Coen Brothers Fact file

Coen brothers

    Joel David Coen                                                                                       Ethan Jesse Coen

Born - November 29th in 1954                                                        Born - September 21st in 1957 

Early life

Joel and Ethan Coen, of Jewish heritage,grew up in a Jewish community in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their father, Edward, was an economist at the University of Minnesota, and their mother, Rena, an art historian at St. Cloud State University.

Personal life

Joel has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984. They adopted a son from Paraguay, named Pedro McDormand Coen (Frances and all her siblings were adopted). 

Ethan is married to film editor Tricia Cooke, and they have two children: daughter Dusty and son Buster and both couples live in New York City.

Career

In the 1980's - 

After graduating from NYU, Joel worked as a production assistant on a variety of industrial films and music videos. He developed a talent for film editing and met Sam Raimi, who was looking for an assistant editor on his first feature film The Evil Dead (1981).

In 1984, the brothers wrote and directed Blood Simple, their first film together. Set in Texas, the film tells the tale of a shifty, sleazy bar owner who hires a private detective to kill his wife and her lover. The film contains elements that point to their future direction: distinctive homages to genre movies (in this case noir and horror), plot twists layered over a simple story, a dark humor and mise en scene. The film starred Frances McDormand, who would go on to feature in many of the Coen brothers' films (and marry Joel). Upon release the film received much praise and won awards for Joel's direction at both the Sundance and Independent Spirit awards.

Their next project was 1985's Crimewave, directed by Sam Raimi. The film was written by the Coens and Raimi. Joel and Raimi also made cameo appearances in Spies Like Us.

The next film by the brothers was the 1987 hit Raising Arizona, the story of an unlikely married couple: ex-convict H.I. (Nicolas Cage) and police officer Ed (Holly Hunter), who long for a baby but are unable to conceive. When a local furniture tycoon (Trey Wilson) appears on television with his newly born quintuplets and jokes that they "are more than we can handle," H.I. steals one of the quintuplets to bring up as their own. The film featured Frances McDormand, John Goodman, William Forsythe, Sam McMurray, and Randall "Tex" Cobb.

In the 1990's -

Miller's Crossing, released in 1990, starred Albert Finney, Gabriel Byrne, and John Turturro. The film is about feuding gangsters in the Prohibition era.

The following year, they made Barton Fink; set in 1941, a New York playwright (the eponymous Barton Fink played by John Turturro) moves to Los Angeles to write a B-movie. He settles down in his hotel room to commence writing, but suffers writer's block until he is invaded by the man (John Goodman) next door. Barton Fink was a critical success, earning Oscar nominations and winning three major awards at 1991 Cannes Film Festival, including the Palme d'Or. It was their first film with cinematographer Roger Deakins, a key collaborator for the next 15 years.

In 1994, The Hudsucker Proxy (co-written with Raimi) was released; the board of a large corporation attempt to sabotage its share price by appointing a no-hoper as boss but their plan backfires when he invents the hula-hoop.

The brothers returned to a more familiar theme in 1996 with the crime thriller Fargo, set in their home state of Minnesota (Fargo, North Dakota appears in only a couple of early scenes). Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), who has serious financial problems, has his wife kidnapped so that his wealthy father-in-law will pay the ransom. His plan goes wrong when the kidnappers deviate from the plan and local cop Marge Gunderson (McDormand) starts to investigate. A critical and commercial success, with particular praise for its dialogue and McDormand's performance, the film received several awards including a BAFTA award and Cannes award for direction and two Oscars, one for Best Original Screenplay and a Best Actress Oscar for McDormand.

In the Coens' next film The Big Lebowski, which was released in 1998, "The Dude" (Jeff Bridges), a Los Angeles slacker, is used as an unwitting pawn in a fake kidnapping plot with his bowling buddies (Steve Buscemi and John Goodman). Well received by critics, it is now regarded as a classic cult film.

In the 2000's - 

The Coen brothers' next film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) was another critical and commercial success. The title was borrowed from the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels, whose lead character, movie director John Sullivan, had planned to make a film with that title. Based loosely on Homer's Odyssey (complete with a cyclops, sirens, et al.) the story is set inMississippi in the 1930s and follows a trio of escaped convicts who, after absconding from a chain gang, journey home in an attempt to recover the loot from a bank heist that the leader has buried. But they have no clear perception of where they are going. The film also highlighted the comic abilities of George Clooney who starred as the oddball lead character Ulysses Everett McGill (assisted by his sidekicks, played by Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro). The film's bluegrass and old time soundtrack, offbeat humor and noted cinematography, made it a critical and commercial hit. The soundtrack CD became even more successful than the film, spawning a concert and a concert DVD of its own (Down from the Mountain) that coincided with a resurgence in interest in American folk music.

Intolerable Cruelty, released in 2003, starred George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones; it was a throwback to the romantic comedies of the 1940s with a story focused on Miles Massey, a hot-shot divorce lawyer, and a beautiful divorcee whom Massey had managed to prevent from receiving any money in her divorce. She vows to get even with him while, at the same time, he becomes smitten with her. Intolerable Cruelty divided the critics; some applauded the romantic screwball comedy elements, while others wondered why the Coens would wish to subject audiences to their take on this particular genre.

In 2004, the Coen brothers made The Ladykillers, a remake of the Ealing Studios classic; a professor, played by Tom Hanks, assembles a team to rob a casino. They rent a room in an elderly woman's house to plan the heist. When the woman discovers the plot, however, the gang decides to murder her to ensure her silence. The Coens received some of the most lukewarm reviews of their career in response to this movie; much criticism centered on the idea that a relatively faithful reworking of an existing classic, in contrast to the broader genre homages that made up the bulk of the brothers' prior work, did not provide the creative latitude they needed to place their distinctive stamp on the work.

No Country for Old Men, released in November 2007, closely follows the 2005 novel by Cormac McCarthy. Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), living on the Texas/Mexico border, stumbles upon, and decides to take, two million dollars in drug money. He then has to go on the run to avoid those looking to recover the money, including sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who confounds both Llewelyn and local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). This plotline is a return to noir themes but in some respects it was a notable departure for the Coens; notably, with the exception of Stephen Root, none of the stable of regular Coen actors appears in the film. No Country has received nearly universal critical praise, garnering a 95% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, all of which were received by the Coens, as well as Best Supporting Actor received by Bardem. (The Coens, as "Roderick Jaynes", were also nominated for Best Editor, but lost.) It was the first time since 1961 (Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise forWest Side Story) that two directors had received the honor of Best Director at the same time.

In January 2008, Ethan Coen's play Almost An Evening premiered Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2 and opened to mostly enthusiastic reviews. The initial run closed on February 10, 2008 but the same production was moved to a new theatre for a commercial Off-Broadway run. The commercial run began in March 2008, and ran until June 1, 2008 at the Bleecker Street Theatre in New York City, produced by The Atlantic Theater Company and Art Meets Commerce.In May 2009, the Atlantic Theater Company produced Coen's "Offices", as part of their mainstage season at the Linda Gross Theater.

Burn After Reading, a comedy starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney was released September 12, 2008; it portrays a collision course between a gym instructor, spies and internet dating. Despite being released to mixed reviews, it debuted at number one in North America.

In 2009, they directed a television commercial for the Reality Coalition entitled Air freshener.

A Serious Man was released on October 2, 2009. It has been described as a "gentle but dark" period comedy (set in 1967) with a low budget. The film is based loosely on the Book of Job and the Coen brothers' own childhoods in a Jewish academic family in the largely Jewish suburb of St Louis Park, Minnesota.Other filming took place in late summer 2008 in some neighborhoods of Roseville and Bloomington, Minnesota, at Normandale Community College, and at St. Olaf College. The movie went on to be nominated for the Oscars for Best Picture as well as Best Original Screenplay.

2010's - 

True Grit, based on the novel by Charles Portis, was released in 2010.Filming was done in Texas and New Mexico. Jeff Bridges, who starred in the Coens' The Big Lebowski, stars as Marshal Rooster Cogburn. Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Hailee Steinfeld also appear in the movie.True Grit was nominated for ten Academy Awards.

Ethan Coen wrote the one-act comedy Talking Cure which was produced on Broadway in 2011 as part of Relatively Speaking, an anthology of three one-act plays by Coen, Elaine May, and Woody Allen.

Upcoming work - 

The Coens are currently filming a script based on the 1960s folk music scene in New York City's Greenwich Village, specifically on the life of Dave Van Ronk. The film is loosely based on Van Ronk's memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street.Titled Inside Llewyn Davis, the film is backed by USA's The Weinstein Company, will star Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan and will be distributed by Paramount Pictures in USA and Canada only and The Weinstein Company in the non-USA and United Kingdom only.

The brothers are also reportedly working on their first television project called Harve Karbo about a quirky Los Angeles private eye for Imagine Television.

Other films - 

• Crimewave (1985) – Film written by the Coen Brothers and Sam Raimi, directed by Raimi.
• Gates of Eden (1998) – A collection of short stories written by Ethan Coen.
• The Naked Man (1998) – A film starring Michael Rapaport, co-written by Ethan Coen.
• The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way (2001) – A collection of poems and limericks written by Ethan Coen.
• Bad Santa (2003) – Comedy film starring Billy Bob Thornton, produced by the Coen Brothers.
• Paris, je t'aime (2006) – Film segment: "Tuileries".
• Chacun son cinéma (2007) – Film segment: "World Cinema".
• Romance & Cigarettes (2006) – Film produced by the Coen Brothers and written and directed by John Turturro.
• Gambit (2012) – Film written by the Coen Brothers directed by Michael Hoffman.
• Suburbicon (TBA) – George Clooney will be directing a script written by the Coen Brothers. The Coens will also be producing.