For me, the Coen Brothers are the ultimate modern American film makers. Their only real rival is Ridley Scott.
The Coens have a gift for capturing the essence of slices of American culture in a way that constitutes a kind of ethnological survey of the country. What could be more arch-typically and wonderfully Southern than "Oh Brother..." or more upper Midwest than "Fargo?"
Some of these films do not appeal to me. I will not name them.
"Blood Simple" still stands at the head of the list for me closely followed by "Miller's Crossing," a wonderful, beautifully stylized meditation on the Irish in America just as "Blood Simple" speaks powerfully of the relentless, invincible hardness and cruelty of Texas, "A whole other country."
"No Country for Old Men" is quite different. The underlying material in that film is Cormac Mcarthyy's masterful novel. The same thing is undeniable for "True Grit."
I think the oeuvre of the Coen Brothers should be judged on the basis of textual material of their own devising. pl
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122302413.html
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