The Coen Brothers' America

July 29, 2019
Booker (Star Trek: A Cultural History), a University of Arkansas English professor, takes a thorough look at the oeuvre of filmmaker brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. Booker’s thesis is that their films all take place in a kind of “alternate reality” informed by the Coens’ deep engagement with film history and genre. Devoting each chapter to a different genre, including film noir (Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn’t There) and black comedy (Fargo and A Serious Man), Booker takes a painstaking approach, giving detailed plot synopses of each film and carefully analyzing its relationship both to Hollywood classics and other Coen titles. Booker is at his best using his considerable expertise in film history to trace these complex relationships: for instance, the subtle ways Barton Fink’s protagonist is and is not like playwright and screenwriter Clifford Odets. In fact, the more attention one pays to these films’ finer points, the more one is drawn into a web of connections and references. Booker argues that the Coens’ “alternate-reality technique” might “suggest some new ways of looking at America and its history,” but what this exactly entails receives little attention. Nevertheless, this remains a solid contribution to the study of the Coens’ acclaimed work.