From mavericks to mainstream Idiosyncratic filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have suddenly started aiming for a wider audience. SF Said asks: what happened?

With their latest films, something seems to be changing. Their last was Intolerable Cruelty, a studio-backed romantic comedy starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. And now comes The Ladykillers, released next week. It's a remake of Alexander Mackendrick's much-loved Ealing comed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDaily telegraph (London, England : 1969)
Main Author by S F Said
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London (UK) Daily Telegraph 18.06.2004
Subjects
Coen, Ethan
Coen, Joel
Hanks, Tom
Mackendrick, Alexander
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Summary:With their latest films, something seems to be changing. Their last was Intolerable Cruelty, a studio-backed romantic comedy starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. And now comes The Ladykillers, released next week. It's a remake of Alexander Mackendrick's much-loved Ealing comedy, and it stars Tom Hanks in the role once played by Alec Guinness. Are they trying to reach a wider audience? Perhaps the best comparison is not with other Coen brothers films, but with other mainstream studio movies. And just as Intolerable Cruelty was incomparably better than a rom-com with Clooney and Zeta-Jones should have been, The Ladykillers is far funnier than the words "caper movie with Tom Hanks" suggest. But why are the Coens making studio pictures now, rather than their own unique brand of cinema? The Coens revere [Preston Sturges]; their O Brother, Where Art Thou? was an explicit homage. While they've never been about moral improvement, their films have always been a minority taste. These new movies, by contrast, are purely about entertainment. They're the Coen brothers doing Ants In Your Pants, Part 2.
ISSN:0307-1235