Joel and Ethan Coen

Contemporary Film Directors

by R. Barton Palmer

With landmark films such as Fargo, O Brother Where art Thou?, Blood Simple, and Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers have achieved both critical and commercial success. 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. Analyzing their substantial body of work from this "generic" framework is the central focus of this book.

Genres: Film

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 18, 2004

About the author

R. Barton Palmer is the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Greening · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great films great book

[Jacqueline Valencia]

R. Barton Palmer is a great writer. His analysis makes me want watch all of the Coen brothers films again with a critical eye. In fact, I'll go watch Barton Fink now.