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The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers (The Philosophy of Popular Culture)

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Friedrich Nietzsche believed for a time that the composer Richard Wagner would be able to unite all the noble impulses of art into an opera capable of sublimating European culture, just as classical tragedy ennobled the Athenians. Wagner failed, even in Nietzsche's judgement, but I am reminded of him every time I see a Coen Brothers film. Like Wagner, they have created a stage upon which the plastic/Apollonian (cinematography, lighting, set and costume) engages the musical/Dionysian (script, drama, soundtrack). But where Wagner failed, the Coens have succeeded. Their films together constitute the rebirth of tragedy here in modern America - a multimedia art of moral choice, with a philosophical vocabulary and contemporary significance. There's nothing deeper or more relevant on the American scene.

And I guess that accounts for just why this book so utterly blows the doors off any other "Philosophy of" book I've encountered. Like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick, the Coens produce film that is not merely philosophical, but is philosophy itself - the kind of art that drives fans to study philosophy in the first place.

But, in approaching the Coens, you do need some guidance. These are two guys who know the canon, cold, from Homer (O Brother Where Art Though) to Kant (See Walter in the Big Lebowski) to Heidegger (Barton Fink). At least part of the opacity of their films stems from the audiences unfamiliarity with these themes. And this is where this book comes in handy. This is a collection of truly thoughtful, high caliber works of scholarly criticism. It is so much better than similar titles like "The Simpsons and Philosophy" that I kinda wish it had a different title.

Oh well, bottom line: if you like either philosophy or the Coen Brothers, you'll LOVE this book. Expect to gain new insights on Barton Fink's wallpaper, the Dude's relationship with the old cowboy, and the nature of Anton Chigurgh. The authors are all philosophers, but they clearly love and understand film, and come at some of these problems from a film-studies perspective. I can only hope the same people involved in this will follow up with a "Philosophy of David Lynch."

If you value and appreciate great film making and script writing this book breaks down the fundamentals of philosophy by the Coens through short essays.

This book provides a fantastic and long overdue intertextual analysis of what the Coen Brothers have aimed to capture on screen and harness from the soul . . . what emerges most strongly is a sense of how terribly important NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN has been in terms of narrative evolution and an exchange of meta-cinema for a kind of pure storytelling - similar in structure and effect to the brutally succinct writings of William S. Burroughs. I recommend this book highly, because this is the time for more of us to look extra hard at the work of the Coen Brothers . . . their filmic America stands now as a very reliable and unrusted mirror of where we all are today . . . and may NOT be tomorrow.