Joel and Ethan Coen
A postmodern analysis of the Coen brothers' approach to filmmaking
Cloth – $110
978-0-252-02936-3
Paper – $22
978-0-252-07185-0
eBook – $14.95
978-0-252-05414-3
Publication Date
Paperback: 01/01/2004
Cloth: 09/06/2004
Cloth: 09/06/2004
Series: Contemporary Film Directors
About the Book
The Coen brothers have achieved both critical and commercial success with landmark films like Fargo, O Brother Where art Thou?, Blood Simple, and Raising Arizona. Proving the existence of a viable market for "small" films that are also intellectually rewarding, their work has exploded generic conventions amid rich webs of transtextual references.R. Barton Palmer argues that the Coen oeuvre forms a central element in what might be called postmodernist filmmaking. Mixing high and low cultural sources and blurring genres like noir and comedy, the use of pastiche and anti-realist elements in films such as The Hudsucker Proxy and Barton Fink clearly fit the postmodernist paradigm. Palmer argues that for a full understanding of the Coen brothers' unique position within film culture, it is important to see how they have developed a new type of text within general postmodernist practice that Palmer terms commercial/independent.
About the Author
R. Barton Palmer is a former Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University and the former director of The South Carolina Film Institute. His many books include Hollywood’s Dark Cinema: The American Film Noir.Reviews
"This is a book for those who have already made the acquaintance of the Coens through their films and are now ready to think about their work seriously."--Film InternationalRelated Titles
