The Coen Brothers - a list!

Recently my girlfriend and I have watched a few Coen brothers films.  We have made a tentative pact that this will be our new film project - to see all the Coen brothers films.  Well - to be more specific the project is to get her to watch all the Coen brothers films, as I've seen them all.  And since everyone loves a list, here's my top 5 Coen brothers films.  In order!

5 - Blood Simple

Twisted, dark, funny, brutal - and a debut from Frances McDormand.  Blood Simple is a small story in small town America about people getting swept up in a twisted endeavour they hardly understand.  The Coen Brothers' first feature film is filled with set pieces and a searing attention to detail that marked them out as potential starts in the modern wave of independent American cinema.

4 - The Big Lebowski

A lot of people love The Big Lebowski.  My first encounter with the film left me thinking it little more than an entertaining foray in to the general weirdness of a nation, but a recent reappraisal has left me thinking much more highly of it.  The film is a celebration of slacker culture, reminding the world to stop taking itself seriously and poke fun at its self-proclaimed movers and shakers.  The Dude wears a gown, drinks vodka & milk, doesn't care about the money or the art or the sex lives of the glitterati - he just wants his rug back.  The Dude is the hero for our times.  The Dude abides.

3 - No Country for Old Men

The film that finally scored the Coens the Oscar win they should have got with Fargo (though Fargo did win them a statue for best screenplay), No Country for Old Men is a desolate tale of crime and circumstance set in deepest hottest Texas.  With much in common with Fargo, the film is carried by two performances - Javier Bardem is brutally deadpan as the classic Western highwayman for the modern era, Tommy Lee Jones his match as the gruff and tired sheriff struggling to keep up with the brutality of the criminal element he now faces.  Bleak and brilliant in equal measures.

2 - A Serious Man

This is a film too often overlooked.  A Serious Man is a straightforward biblical tale told in a very non-straightforward offbeat way.  It's a retelling of the story of Job in 1960s America, an America the Coens probably grew up in, an America they have constantly idolised in their work.  The story weaves together a love of a time and a place with a the confusion felt by a character who cannot work out where he is meant to be and what he is meant to be doing.  When the world tells you to be sober and serious to be considered important, but society will not allow it - where can you turn?  The film poses many questions, and offers few dangling threads of answers.

1 - Fargo

Fargo is deceptively simple in its characters, plot, setting and resolution.  The Coens make expert use of the snowscapes to frame everything that happens, creating a world in which the small time criminal dealings of Jerry Lundegaard stretch out to fill the empty tundras of North Dakota.  The characterisation of Marge Gunderson is peerless; her touching relationship with her husband highlights the pettiness of the criminals and liars in the film, her ability to see joy in the world without being a sucker is an inspiration to anyone watching.  It is probably the best film made in the 1990s and as such a clear winner on this list.