Blood Siblings: The Cinema of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

by Paul A. Woods (Editor)

This anthology presents the story of modern cinema’s most dynamic brotherhood duo, from their debut neo-noir Blood Simple through the lowlife comedy The Big Lebowski. What all these films show is that the Coen brothers deliver visually and verbally inventive and exciting films that keep their fans on tenterhooks waiting for their next movie. This is the first book to collect the best articles, interviews, and reviews of the Coens’ diverse productions, including Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, and the Oscar-winning Fargo.

Genres: Film

184 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2000

Reviews

[Josh Avery · Rating 1 out of 5]

A chronological history of the films of Joel and Ethan Coen from Blood Simple through Fargo. This was published in 2000 just before O Brother Where Art Though? was released.

The Good: This covers the majority of my favorite Coen films, Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, The Big Lebowski; and has interviews with the guys done from past press releases, which was nice because they don't do interviews at all.

The Bad: I thought this would be a breakdown of their processes or behind the scenes stuff, it was just previously printed reviews of each movie, along with the aforementioned interviews. It was extremely redundant and kind of disappointing.

Best line: When asked if it was a weird coincidence that in all of their movies that he is in, Steve Buscemi ends up being killed, Ethan Coen said: "I guess we just like killing Steve."

C-

[Scott Ollar · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book. Each movie they have made (as of the time of printing) is presented in the order they were released. Reviews of each film are reprinted, followed by a brief interview with the brothers.

The reviews are repetitive, as most summarize the plot at length. The book is filled with spoilers if you haven't seen a particular movie. The interviews depict the brothers as somewhat smug, and in many cases they seem to be having a little too much fun at the interviewers expense.

[Hanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so much a book as a collection of articles and interviews reprinted from Variety and other film periodicals. Because of this, it does not go very deep and there is a lot of repetition. Hardcore Coen fans will enjoy it just because of the subject matter but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone else. Also, note the publication date. The last film examined in much depth is Lebowski.

[Mienai]

Reprinted in 2008, 265 pages

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reviews, essays, and interviews contained in this collection should be drawn from more diverse and interesting sources.