Ethan Coen and Joel Coen on the set of "No Country for Old Men"
(Credit: Richard Foreman/Miramax)
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The Coen Brothers can hardly release a film without it becoming an instant cult classic. Their latest—“No Country for Old Men,” a chilling meditation on violence in a Texas border town circa 1980—is already earning some of the best reviews of their career.
“No Country,” which premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival, is based on a book by respected novelist Cormac McCarthy and features an international cast led by Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Kelly Macdonald. It’s bloody, suspenseful and unsettling, yet retains just enough deadpan quirky humor to qualify as deeply Coen-esque.
As Metromix recently discovered, chatting with the brothers is an unpredictable as watching one of their films. They were generous enough to share their thoughts on the casting process, a recently completed project with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, why reviews matter and how they got stuck working together so many years ago.
Since you do your interviews together do you often find yourselves misquoted? A quote is attributed to one of you when the other person said it?
Joel Coen: Yes, it happens all the time. It doesn’t bother us.
You haven’t done a lot of adaptations, why did you choose this book?
JC: We didn’t actually pick it. It was sent to us by [producer] Scott Rudin about a year before it came out. We’d read other Cormac McCarthy books just for pleasure and liked them a lot, but this one we thought could make a really interesting movie.
Can you talk about casting Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem? Josh said his first audition didn’t go over well.
JC: Yes, but he’s a notorious liar. Javier was cast much before Josh was. Tommy [Lee Jones] and Javier were cast early on, Tommy first. He was on a short list of people who could do the part. He’s one of the great American actors of a certain age who can convincingly be from that area, in fact he is from that area.
Ethan Coen: Tommy would love to hear that. We asked him to do it because he’s so fucking old.
JC: He got up my ass about that one day at rehearsal.
EC: Tommy has the title part. [Laughs]
JC: “I’m only 59 years old!” [Laughs]
Javier was a little more complicated. But if you have a chance to cast Javier Bardem in a movie, even if it’s a stretch, you should do it. Once we cast Javier and Tommy, it’s a movie about three men, so you’ve got to find somebody who can be an equal in the movie with those two guys. We saw everybody and were not happy with anybody until we saw Josh.
Did you come up with the distinctive look for Javier’s character or was it something he thought of?
JC: No he didn’t, but he embraced it completely when it was suggested.
EC: The look, the feeling of the wardrobe and the haircut, came from the art department research. It’s a period thing, 1980 Texas border town. They don’t make it up from scratch, they look at archival pictures from the time and place. The wardrobe department found this picture of a guy in a West Texas bar in 1979. It was that alarming haircut and that kind of wardrobe. We looked at it and thought “looks like a sociopath.”
What about the weapon of choice for Javier’s character? It’s like an air gun.
JC: That’s from the novel, the cattle gun. There was a considerable amount of research done on those particular machines. We built one modified to work for the cameras. It was made by the special effects department based on real cattle guns.
This film has fight sequences, chase scenes, guns, do you see it as an action movie?
JC: In a way. It’s not “Live Free or Die Hard” or whatever…
You just finished your next film [called “Burn After Reading,” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt]. What’s it about?
JC: The culture of the Central Intelligence Agency and the culture of physical fitness in D.C. and what happens when those two worlds collide. It’s also about Internet dating.
So, it’s funnier than “No Country for Old Men”?
JC: I don’t know, I guess it depends on how funny you find “No Country for Old Men.” It’s more of a…it’s kind of a…
EC: Yeah, somebody might say it’s a comedy whereas nobody would say that about [“No Country”].
How was it working with George Clooney for the third time?
JC: Well George loves to play idiots for us.
EC: We wrapped a few days ago. When we called wrap on the last shot George said “Alright, that’s it, I’ve played my last idiot.” So we told him it was sad he wouldn’t be working with us any more.
JC: We always have a really good time with him. We had a good time with Brad too. They’re both very funny in the movie.
Does Brad also play an idiot?
JC: I think that’s pretty safe to say, yes. It’s a dueling idiots movie.
Are you already thinking about another project?
JC: Yeah, we’re doing another project in April in Minnesota. It’s called “A Serious Man.” It’s a movie about a Jewish community in the Midwest in 1967.
Do you pay attention to reviews and media reaction to your films? “No Country” has been getting very positive notices, does that make it more satisfying in any way?
EC: It depends on the movie. It makes it easier to a degree that varies from movie to movie. A little movie needs good reviews more than…well, we don’t do many big movies. So yes.
JC: It’s all about business. You’re certainly concerned about [reviews] because they can impact the business of a movie and that determines what your options are in the future.
"The Big Lebowski" is an example of a movie that has grown in stature since it came out. Do you guys appreciate that it’s more appreciated now?
JC: I’m not sure that its stature has grown so much as its popularity amongst a certain group of people… But that’s been [laughs] interesting to say the least.
Are there films that you’ve made that you feel are more similar than others?
EC: We don’t really compare them, there’s nothing in it for us. There’s some pleasure in doing a movie, problem solving and getting a movie made, but once they’re done we don’t look at them again, much less relate one to another.
Do you enjoy the process of making them more than watching them?
EC: Yeah, it’s kind of paradoxical. We’re never going to enjoy watching the movie. But the whole process is…I don’t know why we do it. Sometimes the process is pleasurable. On good days it’s fun, I guess that’s why we do it.
JC: I’m at the point now where I have a hard time keeping them straight, chronologically.
EC: There’s an interview with Brando where someone asks him about “Apocalypse Now” and he asks “Is that the one I was bald in?”
Did you always intend to work together? And what’s the benefit of working with your brother?
JC: I haven’t detected any benefit yet. I don’t think it was an intentional…
EC: [Laughs] We didn’t do it on purpose.
JC: We didn’t really. Shit happens. And then you look back and you go “Oh, that’s how it worked out.”
Check out what the stars of "No Country for Old Men" had to say about working with the Coens.
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