The contributors over at PressPlay are at it again, posting incredibly smart video essays that bring us new interpretations of films. My favorite addition over the past week is a cleverly edited work on the Coen brothers and their “Search for Truth.” The five-minute compilation, from Steven Benedict, pieces together each of the brothers’ films in a manner that appears that they are “talking” to each other. The result offers great insight into what the filmmakers attempt to achieve in their works by having their characters always seeking answers to these simple, yet vital, questions: Who am I? Who are you? What are we doing here?
While films from a particular filmmaker often have a thread of similarity that runs through them—Tarantino’s dialogue, Scorsese’s camera movement, Spielberg's parental issues, Hooper’s close-ups and shameless dutch angles, etc.—when we watch them individually (often several years apart), they have of life of their own, and their similarities don’t seem as relevant. When we see them all at once, as we do here, we see the links much more clearly. And though this may appear at first to reduce those films and their creators—to entice us to condemn and say, “This director just keeps making the same movie over and over”—it may actually be to the director’s credit, at least for the Coen brothers here. Those questions listed above are the questions that need to be constantly asked. They are what drive nearly every good film, and they are what drive nearly all artistic production from as far back as Sophocles and Virgil. If art is intended to reflect some truth in life, there is nothing more true than humanity’s attempt to understand its place in the world.
Though the Coen brothers are known for their off-beat and sometimes dark depiction of people and places, they are great at finding new ways to ask those questions and seek those answers. Enjoy!
While films from a particular filmmaker often have a thread of similarity that runs through them—Tarantino’s dialogue, Scorsese’s camera movement, Spielberg's parental issues, Hooper’s close-ups and shameless dutch angles, etc.—when we watch them individually (often several years apart), they have of life of their own, and their similarities don’t seem as relevant. When we see them all at once, as we do here, we see the links much more clearly. And though this may appear at first to reduce those films and their creators—to entice us to condemn and say, “This director just keeps making the same movie over and over”—it may actually be to the director’s credit, at least for the Coen brothers here. Those questions listed above are the questions that need to be constantly asked. They are what drive nearly every good film, and they are what drive nearly all artistic production from as far back as Sophocles and Virgil. If art is intended to reflect some truth in life, there is nothing more true than humanity’s attempt to understand its place in the world.
Though the Coen brothers are known for their off-beat and sometimes dark depiction of people and places, they are great at finding new ways to ask those questions and seek those answers. Enjoy!