erica rowell

Why the book

Over the years I've discussed the Coens' films with scores of people -- average moviegoers, avid cinephiles, scholars, diehard Coen fans, my mom -- reactions have ranged from "The Big Lebowski is my favorite movie ever!" and "I love Fargo" to "What the heck was up with O Brother, Where Art Thou?"?

In 1996 I began to study their films and figure out why I took to them so strongly. The result was my honors thesis.

Using that academic piece as a jumping off point, I reworked and greatly expanded on the material to produce a general reader title. The Brothers Grim: The Films of Ethan and Joel Coen explores what makes the Coen brothers' films tick.

Writing the book set me on a long, twisty course to answer the many questions the Coens' movies artfully raise.

I first fell in love with the Coens when I saw Miller's Crossing, their lush, revisionist gangster film with a philosophical undertow. From that point on, I was hooked.

Their bold style and devious humor made their films very watchable, but neither of those hallmarks nor their infamous blunt-force violence is what grabbed me.

What really lured me in was their storytelling. To be more precise, their mix of both borrowing from and completely steering clear of traditional narrative techniques attracted me.

"The prose style is lively, colloquial, and clever. ... Rowell examines [the films] with greater concentration than the typically scattershot making-of or makers-of commentary, and even announces something like an analytical framework to apply to the films." — Film International

"...well written and engaging." — ARBA

"Rowell's writing benefits from her obvious passion for the art of filmmaking; personal highlights include her discussion of love and a closeted fedora in Miller's Crossing (1990), the "fiction and fact pull" of Fargo (1996), and the subversion of war-speak in The Big Lebowski (1998)." — The Brooklyn Rail

"Rowell (a journalist and film producer) titles each chapter examining a film from the prolific duo Joel and Ethan Coen (known as the Coen Brothers) after an object that figures so prominently in the movie that it is almost a character.
In "Blood Simple: A Photo," "The Big Lebowski: A Bowling Ball" and the other essays, she offers a synopsis, review, and dissection of the themes, technique, influences, and stark social commentary of the often violent and satirical and always stylized Coen films. The writing-directing brothers also created Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? and Intolerable Cruelty." — Book News

In 1984 Joel and Ethan Coen burst onto the art-house film scene with their neo-noir Blood Simple and ever since then they have sharpened the cutting edge of independent film.

Blending black humor and violence with unconventional narrative twists, their acclaimed movies evoke highly charged worlds of passion, absurdity, nightmare realms, and petty human failures, all the while revealing the filmmakers' penchant for visual jokes and bravura technical strokes. Their central characters may be blind to reality and individual flaws, but their illusions, dreams, fears, and desires map the boundaries of their worlds — worlds made stunningly memorable by the Coens.

In The Brothers Grim: The Films of Ethan and Joel Coen, Erica Rowell unmasks the filmmakers as prankster mythmakers exploiting and subverting universal storytelling modes to further what seems to be their artistic agenda: to elicit laughs.

Often employing satire and allegory, the Coens' movies hold a mirror up to American society, allowing viewers to both chuckle and gasp at its absurdities, hypocrisies, and foibles.

From business partnerships (Blood Simple, The Ladykillers) to marriage (Intolerable Cruelty) to friendship and ethics (Miller's Crossing), the breakdowns of relationships are a steady focus in their work. Often the Coens' satires put broken social institutions in their cinematic crosshairs, exposing cracks in ineffective penal systems (Raising Arizona; O Brother, Where Art Thou?), unjust justice systems (The Man Who Wasn't There), a crooked corporate America (The Hudsucker Proxy), unnecessary wars (The Big Lebowski), a tyrannical Hollywood (Barton Fink), and the unbridled, fatuous pursuit of the American Dream (Fargo).

While audiences may be excused for missing the duo's social commentary, the depth and breadth of the brothers' films bespeak an intelligence and cultural acuity that is rich, highly topical, and hard to pigeonhole.

The Brothers Grim examines the inner workings of the Coens' body of work and exposes its roots and themes. Each chapter discusses a Coen brothers movie in terms of its primary themes, social and political contexts, narrative techniques, influences and relationship to their other films, and, more broadly, to cinema. Rowell also examines the Coens' referential modus operandi that retreads cinema, literature, history, philosophy, and art to amplify their films' themes. This comprehensive guide — enhanced by fifty photographs — is for anyone excited to read about the Coens' unique brand of cinema.