tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post2187620002944529587..comments2024-01-06T05:34:00.027-06:00Comments on Blog Meridian: Does "offbeat" count as a worldview?John B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-75413689785176454592008-05-31T12:48:00.000-05:002008-05-31T12:48:00.000-05:00Thanks for the thought-provoking comments, all.Z.,...Thanks for the thought-provoking comments, all.<BR/><BR/><B>Z.</B>, I don't know if you deliberately saw <I>Sullivan's Travels</I> because of <I>O Brother</I>, but my seeing it was by pure accident: I had been seeing a fair number of Joel McCrae films, and that one was just another one on the pile. I'm glad I was sitting down when Sullivan first uttered the phrase. Talk about a weird experienceJohn B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-35893341298139213212008-05-31T09:16:00.000-05:002008-05-31T09:16:00.000-05:00Dear Meridian,This is hardly the 1st post-metaphys...Dear Meridian,<BR/><BR/>This is hardly the 1st post-metaphysical period. After the Quantum Mechanics disassembled reality as we know it in Copenhagan, philosphy fell into a funk for decades, retreating into a hellish tangle of logic while the anti-meetaphysics of fundamental religion played to the masses. This is where the Cohens serve their purpose in the art world; as transition makers to a Aunt Bloggiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07224437475806825217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-54861045219307375602008-05-30T21:40:00.000-05:002008-05-30T21:40:00.000-05:00Other than No Country, Fargo is the only other Coe...Other than No Country, Fargo is the only other Coen Bro. film I've seen, so I don't have anything to add to the informed part of this discussion. I'm fascinated by the question, though. <BR/><BR/>Lindsay and I were discussing something very similar to this just a couple nights ago, after watching No Country. How would you characterize the Coen universe? "Dark" came up, but doesn't seem to have AJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16135729997685992811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-18550269124737951122008-05-30T12:48:00.000-05:002008-05-30T12:48:00.000-05:00Haven't seen No Country. But I understood O Brothe...Haven't seen No Country. But I understood O Brother a lot better when I saw Sullivan's Travels, the movie they got the name from. The Coens set out to make the movie that *isn't* made within Sullivan's Travels, and Sturges' film is, itself, so incredibly meta- that I get vertigo just trying to figure out what to call it. So part of the "effect" of "O brother" seems to be that they perform "Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10505845165131255374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-40742201810721503062008-05-30T12:07:00.000-05:002008-05-30T12:07:00.000-05:00Doc,Enjoy your vacation, first of all.I gave some ...Doc,<BR/>Enjoy your vacation, first of all.<BR/><BR/>I gave some thought last night to the possibility that, up till <I>No Country</I>, academic types have regarded the Coens as, in the end, "clever" rather than "artistic." In my experience, at least, scholars tend not to spill a lot of professional ink on cleverness. We may quibble as to the aesthetic quality of what <I>does</I> get written John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-17196154980520006652008-05-30T10:09:00.000-05:002008-05-30T10:09:00.000-05:00Uh...in so far as their treatment of Homer went, t...Uh...in so far as their treatment of Homer went, there was indeed, some ‘quirkiness’. They played McCarthy straight up however.<BR/><BR/>So what makes the Coens off-beat, per se? Or, more to your evolving theory, why their fascination with the 'other'? Not to rain on your parade before I disappear on vacation (timing is everything) but I don't see any pattern in their work that suggests a Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-35267072875718040022008-05-30T10:00:00.000-05:002008-05-30T10:00:00.000-05:00Joel,It surprises Lynnea and me, too. The Coens a...Joel,<BR/>It surprises Lynnea and me, too. The Coens assume an educated audience who go to the movies for more than escapism. There's also the fact that they have a sizable body of work.<BR/><BR/>I think the lack of scholarship explains in part the very quick turnaround for the book manuscript (Scarecrow is publishing it, by the way): An August 1 deadline for initial drafts of articles; returnsJohn B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-58021609120526832892008-05-30T09:34:00.000-05:002008-05-30T09:34:00.000-05:00I'm kind of surprised there's been the lack of "su...I'm kind of surprised there's been the lack of "sustained, serious criticism" of Coen Bros. work out there, if only because their body of work seems (sometimes) to be made *for* critics instead of mass audiences.Joelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14753052418658482508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-17811532465881622952008-05-30T07:25:00.000-05:002008-05-30T07:25:00.000-05:00Yeah.In (some) fairness to the pieces I referred t...Yeah.<BR/><BR/>In (some) fairness to the pieces I referred to, they're reviews and not scholarly pieces. But what I found is as Lynnea says: there's just not a lot of sustained, serious criticism of their work out there. This book really will be a substantial contribution to the field, if only because it will significantly increase the quantity of what's published.John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-23828710504895839912008-05-30T07:15:00.000-05:002008-05-30T07:15:00.000-05:00Are we so post-modernized that we are now, even, p...<I>Are we so post-modernized that we are now, even, post-metaphysics?</I><BR/><BR/>Actually, the problem is that too many have become used to deploying jargon in lieu of clarity of thought and succinct expression of same. In truth, calling the Coens "quirky" demonstrates only that the critic involved doesn't have the intellectual muscle to formulate a coherent description of the world view Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com