- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Da Capo Press (Aug 18 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1560252545
- ISBN-13: 978-1560252542
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 2.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 458 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,023,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.co.uk
"Why do you want to write a biography of us ? ... we're boring" was Joel Coen's initial response to Ronald Bergan. He has a point. Choking on his kir in disbelief that they have never heard of Kieslowski, this former chronicler of the lives of Jean Renoir and Sergei Eisenstein might not seem ideally suited to writing about two fans of Doris Day musicals and the comedies of Cheech and Chong. That the book remains so readable is due to Bergan's style, highly critical but, like the films covered, irreverent bordering on rudeness. Never over-cerebral, Bergan has clearly done his research as he covers their output from the earliest remakes ("Lassie Come Home" as "Ed ... A Dog") to "O Brother Where Art Thou?" The brothers themselves, chain smokers who pepper their dialogue with "heh-heh"s, come across as Smart and Smarter. Joey Ramone lookalike Joel loves dog movies whereas Ethan is an outrageous sentimentalist. The Coen Brothers is not the ideal introduction for newcomers, nor for particularly sensitive fans, but for those who enjoyed, or were bemused by, Cheshire and Ashbrook's quirkier guide to the weird and wonderful Coen Brothers, this is a good follow up --Stephen Portlock
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
The offbeat and idiosyncratic films of the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, two former film geeks from Minneapolis, Minnesota, have been hard to categorize. The eight films produced in the course of a career spanning nearly two decades incorporate the major genres of U.S. film (horror, comedy, mystery) but still are firmly anchored in the film noir tradition. For the first time, British film writer Bergan has compiled an in-depth account of the pair. Joel and Ethan are puckishly oblique with their interviewer, wryly eluding questions about the symbolism in their work and their creative process. Bergan does elicit much helpful information about their love for the pulp fiction of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and the film noir classics of the '40s and '50s. He explores their films in depth, retrieving choice anecdotes about the inception of each film and life on the set working with their talented repertory group of actors. Bergan maintains an irreverent, almost absurd tone throughout the book, in effect mimicking the unpredictable art of his subjects. Overall, a very thoughtful and clever book. Ted Leventhal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wasted Writing Effort and a Waste of Your Time,
By Dwayne Burball (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Coen Brothers (Paperback)
The author of this book obviously feels he's as witty as the Coens. I hate to break it to him, but he's not. To make up for underachievement in this area, he fills the book with unneeded "editorial" comments on the films themselves. Why does the author feel he needs to criticize Jon Polito's performance in Miller's Crossing, and why does he think we'd care? It simply feels the author is stretching for lack of material, since he probably didn't get much cooperation from the filmmakers themselves. I attempted to make it through the entire book but kept putting it down out of frustration with the author. Don't waste your time with this one.
3.0 out of 5 stars
What can one say?,
By
This review is from: Coen Brothers (Paperback)
This book is supposed to be the first authorized biography about the Coens, but to be completely honest it's not much of a biography. The book reads more like a review of the Coens and each of their films. Much of the biographical information is interesting just for the simple fact that the brothers are so elusive that anything regarding their past and how they first funded their films is a gem not to be discarded. However, most of the book is divided into chapters that review and critique each of the Coen's films. Now, I didn't mind this, but a biography is not a collection of film reviews. It seems to me that the author (though possibly a fan) just didn't feel like writing this book especially since the brothers seemed so reluctant that he was writing it. Or true to Coen style, maybe that's how they intended the book to turn out (either knowingly or unknowingly to the author). Overall, an interesting, but slow read worth the time if your a film buff.
1.0 out of 5 stars
A shameless pilferage of a much superior book!,
By Happy Walter "daycare provider" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Coen Brothers (Paperback)
This volume is nothing more than an excercise in contract fulfillment on the part of a desperate author. The subjects of the work clearly did not participate. And for anyone who has read the much superior book on the Coens by William Preston Robertson, "The Big Lebowski: The Making of a Coen Brothers Film," Bergan liberally draws from Robertson's work without crediting the source! It's not plagarism outright, since Bergan "paraphrases" what he lifts, but it is certainly bush league for an author of Bergan's apparent stature. As one small example, Bergan's chronology of the Coen's teenage film efforts whilst growing up in Minnesota is a tedious, blow-by-blow (uncredited) retelling of Robertson's account that utterly lacks the humor and verve of Robertson's writing, and seems to take at face value Robertson's obvious exaggeration and irony! Don't waste your time or money with this one. Go to the original source, which is funny and insightful and features something this book does not: numerous interviews with the Coens.
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