Mel Novikoff Award: An Afternoon with Janus Films & the Criterion Collection
Description
The Four Tops’ “It’s the Same Old Song” plays more than once on the soundtrack of Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1984 debut feature, until it comes to seem like a sardonic commentary on the action—an invigorating blast of dime-store pulp (Hammett, Chandler, Cain) that suggests some things never change, at least when a man, a woman and a gun are involved. We are in a tumbleweed Texas town suspended in time, where the lives of a swarthy bar owner (Dan Hedaya), his wife (Frances McDormand), her lover (John Getz) and a cackling private eye (the sublime M. Emmet Walsh) collide in a classical nexus of jealousy and double-crosses. And if you haven’t seen Blood Simple before, then, to quote the movie itself, “the less you know about it the better.” Though small of budget ($1.5 million), Blood Simple bristles with unbridled moviemaking brio and the Coens’ trademark mordant humor (in one scene, as the camera dollies down the length of the bar, it booms up, then down, to evade a passed-out patron). It is also, not least, a very handy primer on what not to do if one stumbles upon a bloody crime scene. —Scott Foundas
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (Writers/Directors/Producer) were honored at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 as Best Director for The Man Who Wasn’t There, and in 1991 as Best Director for Barton Fink. They were honored as Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review and the BAFTA Awards for 1996’s Fargo; and also won the Academy Award® for the Best Original Screenplay for Fargo. The screenplay for O Brother, Where Art Thou? was nominated for a BAFTA Award and the Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay.
In 2007, the Coen brothers were honored with numerous accolades for their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, including the Directors Guild of America, BAFTA and Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Burn After Reading (2008) was nominated for the BAFTA Award and the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay, and their film A Serious Man (2009) received Academy Award® nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and was also nominated for the BAFTA Award and the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay. True Grit (2010) received 10 Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Other films that they have directed and written are Hail, Caesar! (2016), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), The Ladykillers (2004), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), The Big Lebowksi (1998), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Miller’s Crossing (1991), Raising Arizona (1987) and Blood Simple (1994).
In 2016 the Coens received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies.
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/158107642?autoplay=1Film Details
Language English
Year 1984
Runtime 99
Country USA
Director Joel Coen
Producer Ethan Coen
Writer Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Editor Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Don Wiegmann
Cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld
Music Carter Burwell
Cast John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh
Print Source Janus Films