Artwork by TOM MULLER
FRESH AIR
If you ask the Coen brothers about how they write their films, you might not get a straight answer. “It’s mostly napping,” Ethan tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “We go to the office, we’re there, we’re in a room together,” Joel adds. “We take naps, but, you know, the important thing is that we’re at the office, should we be inspired to actually write something.” The brothers don’t split up writing responsibilities — they “talk through” the dialogue and “work it out together,” Joel explains. The process seems to be working for the brothers who wrote and directed Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man and True Grit. Their latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis, just won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes film festival, and it’s nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, musical or comedy, and an Independent Spirit award for Best Feature. Set in 1961, Inside Llewyn Davis stars Oscar Isaac in the title role, as a folksinger in Greenwich Village, just before Bob Dylan comes on the scene. He’s known in the clubs but isn’t particularly successful. MORE
2000 BBC documentary on the Coen Brothers.
RELATED: Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of “Inside Llewyn Davis,” a one-night-only concert, was held at New York City’s Town Hall on September 29, 2013, to celebrate the music of the Golden Globe–nominated film Inside Llewyn Davis. The evening was filmed for a documentary that will be broadcast by SHOWTIME beginning this Friday, December 13, at 10 PM, and Nonesuch Records will release a live album from the concert in late winter/early spring 2014 (details to follow soon). The concert, documentary, and live album were produced by Inside Llewyn Davis writer/director/producers Joel and Ethan Coen and soundtrack producer T Bone Burnett. Huffington Post called the concert “one of those only-in-New-York events,” while Rolling Stone said it was “a bustling salute to the sounds and the idea of Sixties folk music,” and continued, “For all the formality of the night, which was exceedingly well-paced and organized, the concert recalled a time when one or two people, bearing one or two unplugged instruments, could be as enthralling as the greatest rock or EDM track.” MORE