Coen Heads
The mind-melded Coen brothers have made a brilliant fetish out of favoring form over content. But now, with No Country for Old Men, they may have discovered they donגt have to choose one over the other.
By David Edelstein
The first nine-tenths of Joel and Ethan Coenגs No Country for Old Menגthe centerpiece of this yearגs New York Film Festivalגis the best thing theyגve ever done, with the possible exception of The Big Lebowski as seen for the third time, stoned. (No Countryגs last tenth Iגm not so sure about, but weגll get to that.) The Coensג return to the festival is a glorious omen. The NYFF made the brothers indie darlings in 1984 with the screening of their first film, Blood Simple. Six years later, Millerגs Crossing gave the opening-night glitterati an unexpected barrage of rat-a-tat-tat and splatter. Now, seventeen years after that, No Country for Old Men throws into stark (wide-screen, deep-focus, emotionally devastating) relief their evolution from snotty art-film postmodern jokesters to snotty art-film postmodern jokesters ג¦ with soul. This one is Blood Subtle.
Before I continue: Writing about the Coensגand mining their oeuvre for Big Ideasגis a sure way of looking like an ass. When the Village Voiceגs J. Hoberman contended that the climax of Millerגs Crossing was a Holocaust allegory, the Coens didnגt know what the hell he was talking about. And when I interviewed them for American Film in 1986, on the occasion of their second film, Raising Arizona, they greeted my pointy-headed critical theories with the look of the Sundance Kid hearing a cockamamy new scheme: גYou just keep thinkinג, Butch. Thatגs what youגre good at.ג Their cinematographer at the time, Barry Sonnefeld, told me, גTopics are incredibly unimportant to themגitגs structure and style and words. If you ask them for their priorities, theyגll tell you script, editing, coverage, and lighting.ג Later, I pressed Joel for his thoughts on the movieגs ostensible subjectגprocreation, infertility, child-rearingגand he squirmed and smoked and finally said a babyגs face is גfodder,ג like a gunshot with blood running down someoneגs shirt: something you can play with in surprising (and perverse) ways. גFodderג sounds a little glib. Iגd prefer a more highbrow formulation: The Coens take found objects and arrange them for maximum disjunction.
At first, those found objects were movie conventions. The camera that travels smoothly along the bar in Blood Simple and ostentatiously rises and falls to avoid a slumped barfly was a cin
