The Coen brothers

The Coen brothers are one of the most popular and most awarded film maker tandems in the industry. Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen are American film makers that are recognised for creating similar visions and concepts and executing them perfectly in a film. The brothers started their professional film making career in the 1980’s where they wrote and directed Blood Simple, their first collaboration.

coen brothers – Indie Birds

In over their three decades of film work, the movie that gained the highest acclaim was the film No Country for Old Men. The film is an adaptation of McCarthy’s novel and took place in the desserts of West Texas in the 1980’s. The story revolved around a small town sheriff and a million dollar drug deal gone badly. And just like all McCarthy models, the story never followed the usual flow but created unexpected twists to the crime thriller. Set across the beautiful Texas landscape, the movie was considered to be comparable to top western classic films by Sam Peckinpah and Anthony Mann.

Josh Brolin in No Country For Old Men – Indie Birds

One of the best parts of the film was that it was able to stay true to the spirit of the original novel. The Coen brothers were hugely praised for this skill, with every important detail shown as it was and some parts of the original story removed only when necessary. The writing was also acclaimed for not using too many words but was a wonderful combination of body language and cinematography to bring about the right emotions. The movie was starred by veteran actor Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem. It was great cast selection that the Coen brothers were praised for as well. Tommy Lee Jones, although not dubbed as his best work in the industry was perfect for the role – subtle and effective.

The movie was first released in the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2007. After which, it was commercially made available to a limited number of cinemas all across the United States. In its first week, the movie was able to earn an impressive $1.2 million. A few days after the limited cinema release, the movie was finally made available to all movie theater’s in the country which earned it over $7.2 million in the first week. After the release in their home country, the movie was distributed to Australia, the United Kingdom and in Ireland. The film garnered highly positive feedback from top movie critics and online review sites.

The film eventually brought home four Academy Award trophies which includes the Best Picture out of the 8 categories that they were nominated for. The Best Director award, which they won as a pair was only the third win for an established duo in the Academy’s history. The pair has also garnered the most number of nominations for a single nominee.

Aside from that, it also garnered several other awards from other prestigious award giving bodies such as the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild. After this work, both brothers set out to create other collaborative projects that also garnered attention and acclaim. But above all, No Country for Old Men was by far their most highly acclaimed work and received the most number of awards in their three decades in the industry.

Riley is a working actor and stand up comic in Los Angeles, Ca. Riley follows the Hollywood acting scene, and blogs about the latest trends in “the biz”.

The Dude – The Big Lebowski