tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/coen-brothers-12234/articles
Coen brothers – The Conversation
2018-12-19T13:45:22Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108447
2018-12-19T13:45:22Z
2018-12-19T13:45:22Z
Netflix strikes another blow against the old school film industry – but cinema is not dead yet
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</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Huge technological advances in the production and consumption of feature films have led, yet again, to the claim that cinema is dead. Digital film making, distribution and projection have seen reels of “film” all but disappear. And the availability of what we want to watch, whenever and wherever we wish, has changed irrevocably our relationship with the moving image. </p>
<p>The news that Netflix is showing new films <a href="https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a25261580/why-the-ballad-of-buster-scruggs-works-better-as-a-movie-than-a-series/">by the Coen Brothers</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/roma-review-netflix-alfonso-cuaron">Alfonso Cuaron</a> (with only minimal theatrical screenings, so as to be eligible for the impending awards season) is being seen as yet another fundamental change in how we access film, and more specifically, “quality” cinema.</p>
<p>But although cinema is barely over a century old, its reliance on technology means it has always had a turbulent time. So perhaps it is worth looking at previous announcements of the demise of the most tawdry yet popular of the arts. Are the prophets of doom just crying wolf again?</p>
<h2>Reaction and reinvention</h2>
<p>The “end of cinema” was first declared in the late 1920s with the introduction of synchronised sound to silent film. But film had never actually been silent – music was always an accompaniment to any screening whether by a solo pianist or a full orchestra. </p>
<p>Yet purists still argued that sound would coarsen the artistic nature of cinema and make it merely a form of mass entertainment. Film production did indeed have to change to accommodate the technology required to record sound as well as a visual image, and there was a short period in which film production was bogged down by these innovations.</p>
<p>But by the mid-1930s, sound was ubiquitous, making cinema an even more popular form of mass entertainment with a plethora of memorable lines of dialogue to quote.</p>
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<h2>The threat from the sofa</h2>
<p>The next major bump in the cinematic road came after World War II, and the beginning of the consumer age. The postwar boom saw mass employment and a host of new widely owned domestic devices. These included refrigerators, hifi systems and televisions – the new nemesis of the film industry. </p>
<p>As people stayed at home to watch TV rather than going out to the cinema, film production changed. Major studios made fewer films and concentrated on bigger, more spectacular movies. Shot in glorious wide screen Technicolor, they were made to be noticeably distinct from what was available at home. </p>
<p>This slump in film production did not last long, however. The big studios soon found a voracious demand for product from the upstart small screen. Soon enough, most had set up television divisions to mass produce filmed shows for syndication to broadcast networks. For Hollywood, television turned out to be more saviour than Satan. </p>
<p>The next crisis came in the late 1970s with the introduction of home video devices to record and play shows and films from broadcast television. Yes, there was another slump in cinema attendances – but this was due to a variety of issues, most notably the parlous state of many cinemas which were often old, run down, and in the wrong parts of town. </p>
<p>Home video had its brief moment of hysteria before studios realised that there was now a demand for prerecorded video tapes of classic films – the same films which were taking up so much space in their archives. They now had a new lease of life, at zero production cost, and a new valuable stream of revenue. </p>
<p>This also led to a new pattern in film distribution. A movie now had a theatrical run, then a video release and was then sold to broadcasters for television. Again, the “death” was more of a rebirth, and a lucrative one at that, which continued with the invention of DVD and Blu-Ray.</p>
<p>In fact, the film industry’s recurring problem has always been its complacency and inability to see the potential benefits of new technology. The latest revolution, streaming films and TV shows to digital devices is more problematic, and one that has dangers for the big Hollywood studios (which are now after all, mere cogs in globalised multinational corporations). </p>
<h2>Awards and access</h2>
<p>Amazon, Apple and Netflix have evolved from being delivery systems into becoming fully fledged entertainment businesses. They produce, distribute and exhibit their product to a mass global audience, with budgets that dwarf those of established studios. And with the promise of future Oscars and Palme D'Ors, critical recognition and respectability will make them the major forces in film production.</p>
<p>So, is this the death of cinema (again), or another morphing of a global industry to changing habits and opportunities? Well, director Alphonso Cuaron’s Roma has already <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/news/venice-film-festival-complete-list-of-winners-updated-live-1202933206/">won the Golden Lion</a> at 2018’s Venice Film Festival, and usually we would have to wait a year or so to see it as it does the round of festivals and awards. </p>
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<p>Instead it is now available on Netflix for anyone to watch in the comfort of their own home. Might the experience of watching a film in a cinema become exclusively the realm for big-budget blockbuster movies that employ such things as 3D, Ultra-HD, 4DX and every other technical excess that becomes available? Cinema attendances are in fact booming – attendances in 2018 are the <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/cinema-attendance-is-highest-since-the-1970s-11581982">highest since 1970</a> – so some ways in which we consume cinema remain quite traditional. It is the means of choosing a wider range of films and having near instant access to them that provide both challenges and opportunities.</p>
<p>Access is now the key advantage for streaming platforms – but this will also be in a constant state of flux as technology develops ever further. These new production houses will need to respond to the new problems and opportunities that will soon be theirs to deal with. They will soon realise that cinema never really dies, it just changes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Carter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Oscar winning performances released straight to your home.
Martin Carter, Principal Lecturer in Film, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108098
2018-12-03T14:16:00Z
2018-12-03T14:16:00Z
Wizard of Oz: why this extraordinary movie has been so influential
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</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 1939 Warner Home Video.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Film director Joel Coen – one half of the famed Coen Brothers – <a href="https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/screenwriting-lessons-the-wizard-of-oz-a4014deac990?gi=62e931b340b1">once quipped</a> that “every movie ever made is an attempt to remake The Wizard of Oz” – and while, strictly speaking, there’s a bit of artistic licence in this statement, it seems that the tale of Dorothy’s adventure on the Yellow Brick Road can reasonably lay clam to being the most influential movie of all time. </p>
<p>At least, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/11/the-wizard-of-oz-influential-film-study">that’s the finding</a> of researchers in Turin, Italy, who took a database of 47,000 films and cross-referenced them to determine which film has had the greatest influence on the industry, based on the number of times it has been referenced in other films. The winner was the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.</p>
<p>Some members of the popular press seem surprised by this fact; but they really shouldn’t be. Indeed, the research – which was published in <a href="https://appliednetsci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/s41109-018-0105-0">Applied Network Science</a> – only seems to have looked for direct references to the film. But if you also took account of films that were influenced by The Wizard of Oz without directly referencing it, there would hundreds, if not thousands more titles to add to the list. </p>
<p>The Coen Brothers are not the only big names to pay homage to the Wizard of Oz (their films are full of sly references). Derek Jarman, who is about as far away from the Hollywood archetype as you can get, also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/mar/02/art">called it his favourite film</a>. For Joel Coen, the film’s brilliance probably lies in its elegant narrative structure – whereas for Jarman it has a lot to do with its design. But this is a testament to how good the film really is. Film is a highly collaborative art form and the contributions made by every department to this film – photography, set, costume, music, editing and cast – is immaculate. Indeed, to watch The Wizard of Oz is to watch the Hollywood studio machine working at the very peak of its efficiency.</p>
<h2>Dreams and reality</h2>
<p>As far as I am concerned, The Wizard of Oz has exerted the most profound influence on filmmakers around the world who refuse to see the cinema as a realist medium, but rather view it as the art form that comes closest to our dreams. In The Wizard of Oz, reality – as represented by Kansas – is literally colourless. What’s worse, it’s not the beautiful black and white one might expect from a Hollywood film of the period. Instead it’s doubly drab sepia. </p>
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<p>But once we enter the Land of Oz we are plunged into a world of vivid <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/02/technicolor-at-100/385039/">Technicolor</a> and extraordinary painted sets that make no attempt to hide their artifice. Even the cloyingly sentimental return to Kansas in the final few minutes cannot hide the true message: the imagination is far more interesting that reality can ever be. </p>
<p>In this celebration of the dream life, The Wizard of Oz is a truly surrealist work.</p>
<h2>Road movie tradition</h2>
<p>It should come as no surprise then that one of the finest riffs on the film comes from the doyen of American surrealist filmmakers, David Lynch. His 1991 Palm d’Or winner, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/19/movies/film-view-today-s-yellow-brick-road-leads-straight-to-hell.html">Wild at Heart</a>, belongs to the great American tradition of the road movie, a genre which Lynch (quite rightly) <a href="http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/intcbc.html">traces back</a> to The Wizard of Oz.</p>
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<p>But Lynch does not simply acknowledge the debt; rather he takes the plot of Barry Gifford’s short, spare and <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/12/01/still-weird-on-top/">ultimately realist novel</a> and litters it with references to the 1939 film. In Wild at Heart, characters say things like “too bad he can’t just visit that old Wizard of Oz and get some advice”, or “seems we sort of broke down on the yellow brick road”, without a hint of irony. They also have visions of the Wicked Witch of the West and get life lessons from Glenda the Good Witch. </p>
<p>There is more to these allusions than a mere doffing of the cap, however. The references to The Wizard of Oz serve as a reminder of how America has changed. Almost all of Lynch’s protagonists are innocents who find themselves in a strange and often perilous world – just like Dorothy. But while Dorothy is able to maintain her innocence, Sailor and Lula, the central couple in Wild at Heart, fail to do so in world that’s “wild at heart and weird on top”.</p>
<h2>Heaven and hell</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most extraordinary nod to The Wizard of Oz comes from closer to home. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/08/matter-life-death-review-re-release-powell-pressburger-david-niven-fighter-pilot">A Matter of Life and Death</a> was a fantasy film written, produced and directed by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1946. Commissioned during the final months of World War II to help mend the strained relationship between the British and their American allies, the film is set in two realms: Earth and heaven (which may or may not be a figment of a the imagination of a bomber pilot with brain trauma).</p>
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<p>Following the lead of The Wizard of Oz, Powell and Pressburger decided to distinguish between these two realms by shooting one in Technicolor and the other in monochrome (essentially black and white produced by undyed Technicolor film). The real stroke of genius, however, was to invert the early film’s pattern and to present the real world in colour and the imaginary one in monochrome. </p>
<p>Filmmakers, audiences and critics alike have generally accepted the paradox that the real world may be in colour, but on film black and white is more realistic – so by showing heaven in monochrome, Powell and Pressburger seem to be telling us that our imagination is more real than the real world. </p>
<p>Such a bold and subversive gesture would have been unthinkable, however, had the The Wizard of Oz not come before and showed filmmakers the imaginative possibilities of the medium.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108098/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Hoyle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The 1939 classic has influenced more films than any other film before or since.
Brian Hoyle, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Dundee
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/103879
2018-10-02T13:29:55Z
2018-10-02T13:29:55Z
Tom Waits in a cowboy hat: five musicians who were born to be in Westerns
<p>As well as being one of America’s greatest songwriters of the past 30 years, <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/tom-waits-9521480">Tom Waits</a>, it must be said, was made to be on screen – and I can’t escape the thought that he was born to be in the Western. He has had a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls056827043/">fantastic film career</a> and has even starred in the quintessential (if not so great in my opinion) modern Western: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/19/movies/review-film-rascals-roam-the-new-west-in-cold-feet.html">Cold Feet</a>. Waits has been directed by Jim Jarmusch, Francis Ford Coppola, Terry Gilliam, Tony Scott, Robert Altman and can now add the Coen Brothers to his already incredible CV. </p>
<p>Waits plays a gold prospector in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/31/the-ballad-of-buster-scruggs-review-coen-brothers-western">The Ballad of Buster Scruggs</a> – which is split up into six separate, but interlinked stories, beginning with the eponymous tale of Scruggs, a Roy Rogers-style singing cowboy who, under a harmless exterior, is a savage killer. Waits stars in a segment called “All Gold Canyon” as a lone gold miner. The film was first shown at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, where it won an award for Best Screenplay. It is set to air on Netflix on November 18.</p>
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<p>Why is it that musicians and Westerns seem so indelibly associated? It all starts with the archetypal singing cowboy, made famous by the likes of Rogers and his fellow singing cowboy Gene Autry in the 1930s. Since then, many musicians have found themselves attracted to the genre. Meanwhile the Coen Brothers are well-known for using music in their movies: from <a href="https://blogs.longwood.edu/musicintheworld/2012/10/17/o-brother-where-art-thou-music-and-its-role/">O Brother Where Art Thou</a> – which showcased the bluegrass of the depression-era West – to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/05/inside-llewyn-davis-review-coen-brothers">Inside LLewyn Davis</a> – which showcased the 1960s folk scene – and even <a href="https://www.laweekly.com/music/the-definitive-guide-to-the-music-of-the-big-lebowski-4168132">The Big Lebowski</a> – where the soundtrack helps form part of the film’s narrative. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs looks to continue the Coen’s embrace of this musical legacy. </p>
<p>So here are my five picks for actor-musicians you should check out to warm you up for the Coens’ forthcoming release.</p>
<h2>Kris Kristofferson</h2>
<p>One of the most prolific recording artists to appear in a ten-gallon hat is singer songwriter <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/kris-kristofferson-177860">Kris Kristofferson</a>, best known among mainstream moviegoers as the co-star – with Barbra Streisand – of A Star is Born (1976). Early on in his songwriting career, Kristofferson established his country pedigree with songs such as Me and Bobby McGee and Help Me Make It Through the Night. </p>
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<p>When it comes to Westerns his credits include Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (about which more later), Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Heaven’s Gate. The less said about the latter, the better, except that it’s generally thought to have <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/07/02/how-heavens-gate-killed-michael-ciminos-career---and-almost-dest/">ended Michael Cimino’s directorial career</a> and it didn’t do Kristofferson much good as an actor either, although the film is gradually being reappraised as a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9a7d72e0-f8fd-11e2-86e1-00144feabdc0">misunderstood masterpiece</a>.</p>
<h2>Neil Young</h2>
<p>When Daryl Hannah came to cast her directorial debut, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/16/paradox-review-neil-young-daryl-hannah-western-sxsw-film-netflix">Paradox (2018)</a> she didn’t have to look too far for someone to fill the role of “Man in the Black Hat” – her partner Neil Young. Young feels like a perfect pick in that not only does he look as if he sleeps in his cowboy hat, he’s also got a pretty impeccable country pedigree, despite being Canadian by birth. </p>
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<p>Willie Nelson, one of the all-time greats of country music, also makes an appearance. Worth a look for either of these two in my opinion (less so for the plot, sadly).</p>
<h2>David Bowie</h2>
<p>In both his music and his movies, David Bowie was a shapeshifter, experimenting between genres. Best known onscreen for his starring roles as an alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth and a goblin king in Labyrinth, his role as a gunslinger is less well known but no less worth a view for all that.</p>
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<p>It was probably the prospect of working with composer Ennio Morricone that tempted Bowie to into a role alongside Harvey Keitel in Giovanni Veronasi’s 1998 Italian film, <a href="https://whydoesitexist.com/2011/08/25/gunslingers-revenge-1998/">Il Mio West</a> (Gunslinger’s Revenge). Keitel’s retired gunslinger returns home to his son’s farm, only to be followed by his longtime nemesis Jack – Bowie – who insists on a fight to the death and kidnaps Keitel’s son as motivation. This is a little-seen Western in which Bowie’s murderous character performs a macabre Glory Glory Hallelujah that is so outside of what we have come to expect from The Thin White Duke that it really must be seen to be believed. </p>
<h2>Johnny Cash</h2>
<p>Johnny Cash, aka “The Man in Black” – with his southern Arkansas drawl and his catalogue of country songs such as The Greatest Cowboy of them All and The Last Cowboy Song – was practically made for the Western. </p>
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<p>Cash starred in a good many TV roles for Westerns but <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1009052_gunfight?">A Gunfight</a>, for which Cash composed and performed the title theme, is an unsung and under-appreciated gem of a film which has the distinction of being the first Western financed by American Indians, in this case the Jicarilla Apache Tribe. The film received mixed reviews, some greeting it as a good old-fashioned Western, others as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/26/archives/douglas-and-cash-star-in-a-gunfight-with-apache-backing.html">flaccid flick</a> that doesn’t make the most of the Cash songs in the soundtrack.</p>
<h2>Bob Dylan</h2>
<p>Bob Dylan has spent a fair few hours on film, mostly playing himself. But when you read the name Sam Peckinpah you know you are getting a proper Western. Like Heaven’s Gate, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was plagued with problems – and Dylan has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/sep/06/dvdreviews.drama">more feted for his brilliant soundtrack album</a> of the same title than for his acting (co-star Kristofferson’s performance as The Kid was generally better received). Watch the movie if you fancy it, but do yourself a favour and get to know the album which features the classic Knocking on Heaven’s Door.</p>
<p>So Waits is joining a pretty star-studded array of musicians who have donned cowboy hats and boots – and whether they are wielding six-shooters or guitars, there seems to be something about the Western that has drawn in some of music’s biggest names. The likes of Elvis Presley and Nelson deserve honourable mentions, but we all have our favourites, and these are mine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What is it about Westerns that tempts so many musicians into ten-gallon hats?
Martin Hall, Senior Lecturer, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55319
2016-02-25T19:02:26Z
2016-02-25T19:02:26Z
Hail, Caesar! or Hollywood, at least
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112870/original/image-20160225-15174-1j77rol.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar! romps through several genres, and only occasionally wallows in self-indulgence. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Universal Pictures International</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How often have you heard someone ask, “Have you seen the latest Coen brothers film?”</p>
<p>Well, have you seen <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475290/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Hail, Caesar!</a>, the latest Coen brothers film? </p>
<p>Joel and Ethan Coen emerged in the 1980s with the masterpiece <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086979/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Blood Simple</a> (1984). They rapidly solidified their reputation as gifted filmmakers, pushing the limits of Hollywood aesthetics in films such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093822/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Raising Arizona</a> (1987), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100150/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Miller’s Crossing</a> (1990) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101410/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Barton Fink</a> (1991). </p>
<p>Their films can generally be divided into comedies and thrillers, as epitomised in the contrast between their two best known films, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Big Lebowski</a> (1998) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116282/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Fargo</a> (1996). </p>
<p>Despite their cinematic nous, the Coen brothers’ serious films have often hovered on the verge of painful mannerism, although this is often mitigated by the support of a compelling, dynamic narrative. </p>
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<span class="caption">Intolerable Cruelty (2003).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span>
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<p>And their comedies have similarly contained moments of brilliance despite their flaws (usually to do with their pretensions towards “quirkiness”). Up to and including the underrated <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138524/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Intolerable Cruelty</a> (2003), they’re marked by a distinctly infectious exuberance and a genuine delight in the history of the medium. </p>
<p>The Coen brothers are nothing, if not graduates of film school. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, one of the rules of commercial art production, it seems, is that at some point in a successful artist’s career, he or she becomes transfixed by his or her own mythology, as though having read in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-coen-brothers-marvellous-hail-caesar">The New Yorker</a> one too many paeans to their own schtick. From this point on, that artist’s work becomes caricaturish and lacklustre.</p>
<p>It happened with John Carpenter, who seemed destined to stop making great horror and action films with the approach of the 1990s. After his masterpiece, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">They Live</a> (1988), there’s nothing worth watching. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112867/original/image-20160225-15156-l8fqj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Another 48 Hrs. (1990).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paramount Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And to the other great action director of the 1970s and 1980s, Walter Hill, whose <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099044/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Another 48 Hrs.</a> (1990) marks the Rubicon of his work’s decline. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, if unsurprisingly, it has now happened to the Coen brothers. </p>
<p>In their remake of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1403865/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">True Grit</a> (2010), for example, it felt like we were watching parodies of the Coen brothers made by technically gifted students. Arguably, this was a film that could not be remade, if for no other reason than that John Wayne, the core of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065126/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">True Grit</a> (1969), had died of cancer some 31 years earlier.</p>
<p>But perhaps the Coen brothers had long ago reached the point of becoming their own caricature. The suffocating, tragic atmosphere of Blood Simple had become the meandering Tommy Hillfiger-commercial gloss of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477348/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">No Country for Old Men</a> (2007); and the zany delight of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110074/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Hudsucker Proxy</a> (1994) became the inane guffawing of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887883/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Burn After Reading</a> (2008).</p>
<p>Still, Hail, Caesar! may be something of a return to form for the pair. </p>
<p>The film follows a day in the life of Capitol Pictures, a large Hollywood film studio. It is told primarily through the point of view of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), “Head of Physical Production” at the studio, and unfolds across several narrative threads. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112871/original/image-20160225-15145-18e9xel.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Josh Brolin shines as Eddie Mannix in Hail, Caesar!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Universal Pictures International.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The central narrative involves the kidnapping of star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) by a group of dissatisfied Marxist script writers, including the comically German Stanford academic, Professor Marcuse (John Bluthal). Marcuse is an obvious nod to <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/">Herbert Marcuse</a>, the brilliant philosopher who immigrated to America in 1934 and was part of the Frankfurt School. </p>
<p>The film incorporates several different genres and modes popular in the 1940s and 1950s: biblical epic, lavish song and dance musicals, the <a href="http://filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/in-authenticity-douglas-sirk-and.html">Sirkian</a> melodrama, film noir, and the B-western all get a play. </p>
<p>Our introduction to Mannix, for example, comes through a noirish sequence involving a starlet, dirty pictures, a dissolute photographer and police bribery. All of it straight out of Raymond Chandler’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2052.The_Big_Sleep?from_search=true&search_version=service">The Big Sleep</a> (1939). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112868/original/image-20160225-15156-dgjyp4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scarlett Johannson plays DeeAnna Moran in Hail, Caesar!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Universal Pictures International.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though its lack of narrative discipline is a little dissatisfying, this is, in many ways, a delightful film. Its lush Technicolor-style aesthetic, brilliant staging and cinematography are notable for style and focus – particularly in contrast with the current modish digital filmmaking that is overly dependent on editing and effects. </p>
<p>Lingering in the background is a subtle critique of the commercial-corporate reality of Hollywood production, brought into stunning relief in a handful of scenes in which a representative of the aviation corporation <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Corporation">Lockheed</a>, well known for their warmongering and profiteering, attempts to poach Mannix.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112873/original/image-20160225-15145-r09g8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Channing Tatum erupts in one of the films funniest interludes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Universal Pictures International.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a piquant moment that is quickly brushed aside behind the film’s general comic masquerading, the businessman tries to entice Mannix away from Hollywood by showing him a picture of a recent H-bomb explosion in Bikini Atoll, behind which Lockheed, he assures Mannix, has been pulling the strings. The often forgotten – and ongoing – intimacy of all branches of the military-industrial-entertainment complex is thus momentarily brought into stark relief. </p>
<p>Sadly, such moments are unable to overcome the tragedy of the fact that Hail, Caesar! ultimately seems to be little more than an exercise in pure Hollywood cynicism. </p>
<p>This profound cynicism is evident through the film’s apparent critiquing of the brutality of American capitalism, as epitomised in the Caesarian hierarchy of the film studio system itself, while – affectively at least – celebrating the very mechanics of the production-line vision industry that is Hollywood. </p>
<p>Several closeups of watches throughout the film imply that, indeed, the machine moves – and will continue to move – as relentlessly and inevitably as time’s arrow itself. Ultimately, the film seems, indeed, to hail Caesar. </p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that the Coen brothers continue to be the darlings of the Hollywood establishment. Hail, Caesar! has enough critical energy to appear momentarily original, but not so much that it could in any way challenge the status quo. </p>
<p>Then again, that’s the nature of show business. </p>
<p><br>
<em>Hail, Caesar! opens in Australia on February 25.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Coen brothers may have returned to form with the genre-spinning Hail, Caesar! It still remains to be seen if they’ll ever reach the heights of their glory days again.
Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Notre Dame Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/30957
2014-09-21T20:41:41Z
2014-09-21T20:41:41Z
A moral world in which bad things happen to good people
<p>On All Saints Day in 1755 the earth quaked beneath the city of Lisbon. Crowds rushed to open spaces near the sea only to be engulfed by a tsunami. The philosopher Voltaire lamented the tragedy in his <a href="http://ajplyon.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/voltaire-poem-on-the-lisbon-disaster-2014.pdf">Poem on the Lisbon Disaster</a>. In his view, the scale of human suffering overwhelmed any defense of God.</p>
<p>The force of Voltaire’s critique arose directly from the mechanistic understanding of the physical world that he shared with many 18th century philosophers. After Isaac Newton, earthquakes could be deterministically linked to a distant divinity. As Voltaire quipped, “God holds the chain”. Such metaphors stand in stark contrast to the long tradition of justifications of God in the face of suffering and evil. It goes back at least to the Hebrew Bible’s Job where divine mystery is expressed through the incomprehensibility of a whirlwind. </p>
<p>Today, poets critical of theodicy – philosophical vindication of an omnipotent force oblivious to earthquakes and ill-fortune – are as likely to write for the cinema as for literature. </p>
<p>Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2009 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1019452/">A Serious Man</a> deconstructs the life of a mid-20th-century Jewish-American physics professor named Larry Gopnik. Throughout, an un-named God reverently referred to as Hashem, haunts a series of ethical conundrums. While the problem of evil is very old, Larry’s physics are new.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7iggyFPls4w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for A Serious Man.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In one of the early scenes, Larry giddily finishes off a mathematical proof for the counterintuitive implications of quantum mechanics. “And that’s Schrödinger’s paradox, right? Is the cat dead or is the cat not dead?” </p>
<p>Later on, Larry finishes off another chalkboard full of equations to demonstrate Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. “It proves we can’t ever really know … what’s going on. But even though you can’t figure anything out, you will be responsible for it on the mid-term.” </p>
<p>Herein lies the dark irony of the entire film, which narrates an ethical fable in quantum mechanics’ aftermath. </p>
<p>As it happens, the film is not particularly interested in mathematics and does not dispute its objective claims. The math is “the real thing”, Larry says at one point. “The stories I give you in class are just illustrative; they’re like, fables, say, to help give you a picture.” Hence, just as with Voltaire, the Coens’ poetic critique of theodicy emerges directly from their narration of physics.</p>
<p>Since Alan Sokal published <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair">an intentionally obfuscated and illogical account</a> of quantum mechanics in the journal Social Text, cultural theorists have remained wary of the subject. However, that hasn’t dissuaded philosophers such as <a href="http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/">Slavoj Zizek</a> from affirming its mathematical certainty, precisely in order to appropriate its resulting account of probability. Such probability informs his critique of ideology and understanding of cultural change. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59531/original/vtqxzdhb-1411104373.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source"> AAP</span></span>
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<p>In his 2003 book <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/puppet-and-dwarf">The Puppet and the Dwarf</a>, Zizek argues that the Hebrew Bible’s Job can be read as a critique of the dominant theodicy of its time: God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. In this view Job is a protestor, who is vindicated by the end of the story when God finally appears. </p>
<p>At this, Zizek remains astonished and offers an alternative interpretation. Why would Job be satisfied with the empty gestures of a whirlwind? As Zizek summarises:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So what we get is neither the good God letting Job know that his suffering was just an ordeal destined to test his faith, nor a dark God beyond Law, the God of pure caprice, but, rather, a God who acts like someone caught in a moment of impotence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pushing Job’s unwritten interior dialogue to these conclusions, Zizek arrives at an even more profound critique of theodicy, one echoed in A Serious Man.</p>
<p>Throughout the film everyone has told Larry to see Rabbi Marshak. However, it seems the elder sage has more or less retired to a life of contemplative study. The only exception is bar mitzvah initiates. Hence, Larry’s 13-year-old son Danny is the one to eventually garner an appointment. As he passes through Marshak’s door, the camera pans to Caravaggio’s 1618 “Sacrifice of Isaac”, hanging on the wall. Danny’s resemblance to the sacrificial victim is striking. </p>
<p>After a long pause, the frail Rabbi begins to recite not the Torah nor Talmud, but the film’s Jefferson Airplane soundtrack: “When the truth is found. To be lies… And all the hope. Within you dies… then what?” </p>
<p>The answer to Marshak’s question is not given. It merely reiterates numerous paradoxes in the film: the opening parable about a rabbi/dybbuk who may or may not be dead; a student’s bribe/gift which may or may not have been given; the final tornado that could twist toward destruction or delivery; Schroedinger’s cat. Even the film’s epigram from the French Rabbi Rashi, “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you”, could be taken either as a dark joke or in all seriousness.</p>
<p>In an interview, the Coens denied any reference to the biblical Job. The entire film seems intent on leaving the audience to its own conclusions. Nonetheless, I suspect that it is not the mysterious Hashem that is the target of the film’s dark humour and critique, so much as the deterministic deity of Voltaire. As Larry struggles with the ethical ambiguity around him, it is hard not to identify with one character’s suggestion: “Please. Accept mystery.”</p>
<p>A Serious Man concludes with the Jefferson Airplane refrain, “you better find somebody to love”. </p>
<p>Maybe this is the summation of the Torah Rabbi Marshak meant to provide. It has the beneficial economy of Occam’s razor. However, precisely by refusing a simple explanation, the film seems to say something more. Today we need not live on the site of earthquakes and tsunamis. The news relentlessly flickers across our screens. Moreover, each tragedy is often accompanied by a pundit’s repetition of the theodicies of old. </p>
<p>And yet, as Emanuel Levinas suggested in an essay on <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415755016/">“Useless Suffering,”</a> after Auschwitz the possibility remains for “a faith more difficult than ever… a faith without theodicy”. </p>
<p><br>
<em>This article is part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/morality-series">a series</a> on public morality in 21st-century Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30957/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Stanley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
On All Saints Day in 1755 the earth quaked beneath the city of Lisbon. Crowds rushed to open spaces near the sea only to be engulfed by a tsunami. The philosopher Voltaire lamented the tragedy in his Poem…
Timothy Stanley, Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.