True Grit: Film Making with The Coen Brothers
True Grit
Tylor McNiel
Tony Gans
Intro to Cinema
6 April 2012
Directors
The movie, True Grit (2010), was directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, more commonly known as simply – The Coen Brothers. They are very well known directors, as well as producers, writers, and editors. The brothers always work as a team, sometimes under the alias of Roderick Jaynes when editing, and they are only the third directing co-op to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. They made their first movie, Blood Simple, in 1984, and the rest has been history.
The Coen Brothers have directed/produced fifteen films, and been a part of making many others. They have been nominated for thirty-three Academy Awards and seventeen Golden Globe Awards. They have won six Academy and three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. In an issue of “Empire Magazine” the brothers were ranked thirteenth in a reader’s pole for the twenty greatest directors of all time. Some well-known works of theirs include, O Brother Where Art Thou, No Country for Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Lady Killers, and The Hudsucker Proxy.
They have a very distinct film making style. Like most directors, their general style is classical, falling between realist and formalist. They include a lot of dark humor hidden in the dialogue of their films. To truly get the most of the films, the audience must be active and think about all aspects of what is taking place on the screen. They like to use a lot of irony in the plots of their movies, which range from light comedies to dark thrillers. Even their serious movies, such as No Country for Old Men, include humor hidden inside the conversations that take place between characters, whether within the words themselves or the way that the words are said.
The brothers seem to use the same three basic themes for their films: botched crime, indestructible evil, and Americana or regional stereotypes. Their films about botched crime include
Tylor McNiel
Tony Gans
Intro to Cinema
6 April 2012
Directors
The movie, True Grit (2010), was directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, more commonly known as simply – The Coen Brothers. They are very well known directors, as well as producers, writers, and editors. The brothers always work as a team, sometimes under the alias of Roderick Jaynes when editing, and they are only the third directing co-op to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. They made their first movie, Blood Simple, in 1984, and the rest has been history.
The Coen Brothers have directed/produced fifteen films, and been a part of making many others. They have been nominated for thirty-three Academy Awards and seventeen Golden Globe Awards. They have won six Academy and three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. In an issue of “Empire Magazine” the brothers were ranked thirteenth in a reader’s pole for the twenty greatest directors of all time. Some well-known works of theirs include, O Brother Where Art Thou, No Country for Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Lady Killers, and The Hudsucker Proxy.
They have a very distinct film making style. Like most directors, their general style is classical, falling between realist and formalist. They include a lot of dark humor hidden in the dialogue of their films. To truly get the most of the films, the audience must be active and think about all aspects of what is taking place on the screen. They like to use a lot of irony in the plots of their movies, which range from light comedies to dark thrillers. Even their serious movies, such as No Country for Old Men, include humor hidden inside the conversations that take place between characters, whether within the words themselves or the way that the words are said.
The brothers seem to use the same three basic themes for their films: botched crime, indestructible evil, and Americana or regional stereotypes. Their films about botched crime include
Cited: “Coen Brothers”. Uncyclopedia.com. n.p. n.d. Web. 6 April 2012 “Coenesque”. Baseline’s Encyclopedia of Film. N.p. 2009. 6 April 2012 “Film Editing Glossary”. Learner.org n.p. n.d. 6 April 2012 “The Movies of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, You Know, For Kids”. Youknow-forkids.com n.p. n.d. 6 April 2012 “True Grit (2010 Film)”. Wikipedia.org. n.p. n.d. 6 April 2012