Earlier in this blog’s life, I did a series of posts recommending comics for fans of specific Batman films and, later, another couple of lists with suggestions for fans of Quentin Tarantino’s work. Over the years, I’ve been getting such a nice response to these lists that I’ve decided to do something similar for the Coen Brothers’ filmography, on a monthly basis. Instead of sticking to comics, however, I’m expanding the format somewhat by suggesting other cool movies as well…
Joel and Ethan Coen are probably my favorite writer-director-producer team of the last decades, leaving their mark across various genres with their dazzling camerawork, offbeat sense of humor, cherished story beats (like their obsession with ransom demands gone awry), and recurring visual motifs (such as placing character actors in the role of powerful figures behind desks, probably because, as argued by Roger Ebert, ‘like all filmmakers, the Coens have spent a lot of time on the carpet, pitching projects to executives’). Since their oeuvre is quite varied, there are plenty of connected works worthy of exploring (some of them inspired by the Coens, others a source of inspiration for the brothers), so this should be a nifty way to highlight a wide variety of films and books I’m fond of!
The Coen Bros kicked things off with Blood Simple (1984), an atmospheric neo-noir thriller about a Texas bar owner who tries to kill his wife and her lover. The plot is noir as hell (virtually everybody wrongfully interprets each other’s motives at some point in the story), but it’s shot almost like a giallo movie. Indeed, despite its stripped-down look, Blood Simple already displays the Coens’ trademark ingenious cinematography and sound design, not to mention their love of double-crosses and ironic plot twists. Moreover, while the dialogue is generally more minimalistic than in the brothers’ later works, you can already hear both their flair for amusing repartee and their concern with giving each character a distinctive speech pattern. Other high points include the slimiest private eye ever (played by M. Emmet Walsh, who viciously nails his closing line) and a nightmarish sequence in which a guy desperately tries to dispose of a dead body (I’ll never forget the sound of that shovel hitting the road…).
Although Jim Mickle’s Cold in July clearly draws most of its inspiration from the likes of John Carpenter, it also recalls the Coens’ debut effort in several regards. For one thing, they’re both incredibly tense slow-burners set in 1980s’ Texas. And, once again, an idiosyncratic detective steals the show (here wonderfully played by Don Johnson). This synthesizer-scored thriller, based on a Joe R. Lansdale novel, follows a man who accidentally shoots an intruder in his house and gradually sees his life spiral into more and more violent scenarios. Besides being a provocative meditation on issues of masculinity and the relative meaning of violence in different contexts, part of what makes this such an absorbing watch is the fact that the plot and mood keep shifting directions every ten minutes or so – unlike most movie experiences these days, you can never fully tell where Cold in July is heading, but it sure is one heck of a ride.
Then again, perhaps what appeals to you in Blood Simple isn’t its labyrinthine crime story as much as the many touches of psychological horror, ranging from the voyeuristic shots of the leading couple to the super-suspenseful final sequence in Frances McDormand’s apartment. In that case, you may get a kick out of Richard Fleischer’s See No Evil – also known as Blind Terror – in which Mia Farrow plays a blind woman trying to escape a psychotic killer (following the footsteps of the classy suspenser Wait Until Dark and playing almost like the reverse of the sleazy shocker Don’t Breathe). There isn’t much more to the plot than that, as most of the film is an intense cat-and-mouse game between these two characters, but it’s full of cheap thrills and imaginative camera angles. And if you think Blood Simple goes a bit overboard with its cowboy-boots fetishism, you haven’t seen anything yet – in a neat visual choice, See No Evil mostly shows us the killer from the waist down, starting with the memorable opening credits.
As for comic book recommendations, I’m going to go with Eric Skillman’s and Jhomar Soriano’s Liar’s Kiss, a brisky graphic novel about a private detective whose shady professional ethics rival those of M. Emmet Walsh’s character… Sure enough, he too tries to cheat his client and soon ends up embroiled in a sordid web of murder.
Liar’s Kiss
Although Liar’s Kiss is more talky than Blood Simple, the dialogue is so snazzy that I can hardly complain. Between a mystery plot where the fedora-wearing PI keeps getting severe beatings and the high-contrast black & white artwork full of stark shadows and venetian blinds, the book has a somewhat ‘classic’ surface, genre-wise, but it boasts more than enough irony, squalor, and cynicism to be of interest to any fan of the Coens’ first feature.