Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Blood Simple: A Photo
2. Raising Arizona: A Baby
3. Miller's Crossing: A Hat
4. Barton Fink: A Head
5. The Hudsucker Proxy: A Circle
6. Fargo: Snow
7. The Big Lebowski: A Bowling Ball
8. O Brother, Where Art Thou?: A Song
9. The Man Who Wasn't There: A Flying Saucer
10. Intolerable Cruelty andThe Ladykillers: Spoils or Oh Brothers, Where Art Thou?
Appendix: Winks and Nods
Bibliography
Filmography
Index
About the Author

About the Author

Erica Rowell has worked in the movie industry and as a journalist. Her work has been featured on Monitor Radio, FOXNEWS.com, ABCNEWS.com, and WNYC Radio. Her film credits include line producer on two independent features and art department coordinator on the studio feature, The Proposition (1998), starring Kenneth Branagh.

Reviews

...well written and engaging.
*American Reference Books Annual, March 2008*

Rowell (a journalist and film producer) titles each chapter examining a film from the prolific duo Joel and Ethan Coen (known as the Coen Brothers) after an object that figures so prominently in the movie that it is almost a character. In "Blood Simple: A Photo," "The Big Lebowski: A Bowling Ball" and the other essays, she offers a synopsis, review, and dissection of the themes, technique, influences, and stark social commentary of the often violent and satirical and always stylized Coen films. The writing-directing brothers also created Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? and Intolerable Cruelty.
*Reference and Research Book News, August 2007*

Rowell examines [the Coen brothers] with greater concentration than the typical scattershot making-of or makers-of commentary, and even announces something like an analytical framework to apply to the films.
*Film International*