Cinema of the Coen Brothers Hard-Boiled Entertainments

This study provides an overview of the films of the Coen brothers, including multiple-Oscar winning movies like Fargo and No Country for Old Men, as well as cult favorites such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski. Beginning with the 1984 debut Blood Simple, this volume examines the development of the Coens' body of work, identifying and analyzing major themes and generic constructs and offering diverse interpretative approaches to their enigmatic films. Drawing on a wide array of sources, especially the pulp fiction of Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler, this study examines the influence of these literary sources as well as key cinematic precursors to reveal how the Coens' intertextual creativity exemplifies the aesthetics of postmodernism.

About the author

Jeffrey Adams is Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is the editor of Mörike's Muses: Critical Essays on Eduard Mörike and Mimetic Desire: Narcissism in German Literature from Romanticism to Postmodernism

Summary

Surveys Oscar-winning films, such as Fargo (1996) and No Country for Old Men (2007), as well as cult favorites, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and The Big Lebowski (1998)

Product details

• Authors: Jeffrey Adams, Adams Jeffrey
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Content: Book
• Product form: Paperback / Softback
• Publication date: 14.07.2015
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Art > Photography, film, video, TV; Non-fiction book > Music, film, theatre
• EAN: 9780231174619
• ISBN: 978-0-231-17461-9
• Pages: 240
• Series: Directors' Cuts; Directors' Cuts
• Subjects: Individual Film Directors, Film-Makers; PERFORMING ARTS / Individual Director