Coen, Joel 1955- (Roderick Jaynes, a joint pseudonym)

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COEN, Joel 1955- (Roderick Jaynes, a joint pseudonym)

PERSONAL: Born November 29, 1955, in St. Louis Park, MN; son of Edward (an economics professor) and Rena (an art historian) Coen; married first wife (divorced); married Frances McDormand (an actress), April 1, 1984; children: (second marriage) Pedro. Education: New York University, degree in film.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Office—West 23rd St., New York, NY. Agent—United Talent Agency, 9560 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

CAREER: Writer and director of motion pictures. Production assistant and assistant editor of low-budget horror films, including The Evil Dead, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

AWARDS, HONORS: Grand Jury Prize from the United States Film Festival, 1984, for Blood Simple; best dramatic feature award from Sundance 77, 1985, for Blood Simple; Independent Spirit Award for best director from Independent Film Project/West, 1986, for Blood Simple; Concha de Oro, best director, San Sebastian International Film Festival, 1990, for Miller's Crossing; Golden Palm for best film and best director, Cannes International Film Festival, 1991, both for Barton Fink; Golden Palm for best film, Cannes International Film Festival, 1994, for The Hudsucker Proxy; Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for best screenplay, Best Foreign Film Award, Australian Film Institute, Best Director Award, Cannes International Film Festival, and Golden Palm Award nomination, Cannes International Film Festival, Academy Award, best writing, screenplay written directly for the screen, (as Roderick Jaynes) two Academy Award nominations, best film editing and best picture, all 1996, Eddie Award nomination, best edited feature film, three BAFTA Film Award nominations, British Academy Awards, best editing, best film, and best original screenplay, Chicago Film Critics Association Award, screenplay, Cesar Award nomination, best foreign film, Golden Globe Award nomination, best screenplay—motion picture, two Independent Spirit Awards, best feature and best screenplay, and Writers Guild of America Screen Award, best screenplay written directly for the screen, all 1997, all for Fargo; Five Continents Award, European Film Awards, 1997, and Golden Berlin Bear Award nomination, 1998, both for The Big Lebowski; Best Director award, Cannes International Film Festival, 2001, for The Man Who Wasn't There.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS

(With brother, Ethan Coen; and director) Blood Simple, Circle Releasing Corporation, 1984, published as Blood Simple: An Original Screenplay, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Ethan Coen and Sam Raimi) The XYZ Murders, Embassy, unreleased, limited release as Crimewave, Columbia, 1986.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) Raising Arizona, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1987, published as Raising Arizona: An Original Screenplay, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) Miller's Crossing (also see below), Twentieth Century-Fox, 1990.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) Barton Fink (also see below), Twentieth Century-Fox, 1991.

Barton Fink [and] Miller's Crossing, Faber & Faber (Boston, MA), 1991.

(With Ethan Coen and Sam Raimi; and director) The Hudsucker Proxy, Warner Brothers, 1994.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) Fargo, Gramercy Pictures, 1996.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) The Big Lebowski, PolyGram Films International, 1998.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) O Brother, Where Art Thou? Buena Vista Pictures, 2000.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) The Man Who Wasn't There, Working Title Films, 2001.

(With Ethan Coen) Ethan Coen & Joel Coen: Collected Screenplays 1, Faber & Faber (London, England), 2002.

(With Ethan Coen; and director) Intolerable Cruelty, Universal Pictures, 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS: (With Ethan Coen) The Ladykillers.

SIDELIGHTS: Joel Coen has impressed critics with his technically adept and original independent films, which he writes and directs with his brother, Ethan. Coen began making films at the age of eight, directing neighborhood youths in Super 8 remakes of Saturday afternoon matinees. David Denby wrote in New York that the director has "the instincts" of a born moviemaker. In 1986, more than one thousand of Coen's colleagues echoed that sentiment, naming him a winner of the Independent Spirit Award for best director of Blood Simple, his official directorial debut. Accolades have continued to pile up throughout his career, as the brothers collaborated on such quirky projects as Miller's Crossing, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Fargo.

Coen left his home state of Minnesota to attend New York University's film school, where, he explained to Judy Klemesrud for the New York Times, he "sat in the back of the room with an insane grin" on his face. He considers his work editing low-budget horror films for directors such as Sam Raimi more valuable to his screenwriting and directing career than his four years in college. When his brother Ethan moved to New York, the pair began collaborating on scripts. They wrote Blood Simple together in their spare time in 1980 and raised the money to produce it on their own.

Coen told interviewers that he became the writing team's director because he is the older of the brothers. Theoretically, Joel directs and Ethan produces what they both write; but, as cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld told Eric Pooley for New York, "they both do everything." Joel and Ethan talk out every scene of every script. Coen described the creative process to David Ansen for an article in Newsweek: "You paint yourself into a corner and then have to get out of it." The brothers make up their story lines as they go along, thus producing a script that will keep the audience guessing. Pooley wrote, "They pace the floor in step with each other, chain-smoke the same brand (Camel Lights), and share a telepathic sense of humor." Critics agree that the result of their almost ritualistic labor is a clean, concise script. Coen is adamant about following his polished script on the set to keep costs down and to assure that the finished film remains true to its authors' original conception.

Coen's first film, Blood Simple, prompted critics to compare the young director to some of Hollywood's best known filmmakers, including Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Brian DePalma. Blood Simple, the story of a man who hires a detective to kill his adulterous wife and her lover, has been dubbed a throwback to the film noir genre of thrillers from the 1940s. In an interview with Hal Hinson for Film Comment, Coen explained that Blood Simple "utilizes movie conventions to tell the story. In a sense, it's about other movies—but no more so than any other film that uses the medium in a way that's aware that there's a history of movies behind it." In an article for Newsweek, Ansen called the film "the most inventive and original thriller in many a moon."

Blood Simple did not receive much exposure at the Los Angeles film festival, but after a well-received showing in Toronto, the movie went on to become a hit in New York and earned the Coens a Grand Jury Prize at the United States Film Festival. Critics throughout the country and as far away as England applauded its director's visual cleverness and ability to make even the bloodiest scenes humorous and beautiful in what Janet Maslin, in an article for the New York Times, called a "bizarre" sort of way. Chicago Tribune movie critic Gene Siskel explained "the look" of a Coen film: "If there is a more interesting way to look at a door, a bar, a drop of water, a soiled jacket, a plowed field, bullet holes, or even a bunch of dead fish, [Joel Coen] finds it."

After the limited release of gangster spoof Crimewave, a collaboration with Sam Raimi that met with a less than enthusiastic reception, the Coens rebounded with the 1987 hit, Raising Arizona. The film centers on a nonviolent but recidivistic convenience store robber and his ex-police officer wife who kidnap a baby when they find that they cannot have one of their own. Washington Post staff writer Tom Shales commented that the Coens took a "truly risky premise" and turned it into "a prized package" that "puts a fresh, funny face on the American comedy movie." Inventive cinematic techniques, including crawling baby point of view shots, abstract illumination of a surrealistic character called the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse, and a shot of a car screaming to a halt within an inch of a baby on the road forced even Los Angeles Times film critic Sheila Benson, one of the few critics who disliked the movie, to admit that it was "miraculously technically adept."

Some reviewers felt that the Coens treated the characters in Raising Arizona with condescension, stereotyping them into hackneyed bumpkin roles. Joel countered the assumption in an interview with David Edelstein for American Film: "If the characters talk in cliches, it's because we like cliches. You start with things that are incredibly recognizable in one form and you play with them." In an article for Film Comment, Jack Barth expressed admiration for Coen's sight when he wrote that "you can see things as they really are any time you like, but it takes a vision—by necessity self-conscious—to alter realities and suggest new ways of seeing."

The Coens made their first big-budget film in 1990 with Miller's Crossing, a stylized story of rivalry between Irish and Italian crime gangs in an unnamed American city during the 1920s. The plot was suggested by two Dashiell Hammett novels, Red Harvest and The Glass Key. Central elements of the story include the corrupt city, controlled by evil; and the tale of a woman involved with both an aging crime boss and his young lieutenant. Leo O'Bannion is the old Irishman who has run the city for years; Johnny Caspar is the young Italian eager to displace him. Verna Bernbaum is the woman who plays one against the other in her own bid for power. Some critics found Miller's Crossing unappealing; New Republic reviewer Stanley Kauffmann went so far as to call the film "a complete dud," and John Simon in National Review deemed it a "hopeless cliche." Yet Time's Richard Corliss was enthusiastic about the look and content of Miller's Crossing, remarking: "The Coens have tempered their style from the daredevil camerabatics of Blood Simple and Raising Arizona; they now seek the extra fillip of incident and character in the corner of every frame." Corliss concluded that the Coens are "artists," and Miller's Crossing is a "cool dazzler" and "an elegy to a day when Hollywood could locate moral gravity in a genre film for grownups."

The Coen's next film, Barton Fink, also drew mixed reviews, but won awards for best picture and best director at the prestigious Cannes International Film Festival. The title character is based on writer Clifford Odets, a left-leaning playwright who worked in Hollywood for a time in order to make some money. In the film, Fink checks into a dingy hotel to write his script, only to find himself with a massive case of writer's block. He befriends a large, blustery traveling salesman and a fellow writer (modeled on William Faulkner), and is at last cured of his imaginative paralysis by a traumatic event. "Barton Fink is an intensely claustrophobic film," suggested Stuart Klawans in Nation. "The images that stick in the mind are exuberant, hyperbolic, outrageous, qualities for which the Coen brothers are celebrated (or notorious, take your pick). The least you can say in the Coens' favor is that they try hard; in the case of Barton Fink, I can go beyond that by promising that the climax is unlike anything you have heretofore gaped at in disbelief. What makes the film so strange, though, is that its mania erupts in a story about solitude, in which a man sits by himself in a little room for hours and hours." Some reviewers found the movie flawed by the unappealing character of Fink, who, according to Richard Schickel in Time, is "neither a heroic symbol of resistance to materialism nor a sympathetic victim. He's just kind of a jerk."

The Coens' technical prowess was on display again in The Hudsucker Proxy, a film intended to satirize the populist films produced by Hollywood in the 1930s. The story concerns the suicide of a business tycoon and the amoral scheming of those he left behind. The sets used in the film were elaborate, and the quality of the film impressive, and yet, Owen Gleiberman asked in Entertainment Weekly, "How can a filmmaking team be this smart and clever, this restlessly, vivaciously imaginative and this soulless?" While praising the Coens' filmmaking technique, Gleiberman nevertheless noted, "These filmmakers are so driven to showcase their precocious formal ingenuity that they end up reducing human experience to a glib, misanthropic cartoon." Time's Richard Schickel called The Hudsucker Proxy "the handsomest American movie in years," and credited the Coens with having the ability to be "brilliant satirists of the national propensity for violence," yet stated that in The Hudsucker Proxy, they achieved only "a truly abstract expressionism, at once heavy, lifeless and dry."

Fargo, released in 1996, is based on true events that unfolded in the upper Midwest in 1987. In the Coens' version of the story, a car dealer attempts to solve his financial woes by staging the kidnapping of his wife. He plans to split the ransom money—extracted from his wealthy, unsympathetic father-in-law—with the thugs he has hired to commit the crime. Things go horribly wrong from the start, and what was intended to be a bloodless ruse turns into a bloody spree. Fargo is either an "oddly funny crime drama or an ultra-deadpan comedy, depending on how you look at it," wrote Jay Boyar in the Orlando Sentinel. Horrific as the events in the story may be, there is a current of black comedy beneath it all, particularly in the character of the heavily-pregnant sheriff, Marge Gunderson. There has never been a homicide in her town, and with her flat expression and homespun ways, she seems an unlikely detective. Yet Marge proves capable and tenacious in solving the case. The overall effect is, in the words of Peter Rainer in Los Angeles Magazine, "a dandy little jest—a cross between Columbo and a Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegon riff." Rainer added, "Their ironic subterfuges and postmodernist stratagems are actually suggestive and funny. In an overheated movie world, their cool can be a tonic." Stanley Kauffmann commented in New Republic that with Fargo, the Coens had "shucked the brightest-boys-infilm-school doodads and have, by and large, stuck to an organic story." Kauffmann felt that Fargo thus represented "a great step forward for the brothers Coen."

After the widespread praise for Fargo, the Coens' next film was less well-received. The Big Lebowski was the tale of a burned-out, lazy bowler known as the Dude, and his accidental involvement in a tangle of kidnapping and crime in Los Angeles. New Republic commentator Stanley Kauffmann dismissed the film as "just a lot of scenes, one after another," making up "slow, diddle-along tedium." National Review writer John Simon termed the film "at best crass, at worst odious." Richard Alleva, reviewing the film for Commonweal, reported that "every character, including the hero, is a freak of some sort, so we care about none of them." In Alleva's opinion, The Big Lebowski merely demonstrates that the Coens "despise everyone." Yet other reviewers found the humor in the film; Chris Peachment, writing in New Statesman, called The Big Lebowski "very diverting," though he added that it "doesn't yield anything more than that the Coens are just messing around. And they are much funnier when they are being serious."

The Coen brothers made an unusual period piece in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Based on Homer's Odyssey, the story is updated to the American South during the Great Depression. Three convicts, in flight from a chain gang, are adventurers who rob a bank, cut a record, and disrupt a Ku Klux Klan meeting before the film's end. In telling their story, the Coens draw on Homer, but "also invoke other, less-than-classical sources, including The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonnie andClyde, and, at times, Mad magazine," related Adina Hoffman in American Prospect. Hoffman noted that in this film, "the Coens appear intent on developing a slightly richer, fuller emotional palette." She found the movie "has a rhythm and whimsy all its own, part ditty, part Delta ballad." America reviewer Richard A. Blake called O Brother "a highly entertaining mix of comedy and tragedy," a film that "both confuses and exhilarates."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 108, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

Newsmakers 1992 Cumulation, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1992.

Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1995, pp. 248-253.

PERIODICALS

America, April 20, 1996, Richard A. Blake, review of Fargo, p. 26; February 5, 2001, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 30.

American Cinematographer, July, 1985, Barry Sonnenfeld, "Shadows and Shivers for Blood Simple," pp. 70-72, 74.

American Film, May, 1985; April, 1987, "Invasion of the Baby Snatchers," pp. 26-30, 56; March, 1990; August, 1991, William Preston Robertson, "What's the Goopus?," pp. 30-32, 46.

American Prospect, Adina Hoffman, review of Cockeyed Caravan, p. 36.

American Spectator, October, 1991, James Bowman, review of Barton Fink, p. 34; June, 1994, James Bowman, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 59; May, 1996, James Bowman, review of Fargo, p. 60.

Artforum International, October, 2001, Geoffrey O'Brien, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 35.

Booklist, May 15, 1989, review of Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, p. 1595.

Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1985; March 25, 1987.

Christian Century, March 21, 2001, Matthew Prins, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 31.

Christian Science Monitor, November 3, 1994, Judy Nichols, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 14.

Christopher Street, October, 1991, Quentin Crisp, review of Barton Fink, p. 9.

Cineaste, spring, 1996, Thomas Doherty, review of Fargo, p. 47.

Commentary, November, 1991, review of Barton Fink, pp. 50-53.

Commonweal, April 24, 1987; December 7, 1990, Richard Alleva, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 720; September 27, 1991, Richard Alleva, review of Barton Fink, p. 550; May 20, 1994, Richard Alleva, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 24; April 10, 1998, Richard Alleva, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 22.

Contra Costa Times, March 14, 1996, Karen Hershenson, "'Fargo' Star a Mrs. Coen and a Happy Collaborator with Filmmaking Pair."

Cosmopolitan, October, 1991, Guy Flatley, review of Barton Fink, p. 54.

Daily Variety, December 10, 2002, Michael Fleming, "Mouse Picks 'Killer' Team", p. 4.

Dallas Morning News, July 13, 2000, Jane Sumner, review of Blood Simple.

Entertainment Weekly, October 26, 1990; August 23, 1991; February 28, 1992, Ty Burr, review of Barton Fink, Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and Miller's Crossing, p. 58; March 11, 1994, Owen Gleiberman, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 36; April 1, 1994, Nisid Hajari, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, pp. 30-33; November 18, 1994, Glenn Kenny, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 114; March 29, 1996, Lisa Schwarzbaum, review of Fargo, p. 42; March 6, 1998, Owen Gleiberman, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 52; January 5, 2001, Owen Gleiberman, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 49; November 9, 2001, Owen Gleiberman, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 79; November 30, 2001, Steve Daly, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 50.

Film Comment, March-April, 1985, Hal Hinson, "Bloodlines," pp. 14-19; March-April, 1987; September-October, 1990, Richard Jameson, "Chasing the Hat," pp. 32-33; September-October, 1991, Richard T. Jameson, review of Barton Fink, pp. 26, 32, Mark Horowitz, "Coen Brothers A-Z: The Big Two-Headed Picture," pp. 27-32.

Film Journal International, November, 2001, Doris Toumarkine, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 86.

Film Quarterly, fall, 1996, Devin McKinney, review of Fargo, pp. 31-34.

Forbes, March 9, 1998, Ben Pappas, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 246.

Glamour, October, 1990, Brook Hersey, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 198; March, 1996, Juliann Garey, review of Fargo, p. 90; fall, 2001, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 41.

Guardian, March 30, 1998, Andrew Pulver, "Blood Ties," p. T6; October 13, 2001, Andrew Pulver, "Pictures That Do the Talking," p. W47.

Hollywood Reporter, March 19, 2002, Hannah Brown, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 56.

Humanist, July-August, 1985, review of Blood Simple, p. 43.

Independent, August 30, 1997, Ryan Gilbey, "Just Sit Back and Enjoy," p. S5.

Interview, March, 1996, pp. 56-58; September, 1991, Henry Cabot Beck, review of Barton Fink, p. 24.

Library Journal, March 1, 1992, Randy Pitman, review of Barton Fink, p. 132; March 15, 2001, Barry X. Miller, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 86.

London Review of Books, June 20, 1996, Michael Wood, "The Life of the Mind," pp. 18-19.

Los Angeles Magazine, September, 1990, Merrill Shindler, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 168; October, 1990, Merrill Shindler, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 233; March, 1996, Peter Rainer, review of Fargo, p. 146; March, 1998, pp. 112-114; November, 2001, Steve Erickson, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 132.

Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1985; March 20, 1987; February 25, 1996, Claudia Puig, review of Fargo, p. 2; November 12, 2000, Richard Cromelin, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 20.

Maclean's, March 23, 1987; October 1, 1990; April 1, 1996, Brian D. Johnson, review of Fargo, p. 74.

Mademoiselle, October, 1990.

Metro Times, September 11, 1991.

Nation, November 5, 1990, Stuart Klawans, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 538; September 23, 1991, Stuart Klawans, review of Barton Fink, p. 350; March 30, 1998, Stuart Klawans, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 35.

National Catholic Reporter, April 25, 1997, Joe Cunneen, review of Fargo, p. 14.

National Review, May 8, 1987; December 3, 1990, John Simon, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 54; April 22, 1996, John Simon, review of Fargo, p. 60; April 6, 1998, John Simon, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 59.

New Leader, March 9, 1998, Raphael Shargel, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 20.

New Republic, April 13, 1987; October 29, 1990, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 26; September 30, 1991, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Barton Fink, p. 26; March 25, 1996, Stanley Kauffman, review of Fargo, p. 30; April 6, 1998, Stanley Kauffmann, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 26;

New Statesman, April 24, 1998, Chris Peachment, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 45; October 22, 2001, Philip Kerr, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 46.

New Statesman & Society, February 14, 1992, Anne Billson, review of Barton Fink, p. 36; August 26, 1994, Jonathan Romney, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 32; June 7, 1996, Jonathan Coe, review of Fargo, p. 36.

Newsweek, January 21, 1985; March 16, 1987; September 17, 1990, David Ansen, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 54; August 26, 1991, David Ansen, review of Barton Fink, p. 57; March 14, 1994, David Ansen, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 72.

New York, March 16, 1987; March 23, 1987, Eric Pooley, "Warped in America," pp. 44, 46-48; October 8, 1990; August 26, 1991, David Denby, review of Barton Fink, p. 128; March 18, 1996, review of Fargo, p. 50; March 16, 1998, David Denby, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 55; December 18, 2000, Peter Rainer, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 170.

New Yorker, February 25, 1985; April 20, 1987; September 9, 1991, Terrence Rafferty, review of Barton Fink, p. 76; March 25, 1996, Anthony Lane, review of Fargo, p. 97; March 23, 1998, Daphne Merkin, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 98;.

New York Times, October 12, 1984; January 20, 1985; June 6, 1986; March 11, 1987; October 21, 1994, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. B6; March 8, 1996, Janet Maslin, review of Fargo, p. B1; May 5, 1996, Neal Karlen, review of Fargo, p. H19; March 6, 1998, Janet Maslin, review of The Big Lebowski, p. B25; August 7, 1998, Janet Maslin, review of The Big Lebowski, p. B27; July 2, 2000, Franz Lidz, review of Blood Simple, p. AR9; November 5, 2000, Michiko Kakutani, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. MT29; December 22, 2000, A. O. Scott, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. B1; June 8, 2001, A. O. Scott, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. B23; October 31, 2001, A. O. Scott, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. E1; March 10, 2002, Dave Kehr, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. MT18.

New York Times Magazine, July 8, 1990, pp. 23-26, 29-30, 45.

Orlando Sentinel, June 1, 2001, Jay Boyar, review of Fargo.

People, February 5, 1985; October 15, 1990, Ralph Novak, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 13; April 4, 1994, Leah Rozen, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 17; March 11, 1996, Tom Gliatto, review of Fargo, p. 19; March 16, 1998, Leah Rozen, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 19.

Post Script, summer, 1989, Rodney Hill, "Small Things Considered: Raising Arizona and Of Mice and Men," pp. 18-27.

Premiere, October, 1990, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 61; October, 1991, Arthur Miller, review of Barton Fink, p. 108; March, 1996, Todd McCarthy, review of Fargo, p. 22, Peter Biskind, interview with Joel and Ethan Coen, p. 76; July, 2000, review of Blood Simple, p. 21; September, 2000, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 46; January, 2001, Glenn Kenny, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 23; November, 2001, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 94; December, 2001, Glenn Kenny, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 90.

Rolling Stone, May 21, 1987, David Handelman, "The Brothers from Another Planet," pp. 59, 61, 114, 117; October 4, 1990, Peter Travers, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 50; August 22, 1991, Peter Travers, review of Barton Fink, p. 71; March 24, 1994, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 105; March 21, 1996, Peter Travers, review of Fargo, p. 104; March 19, 1998, Peter Travers, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 71; November 22, 2001, Peter Travers, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 95.

San Francisco Review of Books, January, 1992, Michael A. Behrens, "Cinema Brats: The Coens and Their Scripts," pp. 25-26.

Sight and Sound, summer, 1987, Tom Milne, review of Raising Arizona, pp. 218-219; winter, 1990, Tim Pulleine, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 64; September, 1991, review of Barton Fink, p. 4; winter, 1991, review of Miller's Crossing, pp. 64-65; February, 1992, Steve Jenkins, review of Barton Fink, p. 39; August, 1994, John Harkness, "The Sphinx without a Riddle," pp. 7-9; September, 1994, Kim Newman, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 39; May, 1996, Lizzie Francke, "Hell Freezes Over," pp. 24-26; June, 1996, review of Fargo, pp. 40-41; February, 1997, review of Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, p. 37; May, 1998, Jonathan Romney, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 38; October, 2000, Kevin Jackson, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 38; November, 2001, Philip Kemp, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 50.

Studies in American Humor, Volume 4, number 2, 1996, Jeff Evans, "Comic Rhetoric in Raising Arizona," pp. 39-53.

Sunday Times, October 28, 2001, "O Brothers, Thou Art Cinematic Gold Dust," p. 21.

Time, January 28, 1985; September 24, 1990, Richard Corliss, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 83; March 14, 1994, Richard Schickel, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 103; March 18, 1996, Richard Corliss, review of Fargo, p. 91; March 2, 1998, Richard Schickel, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 85; October 29, 2001, Richard Schickel, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 86.

Times (London, England), February 1, 1985; August 26, 1991, Richard Schickel, review of Barton Fink, p. 58.

Times Literary Supplement, September 16, 1994; November 2, 2001, Adam Mars-Jones, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 26.

TV Guide, April 19, 1997, Gene Siskel, review of Fargo, p. 16; November 28, 1998, Gene Siskel, review of Fargo, p. 60.

Us, March, 1994, Juliann Garey, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 38; March, 1996, John Leland, interview with Ethan and Joel Coen, p. 100; December 31, 2000, Andrew Johnston, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 37; November 12, 2001, Andrew Johnston, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 54.

Vanity Fair, September, 1991, James Wolcott, review of Barton Fink, p. 108.

Variety, September 3, 1990, review of Miller's Crossing, p. 75; January 31, 1994, Todd McCarthy, review of The Hudsucker Proxy, p. 65; February 12, 1996, Leonard Klady, review of Fargo, p. 78; January 26, 1998, Todd McCarthy, review of The Big Lebowski, p. 68; May 22, 2000, Todd McCarthy, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. 19; May 21, 2001, Todd McCarthy, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. 15.

Video Review, March, 1992, Clive Barnes, review of Barton Fink, p. 70.

Village Voice, January 22, 1985.

Virginian-Pilot, March 21, 1996, Mal Vincent, "'Fargo' Director, Producer Seem More Like College Students than Filmmakers."

Vogue, April, 1994, Tad Friend, "Inside the Coen Heads," pp. 348, 350-351, 407-408; March, 1996, John Powers, review of Fargo, p. 282.

Wall Street Journal, March 8, 1995, Joe Morgenstern, review of Fargo, p. A8; March 6, 1998, Joe Morgenstern, review of The Big Lebowski, p. A13; December 22, 2000, Joe Morgenstern, review of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, p. W6; November 2, 2001, Joe Morgenstern, review of The Man Who Wasn't There, p. W6.

Washington Post, February 10, 1985; March 20, 1987; March 6, 1998, Desson Howe, review of The Big Lebowski, p. N50.