(Oh, I’m also pretty sure there’s a slight age difference between them, but I’m not gonna bother to fact check that, because what does it really matter?)īoth Lee and the Coens began their careers in the mid-1980s, crested for a time (late-80s through late-90s), made some mid-career masterpieces that were initially underrated (for Lee, 25th Hour for the Coens, The Big Lebowski), endured a fallow period (for Lee, this included Inside Man for the Coens, it included The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty, films so bad it seemed, at the time, impossible they could ever bounce back), and then entered a stately late-career boom, though the Coens’ came a little earlier than Lee’s, with No Country for Old Men, probably the best film they’ve ever made (though these days I also feel compelled to make a case for Inside Llewyn Davis, another late-career masterwork). Apart from those things-and the fact that, in interviews, one (Joel) tends to talk more than the other (Ethan)-I’m hard pressed to tell you the exact difference between them.
It’s tough after all this time to separate the Coens, Joel and Ethan, once referred to as the “two-headed director.” One of them writes short stories the other one is married to Frances McDormand. This year’s Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar race contains two filmmakers who have survived in this business longer than nearly anyone manages to: Spike Lee and the Coen brothers.
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