Write an essay on one of the following:

1) What makes a Coen Brothers film? You can’t cover everything in 4 pages so pick 2 or 3 key points and make the case from readings and the four films we will have seen. (you can allude to later films but the focus should be on some or all of the first four.)

2) A criticism of the Coen Brothers is that they try to have it both way, mocking genre while manipulating audiences to care about the genre anyway. The counter argument is that they carefully balance two (or more) different emotional experiences to create a complicated emotional reaction. Use examples from readings and the first four films to support whatever case you choose to make.

3) What happens if you consider Coen Brothers films as a sort of adaptation of the source inspiration (for example, Blood Simple as a Cain adaptation, Miller’s Crossing as Hammett adaptation might work the best, but Barton Fink might be considered as a strained adaptation of Odets/Faulkner, Raising Arizona as an adaptation of a Road Runner Cartoon)? Explore one work from this perspective, discussing the way the Brothers use the source material, what changes, what remains constant and what the overall effect or relationship ends up being.

Caution: this one could go bad if you aren’t that familiar with the source materials.

4) Take an argument from one of the readings and either a) expand on it, b) refute it, or c) apply that reading’s analysis to one of the other three films from this section of the course.

Procedural stuff:

You must use information from at least one reading to support your argument.

You may use outside sources.

Use any writing style you are familiar with as long as, when you give full and proper credit when drawing on another source and you give enough information that I can immediately find the SPECIFIC location of your source material.

You may go longer than four or five pages. I would not go much shorter than four pages.

You should use sources.

Do not waste time describing films. You can assume I’ve seen the films. Use description of specific parts of scenes, etc. that support your argument with the emphasis on explaining why what you cite supports your argument.