Joel Coen - Biography

With producer and co-writer Ethan, Joel Coen has been part of the most celebrated brother act in recent entertainment memory. He has helmed a series of stylish, irreverent and cinema-savvy movies that have charmed critics while thrilling an initially small but loyal band of viewers. Though they evince a powerful fascination with Hollywood genres, the Coens' work gets the Serious Film treatment from the Hollywood community. These are self-conscious movie-movies with style to spare: manic, witty yet sinuous camera movements, slick yet richly textured cinematography and powerhouse performers spouting smart and beautifully artificial dialogue. Some have complained, however, that one may leave their films with the sense that the Coens believe in nothing but style.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, the Coens have relied heavily upon detailed preproduction and storyboarding. With the notable exception of "Raising Arizona" (1987), they have favored chilly irony in the grand tradition of Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. "Fargo", their belated 1996 commercial/critical breakthrough may be the ultimate example of this tendency as it veers eccentrically from low-key quirky comedy to hard-edged violence and serious consequences. One could quibble, however, that they lack Hitchcock's obsessiveness and moral seriousness and fail to match Kubrick's intellect and profound pessimism. Nonetheless, their undeniable virtuosity and terminal cool have propelled them to the front ranks of the generation of filmmakers who emerged since the halcyon days of the 1970s American auteurs (Altman, Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese, et al.) Though they are visually oriented and allow little deviation from their scripts, actors love to work with them due to the trust they inspire with their low-key directing style. (Though Joel is officially the director, they collaborate on all aspects of their productions. Reportedly they tend to be perceived as an interchangeable unit on their film sets, as they chuckle together at private jokes and complete each other's sentences.) Most impressively, studios scramble to back their distinctive projects though the first four of them cumulatively grossed less than "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" (1994).

The Coens have collaborated with writer-director Sam Raimi (best known for "Darkman" and the "Evil Dead" series) on several projects. Though Joel Coen and Raimi have similar sensibilities--hellzapoppin' camerawork and a weakness for genre--the latter has yet to gain comparable critical cachet. This may be due to the Coens' excellent track record with actors and their shrewd avoidance of the more disreputable popular genres, like horror and action. Moreover, while Raimi's movies don't pretend to be about anything much, the brothers' films have an ineffable patina of depth. One hungers for the day when they tackle a project which finally reveals their heretofore concealed passions--their "Vertigo", their "Paths of Glory". Nevertheless, the lack of an official masterpiece on his resume did not prevent Joel from garnering the official recognition of a Best Director nod for his work on "Fargo" (1997). He also shared nominations with his brother for Best Editing (under the joint pseudonym of Roderick Jaynes) and Best Original Screenplay, winning the latter.