ZFIMA1. [Past] Directors: An Oeuvre Compleat: The Brothers Coen
Submitted by dgeiser13 on Mon, 05/07/2001 - 01:33
Tags:
- Fargo (1996)
- Raising Arizona (1987)
- Blood Simple (1984)
- The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
- Miller's Crossing (1990)
- The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
- The Big Lebowski (1998)
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
- Barton Fink (1991)
Author Comments:
Even though I watch lots of movies there are very few directors of which I've seen every film they've released. This is my complete ranking of their body of work. This is only my opinion.
Another who doesn't care much for Barton Fink. I love that movie!!
It always surprises me how much opinions of the Coen movies diverge. Ask anybody to order their movies, and the results are all over the place. For most directors it seems like a more definitive pattern emerges. For the brothers, 2 or 3 movies tend to percolate to the top, but the rest is up for grabs.
But still, I have to ask, what did you like about The Man Who Wasn't There?
Well, I thought almost every performance in the film ranged from Very Good to Great with special kudos to Tony Shalhoub, Scarlett Johansson and Mr. Bob Thornton himself. I even liked the woman who was crying in the prison, who I later found out was played by Brooke Smith of Silence of the Lambs fame (aka the girl in the hold in the ground).
I really liked the cinematography by Roger Deakins especially the scene where Shalhoub is speaking to someone (Frances McDormand?) and the shadows of vertical lines are superimposed upon him.
And expect for the inclusion of the UFO element I thought the story was interesting and well told. It really had me in suspense wondering what was going to happen next.
I saw it in the theater so I don't know if that made a difference or not. It was the only Coen brothers' that I can recall enjoying watching since Fargo and I've seen their last 5 movies in the theater so you know I'm a pretty big fan.
Funny how I agree with most everything you said, and yet still came to the opposite conclusion. :-) The performances were excellent, and Tony Shaloub is always great. I would not have been disappointed if Deakins won an Oscar - the movie is beautiful to look at, and I think he steals the movie from the Coens.
Where we diverge, crucially, is with the story being interesting. The Coens have long flirted with having too little humanity in their movies, and in this one they fully cross over. I may as well have been watching a movie made by martians for all the bearing TMWWT had on the human condition. The characters are all caricatures or ciphers (albeit well-played caricatures and ciphers). While sometimes they seem to employ a kind of robotic logic in their actions, there's no real *life* in any of them. I think to succeed any movie from the lowliest comedy to the high-browiest drama has to relate to real people on some level, and for me TMWWT completely missed the mark.
Although I fully respect your right to like it (and your opinion). :-) You obviously found something to relate to in it that I could not.