Coen (brothers)

Coen (brothers), Joel (1954– ) and Ethan (1957– ), American filmmakers, known for their quirky, offbeat movies in which they self-consciously play with stereotype and film conventions. Joel is typically credited as director, Ethan as producer, and both as screenwriters, although they have shared all these tasks in most of their films.

The brothers were born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where their parents were college professors. Joel studied film at New York University, while Ethan earned a degree in philosophy from Princeton University in New Jersey. After Joel had experienced some training as an editor on other people’s films, the brothers made their feature film debut with Blood Simple (1984). The movie, a dark film noir with a murderous edge, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Their next film, Raising Arizona (1987), mixed a frenetic, cartoonlike style with black comedy as a couple unable to have a baby decides to kidnap one of a rich family’s quintuplets.

The Coens’ next film, Miller’s Crossing (1990), was a stylized look at gangsters in the 1930s. Barton Fink (1991), about a neurotic playwright who goes to Hollywood to become a screenwriter, won the top prize as well as the directing award at the Cannes Film Festival in France. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) featured the Coens’ bizarre take on the corporate world. The brothers experienced their biggest critical and commercial success with Fargo (1996), about a kidnapping that goes wrong. Joel’s wife, actor Frances McDormand, won an Academy Award for best actress for her role as a pregnant police chief who unravels the crime.

The Big Lebowski (1998) was a lighter Coen film about a happy-go-lucky man who is caught up in a case of mistaken identity. The Coens’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) was a typical combination of madcap adventure, quirky characters, and strange interludes. The movie was also notable for its soundtrack, a mixture of old-time country, folk, and blues music that became a bestseller. With the black-and-white film The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) the brothers returned to the moody, film noir style that marked their debut effort. Other Coen brothers films include Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and The Ladykillers (2004). In 2007 they adapted the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country for Old Men, for which they won Academy Awards for best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay, as well as a best screenplay Golden Globe.