Last year I wrote about the grand themes of the Coen Brothers in my article You Always Have a Choice. With the earlier release of Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls this year, it felt like the time to revisit the auteur brothers, but to focus on their comedic efforts. The Coen’s are one of the few directors who can equally make comedies and tragedies, even balancing the two perfectly within some of their projects. Their comedies, which have tended to get less rapturous reception from audiences, still have plenty to explore. The Brothers love nothing more than an idiot on a quest, whether they succeed at it or not.
The comedy of the Coen’s tends to come from two sources. The first is the pompous fool, the person who thinks they have the answer to anything and everything. These people (commonly played by George Clooney) are often hoisted by their hubris by the end of the film, either failing so spectacularly that their life is destroyed or having to admit their entire philosophy was built on sand and wishes. The other Coen trope that often plays in their comedies is the well-meaning dimwit. These are the people that the Coens wish no harm towards, but that doesn’t mean they’ll escape the film unscathed. They are kind-hearted and can be hardworking, but are simply too gentle for the worlds the Coen Brothers create. The juxtaposition of this gentleness and the mean streak that runs through the Coen filmography brings the comedy to the forefront.
While deploying either trope, the result is the same: everyone is an idiot in a Coen comedy. This can be interpreted as cynicism, but the treatment of these characters is far from cynical. They may be pompous, foolish, shit-grinned and slow, but they can still achieve their dreams and often do. They are bumbling but still effective, losers who fail upwards. In most cases, our characters still learn a grand lesson about themselves or the world they live in, although a grand idea for an idiot is not going to be groundbreaking for anyone else. They have small goals that mean the world, and that’s what makes these characters so endearing.
Whether it be plastic surgery or a sexual awakening, these characters stumble into their profundities instead of racing towards them. We can look at our trip of outlaws in O Brother, Where Art Though? Everett, Pete, and Delmar (George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson) are completely unprepared for life as escaped convicts, constantly bumbling their way through the countryside. Everett plays the part of a wise man, but it’s revealed to be a con anytime he’s meant to be helpful. Pete is a hothead who is easily manipulated into following Everett’s lead, and Delmar is just happy to come along. Yet, even though they are constantly under threat from the law, the KKK, and the call of women, they succeed unequivocally.
Not only do our heroes get a pardon from the government, they become famous singers, defeat the racists masquerading as the everyman, and Everett even wins the love of his wife back. Near the end of the film, when it seems all but guaranteed the boys will be hung by an unjust lawman, they drop to their knees and pray. Even Everett, who admittedly has raged against religion throughout the film, feels himself moved to a final call to the unknown. This is the sacrifice needed in the film, a bow down and acceptance that Everett doesn’t know everything despite his mile-a-minute mouth. His willingness to embrace something greater than himself ultimately saves him (even if he immediately goes back on his repentance.)
Another Geroge Clooney character who spends the film rallying against one ideal only to double back immediately is Miles Massey in Intolerable Cruelty. The film follows Clooney as a high-level divorce attorney, the kind of man who has never even thought of losing. After winning a case that left the gold-digging wife Marylin Hamilton Rexroth with nothing from her cheating husband, Marylin launches a scheme to get her revenge. This revenge, involving many twists, turns, and deceptions, leaves Massey on the verge of ruin and deeply, madly in love with the woman who has vexed him so.
Neither of our leads believe in love, instead seeing sex, money, and marriage as interchangeable currencies. They dare not fall in love for that could leave them exposed, dare not give in to their urges for it could topple the towers they have built in the Hollywood hills. But, in true Coen fashion, these long-held beliefs are quickly absconded in the heat of the moment. First Massey abandons his philosophy when it appears that Marylin has embraced him completely. When this is revealed to be a con (and after each of our leads try to unsuccessfully have each other killed) they both still can’t resist, with Miles and Marylin ditching the prenup that has been the symbol of mistrust throughout the film. Much like in O Brother, it’s in this sacrifice of a closely held belief that our characters are redeemed. While the stakes are much lower in this case, the result is the same; a picture-perfect happy ending.
By highlighting the successes of idiots, the Coens allow the audience to forgive stupidity. The levels of farce and Looney Tunes-esque adventure that our characters go on could be seen as empty and frivolous, but by still allowing genuine catharsis within these films they become more than a lark, and the characters become more than one-dimensional potshots. Even looking at arguably one of their most ludacris of films, Raising Arizona, we can see the care the Coens use in crafting their characters. H.I. “Hi” and Edwina “Ed” McDunnough (Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter) are lovebirds desperate but unable to start a family. After a news report about the birth of identical quintuplets, the pair decide to kidnap one baby, leading to a whirlwind adventure.
Even though our characters kidnap a baby, a deeply heinous act, at no point are we rooting against them. For the Coens, stupidity can be pitiful but not damning, and many times it’s desperation that breeds stupidity. Hi and Ed are fundamentally good people who make mistakes, as are Miles Massey, Marylin Rexroth, and our escaped trio. Idiotic and pompous, they are still redeemable. After returning the baby to his crib at the end of the film, Hi and Ed are confronted by the baby’s father, who can’t bring himself to punish the couple. He acts as the audience, seeing how it was kindness that led them down the wrong path. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, and while the situations in these comedy films fall well short of hell, the sentiment is no less the same.
That doesn’t mean that all Coen comedies have a happy ending, or that all these characters deserve such a grace. In Burn After Reading, while our characters share some traits with those previously discussed, there is an immense bitterness in their actions. These characters are either not trying to better their lives at all, as in George Clooney’s Harry Pfarrer, or trying to take shortcuts as in Frances McDormand’s Linda Litzke. The characters we meet in this film lean heavily towards pompousness and are never able to accept when they are wrong. Unlike the other films discussed, these characters do not change, do not engage with the world around them in a positive manner, and are punished for it. In the end, two people are murdered, one is in a coma, one has fled the country, and another got what they wanted but lost everything they had.
The only characters who attempted to navigate the world with kindness are the two who get the most brutal rebuttal. Chad (Brad Pitt) is murdered by Harry after breaking into the home of Osbourne “Oz” Cox (John Malkovich), while Ted (Richard Jenkins) is murdered by Cox for doing the same. Both men did their crimes at the behest of Linda, and, much like in Raising Arizona, we don’t fault the men for their schemes. But because every other character in Burn After Reading is harsh and unforgiving, these softer characters can’t survive. Even Linda, though outwardly not someone who would be described as conniving, is quick to formulate plans and sell important information if it furthers her personally. The film ends with two casual observers (J.K. Simmons and David Rasche) commenting on how nothing was learned and nobody seemed to have benefited from the whole convoluted mess. The Coens are willing to excuse stupidity and buffoonery, but not when it’s accompanied with malice.
It’s in this balance between dimwitted delight, malicious instigators, and self-discovery that we find the latest Coen comedy Drive-Away Dolls. Following Jamie and Marian (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan), a pair of lesbian friends as they go on a cross-country road trip, unknowingly transporting a collection of important dildos (as well as a severed head). With a pair of criminals on their trail, the comedy of the film comes from following those two separate bumbling pairs, while the dramatic tension comes from whether our heroes will discover they are being pursued before the villains can catch up. Along the way, we also have Jamie and Marian falling for each other, with Marian learning to explore more in the world and Jamie learning to reign in her rebellious ways.
The film is a farce in the highest of orders, yet still allows for an edge of danger to creep in. Much like in O Brother and Raising Arizona, there is danger in this world, and it’s only through the kindness of our lead characters that they can get out safely. Both their willingness to mature does not directly lead to their salvation, but thematically we can see that had they rejected such growth they would likely not have had such a positive outcome. We can see this with our villains, who constantly banter much in the same we as our heroes only to end up killing each other. By growing into each other instead of apart the more moronic aspects of each of them cancel each other out.
All of these films are further examples of what I discussed in my last article on the Coens: you always have a choice. In each of the films that end happily, that is the active choice of the characters. They choose to grow, choose to change their ways, and embrace new aspects of life. In Burn After Reading, the only film that ends poorly for all characters involved, the film is full of people dissatisfied but unwilling to change for the better, instead digging further into the bitterness that has led to this dissatisfaction. The one character who is trying to change is going about it in such an unhealthy way that it could not be said she was bettering herself, and in fact, Linda’s pursuit of money to acquire surgery is what causes the deaths of her only friends. That was her choice, and it was all their choice as to whether the world would be a kinder place at the end of their stories.
Everyone is an idiot, in one way or another. In most of the more serious films from the brothers, there is a moment, a choice, which in hindsight was poor. In their comedies the same thing occurs, it just occurs constantly and comedically. Just because we make mistakes, just because we do stupid things, does not mean we are irredeemable. Even when we constantly make mistakes, even when we base our entire existence on something only to discard it, does not mean we can not have a happy ending. It’s through kindness, and love, and friendship that we can still come out on top. By making the world a better place we can still have a home within that world.