotionally. But this was a time period where, you know, you could put something like Lebowski or Miller's Crossing out and then just kind of turn your back

on it and be like, well, you take from it what you will. You want to look at it as an allegory for American foreign power. You can do that. Or you can think of it as a story about bowling. Totally. And bowling as a motif is so wonderful because of the circularity of it. This is a motif that I talk about a lot in the book. Yeah, you talk about this with Hail Caesar too, right? Like the sort of, yeah. With Hail Caesar. But I mean, in Lebowski, the circularity of it, whether hail caesar but i mean in lebowski the circularity of it whether it's the circularity of the plot the circularity of language the tumbleweed the bowling pin it's like not only is the film cogent on a level of dialogue not only are the characters good but in its subtle way it's a visually dazzling film and the design of it is just incredible especially when you have these intrusions by Julianne Moore's abstract art or the porno movie aesthetics that are on TV.

It's such a crazy quilt kind of patchwork film. And when it came out, it got bad reviews because it wasn't Fargo. Yeah, I remember these movies coming out. I remember albums like Crooked Rain and Wowie Zowie coming out and just being like, what is this about? And thinking about it for months and months and months. I don't always have the opportunity to do that anymore. I don't have anything to add. I mean, we did a Rewatchables about this film earlier this year, and it was very fun.

But I think it also lacked the depth of what you guys are talking about. There is a kind of an ability to read these movies as texts that you don't have to look at it that way if you don't want to. And I think that it's been interesting how you cite the kind of stoner bro quality that the movie has taken on, Adam, because I think it is now finally aging out of that, maybe because the people who were stoner bros when it came out are starting to grow up a little bit. Maybe not. Maybe I'm overstating that. How many conventions can you go to?

Right. That's true. And I love bowling. So, you know, nothing against that. But what were you going to say, Adam? I was going to say, can we also say, again, because we're in awards season and all that, an Oscar is not enough for Jeff Bridges in that movie. Oh, he's incredible. Jeff Bridges should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize for that movie.

It is, I mean, again, we're ranking things, and it's hard, because their great performances are all tuned to each of their particular films. But I cannot think of a richer, deeper, more beloved characterization, just like in mainstream American film in the last 20 years. That performance is beyond. It's even beyond the rest of Bridges' stuff, and he's a brilliant actor. And in 1998, didn't get a lick.

You know, no Critics Awards, no Oscars. But if you ask what characterization, not just from 1998, but from the late 90s, like holds up and holds an iconic place in mainstream American cinema, who else are you going to go to? Yeah, I love the way you put that. Chris else are you going to go to? Yeah. I love the way you put that.

Chris, you've already told us your number one. It's Miller's Crossing. I have a sinking feeling, Adam, that you and I share a number one. Why don't you tell me what yours is? Well, clearly, my number one film is Intolerable Cruelty. No, my number one film is The Serious Man. As is mine. Really, maybe it's best to leave these discussions to the lawyers. Of course.

Legal matters, you let the lawyers discuss. You don't mix apples and oranges. I have begged you to see the lawyer. I told you I'm going Monday. Monday is timely. This is not... Please, Ambers is not the forum for legalities. You're so right.

Why don't you tell me why? Because I suspect you are more insightful on this than I am. No, God, no. No, I just, first of all, it's the hardest I've ever laughed in a movie theater. Like, I can't prove that because I've been seeing movies, you know, since I was a kid. I'm 37. Let me ask you, were other people laughing with you or were you laughing alone? A couple.

A couple. Yeah, I had a similar experience and then when i saw it a second time with my parents and my brother at a theater in toronto that again can't say for sure but i suspect it was a largely jewish audience they were all laughing but no i'm just grateful to it because the scene where um clive's father comes to larry's house and they're talking about whether he accepted a bribe or not. It's the hardest I've ever laughed at a film. I was inconsolable, crying, laughing in the theater. So there's that. And I find it just a terrifying, devastating film. One of the best last shots of

all time, basically. And a movie that I really have enjoyed writing about. It's a movie that I've enjoyed talking about with people in my life, whether it's my brother or my wife, my friend Manuela Lazich, who sometimes goes on Twitter and writes for The Ringer as Sirius Manny, is a big fan of that movie, and we've talked about it a lot. It's just given me so much in terms of

discussion and reflection, and it also has the best end credit joke in movie history. I'm sure you're not going to cover that, so I'll mention it and then and it also has the best end credit joke in movie history i'm sure you're not going to cover that so i'll mention it and then turn it over to you but it also gets at what the movie's about you know the dibbick in the first scene of course the yeah of course this is the only podcast where i can ask that question and the host says of course instead of saying the hell are you talking about the the dibbick played by the yiddish actor five ish finkel and that whole prologue pivots on the question of um you know is he a dibbick or is he an innocent guy who she's stabbed

and it hangs over the whole movie and you kind of forget about it and they technically don't really bring it back like it doesn't really go back to poland and to the shtetl if you watch on the end credits uh five ish finkel is credited as, quote, Dybbuk question mark. And I don't think I knew that. And I write about it in the book. I love that even the end credits of a film, once the fiction has ended, cannot solve this question. And I write sometimes, I wrote about this in a Ringer piece recently on Burning, which is not as good a movie as Serious Man, but is very good, that there's a difference between movies that arrive at this kind of ambiguity

because they're being coy and evasive and they have nothing to say, or movies that are ambiguous and open-ended because they recognize there is something fundamentally unknowable about reality. And I like to think of Serious Man as a masterpiece of the second category. The things that it's not sure

about are the things that nobody is sure about. And I value it to the core of my being. That's also an incredible way of talking about their specific genius, that that's what their films are about. Yeah. I have such a personal connection to this movie, which is strange because I am not Jewish,

but I did work for years in a synagogue and Jewish catering hall. And so I have a serious relationship to a lot of the exploration, especially the Hebrew school and the relationship to the rabbis and the way that the history and questions of mythology that surround the religion and its spirituality or the lack of spirituality of several of the figures in the film. I completely agree about the final shot.

It is one of the only movies that I have to finish because I have to get to that moment where it kind of cataclysmically ends. And for a movie that I completely agree with you is downright hilarious. It is very scary the way that it ends. It is one of the few movies that can make me worried about how I've spent my life.

And that is unique. You know, movies are meant to be emotionally engaging and powerful. And even if they are supposed to take you away sometimes, if they can really thrust you into the moment of what you're doing with your time, that is so powerful. And I love to watch it and I love to watch it ambiently as much as engaged. I like to just have it on because it has an energy. I was going to say, when you talk about that thing about what to do with your life, again, I'm being hesitant about spoilers, even though I'm sure a lot of people have seen these films, but I'm also more worried about spoiling a serious man than I am Fargo, right?

Like just based on listenership. But what you just said made me think of that line near the end where Larry's on the phone with the doctor and he says, the doctor says, we should talk. And he says, when, and just the way the doctor delivers the line, he says, doctor says we should talk and he says when and just the way the doctor delivers the line he says now now would be good and it's funny because it's like it's like every jewish doctor joke you've heard but even saying it honestly like in this studio in toronto saying it i get chills because life has those moments yeah where someone is saying to you like no you got to deal with this now. It's not an abstract

thing. Like that line in No Country for Old Men can't stop what's coming. That's what the end of Serious Man is about too. And yeah, it's horrifying. Like I'm not saying horrifying in an off-putting way, but I would put Serious Man on a list of 21st century horror movies as much as I would put it on a list of 21st century comedies, starting with the possessed Jewish demon in the first scene. It's a very frightening movie, and I think that that's, I think it separates it from the rest of their work in that way. Yeah, and the Lady Killers aside, it's probably the scariest thing they'll ever do. You joke, but I actually did want to ask you guys, what's the one that you were, I'm thinking about putting this in the top five, but I don't know if I can get away with it. Adam, what's yours? If you ever make your way through this long book,

I know you guys have both taken a look at it. I kind of stand for the lady killers a bit because it has changes that they didn't have to make. And it's kind of daring that they do. And I find JK Simmons lecturing Marlon Wayans on who the freedom riders were like, really, really funny. But the one that I came close to putting in my top five and the one that I think has raised the highest in my estimations in seeing it for the first time is Burn After Reading, which is just so funny. Yeah, I think we agree. Chris and I recently have been talking about that. And that's also good. And you wrote about this recently as well, right, Adam?

Yeah, I mean, i excerpted it but yeah the when we when we were in new york i did a uh a screening of burn after reading with viola luca who's an editor at harper's we were talking about it in light of the trump stuff and just the way that it's sort of like suggests that this cold war dialectic between america and russia doesn't go away even in an iraq zeitgeist you know but hail caesar does the same thing. I mean, Hail Caesar is all about a literal Russian invasion of the United States, a movie that came out early in the year of Trump's election.

I talk about that a bit in the book, too. And if you go back to the literal first lines in any of their movies, in Blood Simple, he's talking about the difference between America and the Soviet Union in voiceover. In Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else. That's the theory anyway.

But what I know about is Texas. Down here, you're on your own. The fact that they've harped on that for 30 years is just amazing to me. I don't think that this would have been a wild choice for me to have put it there. Although I have been turning over where raising Arizona lives in the mind of the,

the cultural consciousness. Well, it's like a, it's a deeply influential movie that I don't know if the people, I don't know if people actually watch it. Yeah. And I don't, I think it's no longer weirdly representative of what the Coen brothers are,

even though when I think it was made, it, it signified some sort of like sea change. You know, there was, there were so many disparate parts and the tone felt so unique and so immediate and also so oddly Americanly independent. And in keeping with a sort of a generation of filmmakers in the 80s, like Jarmusch and Spike Lee and David Lynch and all of these figures, it felt like it was working with that group. And for whatever reason because of the films that they've made and and how we perceive them they don't really make movies like this

anymore is that do you think that's fair to say they had such a unique situation if i could just jump in is because you know all those guys that you're talking about jarmusch and lynch lynch a little less but jarmusch and spike and then and a little bit later Linklater they're these sort of rebellious artists who are turning to film the Coen brothers I think are quite rebellious but they view the world through the language of film and through the characters of film and I think that that's what was always so different about them in the 80s is that they weren't like trying to show something that had never been shown on screen before. And they were just remixing the things that they had been obsessed with for the last 20 or 30 years. You think that's right, Adam?

I think that that's exactly right. And I think it is what kind of separates them from that group that you mentioned. I mean, in some ways, it might seem like it's certainly less politically angled than Spike Lee. But on the other hand, it's got all those references to Reaganagan and trickle down economics and to wanting more and all that and it understands fundamentally that screwball comedy is sort of a genre about class distinction so you know it it really does play into that with that idea they have more than they could handle like i think raising arizona what's the line in lebowski sometimes there's a man in his time and place i think raising arizona for its time and place is just about perfect,

but I think it's been eclipsed just because the cartoony elements of it and the surreal elements of it, they got better at that and they kind of refined it over, over time. Yeah. But I mean, man, I could watch Raising Arizona,

you know, any, any day of the week. It's a wonderful film and it has just such great supporting parts in it. Goodman, that was the first time they'd worked with him as one of the snotes brothers and he's he's amazing chris what would be yours hutsucker yeah why right uh because i love the ben hecht uh imitation and i just i just like that my you of

like 19 late 40s or just high density dialogue rat-a-tat dialogue. Robbins is still kind of like, I kind of still wonder what would have happened if somebody else had played that part, the Tim Robbins part. You don't love his performance? It's just a very, it's a very distinct choice.

And if you watch other Tim Robbins movies, like that's, that's what his bit, like he's just Nucleolution. He's just kind of like, I just happened to fall into this weird, wild world, you know?

And, but JJ, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Paul Newman are really on the edge of a serrated knife in that movie and I think that that was disappointing to some people coming out of the few films that came before

it, but I still really enjoy large parts of it. It's one of the few I still struggle with, honestly. Adam, what's your take on Hudsucker? I mean, I had fun writing about it because there's so much in it. It's like the opposite of Fargo had no country where every two seconds, you're kind of like,

this is from this, right? And it has some of my favorite sight gags, like the writers in the creative bullpen coming up with nonsense names for the hula hoop while the secretary is reading War and Peace outside, which is also very much America-Russia dialectic in the split screen. But but no it's not a movie that i have great personal fondness for i'm not sure it's i mean i can't speak for them but

it's not a movie i'm sure they have great personal fondness for they struggled with it being produced by joel silver there were supposedly rewrites and it's very telling that the movie that comes after it fargo is a return to these kind ofsimple principles and also a film that's very spacious, whereas Hudsucker is kind of overcrowded. To the extent that you want to jump out the window. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, again, and I'm not trying to throw this word around loosely here,

but it takes a certain genius to make a movie like the Hudsucker proxy because it's just so conceptually dense and it's just so big, you know? So I have friends like my friend Sam Adams Adams who writes about the Coens a lot. I think it's his favorite and I respect that. Last question, guys. In the Coen Brothers All-Stars, in their ever-evolving troupe of performers, who is your favorite? Chris, I'll start with you.

I want to be more interesting than this, but it's Goodman. Yeah, why? I mean, I'll start with you. I want to be more interesting than this, but it's Goodman. Yeah, why? I mean, they write into his frame. They write characters as big as he is, as big as his personality is, as big as his voice is. I would love to hear the three of them talk about how they see each other. Have you ever heard John Goodman interviewed before? Yeah, he's pretty shy, right? He's very, yeah, he's very almost withholding and sort of

bashful. And when you compliment him, he's just like, I can't handle this, right? Which is so fascinating when you think about particularly these characters that you're talking about who are so larger than life. But I want to know why they see what they see in him, and I want to know what he thinks of what they write for him.

Because that's been the most fascinating throughline throughout their career is how they position Goodman. And have you ever made a movie where he's the star? No, not really, no. Not really, no. Yeah, interesting. Probably Lebowski would be the closest. So I would say Goodman though.

Adam, what about you? Who's your fave? I'll cheat and say two, but I'll be short on the first one. I mean, you have to give a shout to Frances McDormand because she was there at the beginning and Marge is an icon and then even in the films where she plays against

type like Man Who Wasn't There and Burn After Reading, she's pretty great. But the person I'm going to actually name, and not just because he was such a welcome addition to my book as an interviewee, but let's give it up to Carter Burwell. I mean, you could easily say Deakins, but

Deakins is a name that I think a lot of people know. He finally got his Oscar. But Burwell's contributions as a composer for those films, there's such a varied range of compositions, like the almost, like, synthy piano motif in Blood Simple.

And the folky music you have in Fargo. The percussive 70s thriller score. In Burn After Reading, or even the Samscape in No Country, which technically doesn't have a score, but in the book, Burwell talks about sort of how that was created. And even the way he interpolates the hymn Everlasting Arms in True Grit. arms and true grit. I just think his contributions to their films are invaluable. My favorite underrated piece by Burwell for a Coen Brothers movie is the man that wasn't there that was also then used in the sort of

most dramatic episode of The Night Of. That's right. In the jail murder scene. Oh, interesting. I mean, he's a great composer for other people. He's done music for Todd Haynes and other directors. But, you know, he has been there from the actual beginning, him and McDormand.

So I'm going to sort of give the shout to those two. What about you, Sean? I'll just say John Pulido because I like watching John Pulido in movies. And for whatever reason, they have just managed to, in a handful of their films, perfectly capture in often under 10 minutes what makes him such a sui generis character actor. And nobody has a better touch for the sort of people who you see in real life, but not in the movies than the Coen

brothers. They have a, they're sort of almost like a larger than life character actor quality. So I'll say Polito. Guys, this has been enormously thoughtful and fun. And I really appreciate you both doing it. The book is called The Coen Brothers. This book really ties the films together. It's written by the great Adam Naiman. Adam, thank you. Oh, thank you guys so much. This was super fun.ris ryan thanks as always buddy later brother this has been the big picture please tune in tomorrow for another new episode of the big picture we'll be doing an exit survey of the movie Fantastic Beasts, colon, The Crimes of Grindelwald. And we'll be doing it with two very special guests, the co-hosts of Binge Mode, Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion. Tune in then.