An Unique Perspective: The Films of Joel and Ethan Coen

Resources at the SJRCC Libraries

PAL = Palatka Campus | OPC = Orange Park Campus | SAC = St. Augustine Campus

= BOOK | = DVD or CD | = VHS | = CASSETTE

The Coen Brothers - Publisher's Marketing: "Blood Simple, Barton Fink, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, Hudsucker Proxy, and The Big Lebowski -- moviegoers either love the Coen brothers or they hate them. Those who love them believe they have made some of the most innovative, entertaining, and idiosyncratic films of the last 25 years. Their movies have grossed over $1 billion, and Fargo won Oscars in 1997 for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress. Brought up in small-town America, the brothers have been making movies from the age of eight. Joel directs; Ethan writes and collaborates with his brother in the later stages as the story develops its visual identity. The Coen brothers set the standard for creative cinema."

Call Number: SAC - PN1998.3.C6635 B47 2000

Joel and Ethan Coen - Publisher's Marketing: "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. In Joel and Ethan Coen, R. Barton Palmer argues that the Coen oeuvre also 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 on this book."

Call Number: OPC - PN1998.3.C6635 P35 2004

Barton Fink - Vendor's Marketing: "A serious Broadway playwright sweats out a B-movie script in a weird 1941 Hollywood hotel."

Call Number: SAC - PN1997 BARTON DVD

Call Number: OPC - PN1997 .B373 2003 DVD

Call Number: PAL - PN1997 Bart 2003 DVD

The Big Lebowski - Vendor's Marketing: "Jeff The Dude Lebowski (Bridges) is the victim of mistaken identity. Thugs break into his apartment in the errant belief that they are accosting Jeff Lebowski, the eccentric millionaire philanthropist, not the laid-back, unemployed Jeff Lebowski. In the aftermath, The Dude seeks restitution from his wealthy namesake. He and his buddies (Goodman and Buscemi) are swept up in a kidnapping plot that quickly spins out of control."

Call Number: SAC - PN1997 BIGL DVD

Call Number: OPC - PN1997 .B533 2003 DVD

Fargo - Vendor's Marketing: "Jerry Lundergaard is a car salesman in Minneapolis who has gotten himself into serious debt and is so desperate for money that he hires two thugs to kidnap his wife. Jerry plans to get his rich father-in-law to pay the ransom--half of the money will be used to pay the kidnappers and the other half will satisfy Jerry's debt. His whole plan backfires when the thugs kill a state trooper and two innocent bystanders, drawing a pregnant police chief into her first homicide investigation, unraveling Jerry's scheme."

Call Number: SAC - PN1997 Fa DVD

The Hudsucker Proxy - Vendor's Marketing: "A scheming executive promotes a mailroom worker to company president in 1950s Manhattan."

Call Number: SAC - PN1997 Hud DVD

Call Number: OPC - PN1997 .H83 1999 DVD

Call Number: PAL - PN1997 Huds 1999 DVD

The Ladykillers - Vendor's Marketing: "A devious professor and his gang of so-called experts attempt the heist of the century. The plan is knock off a riverboat casino by digging a hole from a house located near the water. The plan seems to be working, until the owner of the house, a little old lady, gets suspicious."

Call Number: OPC - PN1997 .L321 2004 DVD

Call Number: PAL - PN1997 Ladyk 2004 DVD

The Man Who Wasn't There - Vendor's Marketing: "A dissatisfied barber in the 1940s decides to blackmail his wife's lover in order to get startup capital for a new dry cleaning business. The scheme begins to unravel and, in the end, everyone gets what's coming to them."

Call Number: SAC - PN1997 MAN DVD

O Brother, Where Art Thou? - "Loosely based on Homer’s "Odyssey", this is the story of three convicts-- escapees from a prison farm in Mississippi-- and their adventure as they travel home in hopes of recovering buried loot before it’s lost forever in a flood."

Call Number: SAC - PN1997 O DVD

Call Number: OPC - PN1997 .O27 2000 DVD

Raising Arizona - Vendor's Marketing: "A childless couple concocts an outlandish plan to kidnap a baby from a fertile couple when they discover they're barren."

Call Number: SAC - PN1997 RAISING DVD

Call Number: OPC - PN1997 .R192 1999 DVD