(savvy music)
- What's up, guys?
Helen here to talk about two provocative filmmakers
who share a last name, a deeply twisted sense of humor,
and a special place in my already-crowded heart.
- Ruler of your little (beep) gate here. Here.
Here's your $4, you pathetic piece of (beep).
- [Helen] That's right: the Coen brothers,
known for their edgy takes on classic Hollywood genres
like film noirs and screwball comedies.
They infuse traditional cinematic tropes
with their own unique brand of brutal violence-
(gunshot bangs)
sharp dialogue- - And you're studying?
- Oh, all sorts of jolly stuff.
- History. - Economics.
- Same thing, isn't it?
History? Economics?
- [Helen] and an endless cast
of weirdly compelling scumbags.
- I thought you served misfits here.
- Yeah, daddy, that's a roger, but we don't sell alcohol.
- The Coen brothers' distinctive body of work
always has a contemporary tone,
even when they're hearkening back to decades past.
So you might've been surprised to hear
that older brother Joel was adapting
the classic Shakespearean tale
whose title you can't say in a theater.
And at first glance, it seems like a perplexing direction
for a guy who cut his teeth on the likes
of "Blood Simple" and "Raising Arizona."
So why is one half of this filmmaking duo
bringing the most murdery medieval Scottish wannabe royal
back to life?
Examining the way the Coen brothers treat the protagonists
in their own scripts might actually tell us a lot
about why Joel connected with the story of "Macbeth,"
because if you take a closer look,
this guy isn't all that different
from a classic Coen brothers protagonist.
So join us for this "Wisecrack Edition"
on the Coen brothers: "Tragedy and/or Comedy?"
And spoilers ahead for some Coen brothers films.
Let's start out by reverse-engineering
your typical Coen brothers protagonist.
In general, they're not terribly successful,
at least by standard definitions.
They're known to encounter trouble with the law,
sometimes a lot of trouble.
Often ineffectual, they find themselves
subject to condescension-
- What in God's holy name are you blathering about?
- [Helen] verbal abuse-
- You arrogant son of a (beep).
You think you're the only writer
that can give me that Barton Fink feeling?
I got 20 writers under contract
I can ask for a Fink-type thing from!
- [Helen] and even rejection by their own rabbi.
- What happened to the goy?
- The goy?
Who cares?
- [Helen] They're perpetually bewildered
by the world around them-
- I don't know which end is up.
I'm not even sure how to react.
I'm too confused.
- [Helen] and they're often flying by the seat
of their pants while cosplaying competence.
- This aggression will not stand, man.
- [Helen] What's more, Coen brothers characters
are often men with plans, like Jerry's plot
to have his wife kidnapped in "Fargo" for some money,
a harebrained scheme that ultimately results
in cinema's most creative use of a wood chipper,
or Hi's knuckle-headed plan to steal a baby
from a wealthy furniture mogul-
- You go right back up there and get me a toddler.
- [Helen] or Brad Pitt's doomed plot in "Burn After Reading"
to sell what he believes is classified information
he stumbled upon.
While the Coen brothers have no shortage
of humor in their work-
- Seem pretty sure of the date.
Did I ask you to sit?
- No, sir, but you struck me as a man
who wouldn't wanna waste a chair.
- many of their characters function somewhat
as tragic heroes in the ancient Greek mold.
As scholar Richard Gilmore explains in his analysis
of "No Country for Old Men," in ancient Greece,
"Tragedy was considered a source of wisdom
as well as of entertainment, and the primary wisdom
was 'avoid hubris,'" i.e., excessive pride.
Greek tragedies prominently feature characters
being punished for exhibiting hubris,
usually by ancient gods.
Many Coen brothers heroes suffer from hubris.
Their characters have goals that,
while not as grand as becoming king,
are still vastly out of step with their actual abilities.
In "Barton Fink," the titular character thinks
he can bring his deep stories about the common man
to a notoriously shallow Hollywood.
"Inside Llewyn Davis" chronicles a small-time folk singer
who doesn't quite have the talent to back up his big dreams.
In "A Serious Man," Larry wants to learn the full truth
about God and his master plan for the universe,
a goal that not even the most gnarled
of rabbis can claim to have achieved.
- Be a good boy.
- What all of these characters share,
like many ancient Greek tragic heroes,
is that sense of hubris in their approach to their goals,
whether they're trying to learn deep religious truths
or simply trying to acquire a baby.
They often see themselves as competent, heroic characters
on important heroes' journeys,
the kinds that the Greek legends went on.
But the Coens let their audience know in no uncertain terms
that these protagonists are kinda just being punked.
Importantly, the theme of hubris,
far from being confined to Greek tragedies and Coen films,
also permeates much of Shakespeare's work,
especially, you guessed it, "Macbeth."
The play charts the downfall of an ambitious nobleman
who wants to become king and is willing
to do a lot of murder to make that happen.
Even though his plot works, the consequences pile up,
and Macbeth refuses to back down
and in the process loses his head.
Like many Coen heroes, he's a man with a plan
that he can't quite manage to see through.
This makes it extremely fitting that Joel Coen gravitated
towards this particular Shakespearean work.
It's something of a medieval iteration
of his own overarching thematic preoccupations.
The link of man's hubris becoming his downfall,
which we've charted from ancient Greece
to Shakespeare to the Coen brothers,
thus makes "Macbeth" seem all too Coen-y.
That said, characters like Hi and Jerry
and Llewyn aren't Macbethian to a T.
The Coen brothers, for the most part,
aren't just regurgitating Greek myths
or Shakespearean downfalls,
though they may find inspiration in them.
They're doing something distinctly modern,
taking the tragic hero in the vein of "Macbeth"
and transforming him to suit our times,
and they do so by invoking their Jewish heritage
and sculpting many of their characters into some iteration
of the Yiddish folk archetype, the schlemiel.
The schlemiel,
according to the "Universal Jewish Encyclopedia,"
"handles a situation in the worst possible manner
or is dogged by an ill luck that is more
or less due to his own ineptness."
As scholar Ruth Wisse adds,
"The schlemiel's misfortune is his character.
It is not accidental, but essential."
Importantly, schlemiels have always had a hand
in their own destruction.
You know, like this guy.
- Well, I, I was just really trying
to elevate small talk to medium talk.
That's all I was doing. - Well, don't.
My marriage is my business.
My marriage is fine.
It has nothing to do with you.
- We vividly see the schlemiel-like tendency
in many Coen brothers films,
from Jerry's foolish kidnapping scheme
to Llewyn's harebrained theft.
According to scholar Sanford Pinsker,
the schlemiel has long been a source of comic relief
in the distinctive palette of Jewish humor,
probably seen Byzantine emperor
and major jerk Justinian made antisemitism mainstream.
As Pinsker explains,
"Although powerless by conventional standards,
Jews mastered the difficult arts of self-mockery,"
in part through the comic failures of the schlemiel.
Pinsker posits that this brand of humor was a powerful tool
in the Jewish people's endless struggle for survival.
Though the archetype wasn't popular
outside of Jewish communities for most of its existence,
Wisse writes, "When America as a whole began
to experience itself as a 'loser' after World War II
and ever more insistently in the 1950s,
the schlemiel was lifted from his parochial setting
into national prominence."
Though some scholars see the heyday
of peak schlemiel being over,
it's still continued to permeate pop culture.
Writing about "Seinfeld" in the '90s,
scholar Carla Johnson explains the show's success
in the context of the way it invokes the schlemiel trope.
She says, "The point is that Jewish experience has come
to mirror the frustrations of mainstream America,
the shrinking opportunities,
the stalling of the American dream."
If that doesn't feel even more true today
than it would have in the '90s,
you might just be the owner of multiple Teslas.
For their part, Coen brothers protagonists
are often quite stuck in their own stalled American dreams
of achieving economic success or starting a family
or launching a career.
What's more, the schlemielness of the Coen brothers' heroes
facilitates the filmmakers' unique approach
to melding comedy and tragedy.
As Ronald Emerick writes, citing Sheldon J. Hershinow,
"Using the schlemiel creates an ironic perspective
as well as a double vision, both comic and tragic."
The protagonists' attempts to change their circumstances
are typically much less grandiose
than the likes of the plotting Macbeth.
As a result, their missteps on their path
can be rendered both amusing and kinda sad.
Indeed, each Coen brothers protagonist has aspects
of both the tragic and the comic.
Take their comedic film noir "The Big Lebowski,"
whose protagonist is the epitome of the happy stoner.
Still, throughout the film, he's constantly mistreated
and emasculated, rendering him a bit tragic.
What's more, his refusal to back down over the rug
precipitates the death of his friend.
His character flaw literally causes him
great pain and misfortune.
Classic schlemiel move.
Sad parts aside, though, the film functions as a comedy
because The Dude accepts his status in his life
and doesn't care what others think.
He's definitely not tortured,
except for that tub scene, of course.
In contrast, one of their most tragic protagonists,
Larry from "A Serious Man," is unhappy with his lot in life.
He has the very not-humble goal
of wanting to understand God and truth
and desperately wants to be taken seriously.
- I've tried to be a serious man.
- [Helen] As a result, he has our sympathy and our pity,
though his suffering does provide the occasional chuckle.
- I seriously (beep) her!
That's what's going on!
- Even so, the film functions basically as a tragedy.
In this way, the Coen brothers' use of the schlemiel
can be molded to suit both comic and tragic characters,
so long as their lives are falling apart.
By replacing the traditional Greek
or Shakespearean hero with the schlemiel,
the Coens update their protagonist to better suit our time,
a time when many of us feel pretty powerless,
which maybe also explains why a 74-year-old Larry David
is still making a super popular and relevant comedy show.
Evoking this old trope from Yiddish folklore
also has the added benefit of facilitating
their unique mix of farce and tragedy.
But what do you guys think?
Is "Macbeth" the natural next step for a guy like Joel Coen?
Do schlemiels make the perfect modern hero?
Let us know in the comments.
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And as always, thanks for watching. Peace!
(upbeat music)