‘The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together’ by Adam Nayman

In the tradition of Matt Zoller Seitz's books about Wes Anderson and Oliver Stone and from the same publisher, Nayman's book goes through the Coens' filmography in chronological order, with a lengthy essay about each film as well as iconic photographs and other visual knickknacks.

It's a large-format 300-page book that wouldn't look out of place on your coffee table, but don't be intimidated by the size: I read the whole thing in two days. It's also available in a text-only edition.

Breadcrumbs for Coen fans

One glaring omission is any new interviews with the Coens themselves, although Nayman does talk with several major Coen collaborators, including cinematographer Roger Deakins, composer Carter Burwell, editor Michael Miller, and storyboard artist J. Todd Anderson.

The subtitle isn't just a Big Lebowski pun. The essays frequently spotlight recurring themes in the brothers' work that even committed Coen obsessives may have missed. Anxiety about expectant parenting, for instance, comes up repeatedly. And there's a brilliant observation about two different Coen criminals: Fargo's Jerry Lundegaard had everything that Raising Arizona's H.I. McDunnough aspired to, most notably family and respectability. But neither was enough for Lundegaard.

There are also impressive photo collages of recurring visual motifs in Coen movies — perfect circles, musicians performing, people behind the wheels of cars, and (of course) wealthy men holding court behind desks.

The book balances attention between the brothers' masterpieces and their less successful works — though it's really something that the Coens made four of their best films (No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, and True Grit) in four consecutive years.

Minnesota, anyone?

I should disclose that I hail from the same Minnesota hometown, St. Louis Park, as the Coens; that I graduated from the same high school (two decades later); and that filming locations familiar to me are visible in both Fargo and A Serious Man. But aside from a high-school teacher or two, I don't know anyone who knows them.

That said, I must take issue with the author's first-page reference to the Coens' and my shared home state as a "barren cultural wasteland." Minnesota's contributed quite a bit of culture over the years, starting with a certain singer who shows up in the last scene of the Coens' Inside Llewyn Davis.

The book features some fun trivia. I had no idea, for instance, that the Coens wrote their first film, 1984’s Blood Simple, at Tom's Restaurant in New York, better known as the exterior for the restaurant of Seinfeld fame and the subject of the Suzanne Vega song "Tom's Diner."

The Hudsucker Proxy

Following the book's release late last year, Nayman was in town in January for an event at the Philadelphia Film Center. Local film critic Sam Adams (of Slate magazine) interviewed the author onstage before a screening of the Coens' 1994 screwball comedy The Hudsucker Proxy.

The film, which wasn’t much of a success at its release, has since gained quite a bit of appreciation. It stars a 35-year-old Tim Robbins as Norville Barnes, a rube-ish business-school grad who's pulled into a 1950s scheme to crash the stock of a Manhattan corporation. The film costars Paul Newman as a corporate villain and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a reporter and love interest, doing a movie-length impression of Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday.

Hudsucker was not a commercial success when it came out 25 years ago this March; it was plagued by more studio interference than most Coen pictures. This led to such odd things as a climactic fistfight between two characters who have almost nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

At the Film Center, the audience was with the film, laughing throughout, although the 35mm print used for the showing was noticeably worn.

Something to talk about

Nayman shared that while the Coens' office "signed off on" the book, the directors themselves were finishing up their 2018 film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and politely declined an interview.

However, the author said he's happy with how things turned out. He noted that he's interviewed the Coens before and has noticed that they "don't want to explain what their movies are about." Plus, he said, conversations with them, as with a lot of brothers, often lead to the two brothers edging others out of the conversation.

If there's one constant in Coen-related discourse, it's the compulsion to rank their movies. One woman wondered on Twitter last year whether ranking Coen brothers movies is all men ever do. But Nayman joked at the Film Center that he put it in his contract for the book that he wouldn't have to supply such a ranking.

It’s enough, he says, to say that "they have made 17 films in a row that people feel they can talk about.”