Although it is just plain fun to rank a director's movies, it may also help me think about the director's oeuvre of work as a whole. Comparisons can help me to discover elements of film that I am drawn to, what the director finds value in revealing through their movies and possibly how the director has grown artistically.
I think the Coen Brothers have a similar viewpoint on life as I do. They often depict the absurdity of life in their movies. Strange situations, random occurrences, unexpected consequences and unexplainable occurrences abound in their movies. These suggest a higher being or plan that is unknowable by his characters and sometimes the audience as well.
A compliment to a worldview that…
Although it is just plain fun to rank a director's movies, it may also help me think about the director's oeuvre of work as a whole. Comparisons can help me to discover elements of film that I am drawn to, what the director finds value in revealing through their movies and possibly how the director has grown artistically.
I think the Coen Brothers have a similar viewpoint on life as I do. They often depict the absurdity of life in their movies. Strange situations, random occurrences, unexpected consequences and unexplainable occurrences abound in their movies. These suggest a higher being or plan that is unknowable by his characters and sometimes the audience as well.
A compliment to a worldview that maximizes the grandness of the external mechanisms of the world are characters who are reduced to having ridiculous tendencies. Their characters often believe they are smart and/or confident and come up with some kind of plan that gets wildly out of hand. Their characters often become out of their depth and scramble to make due, which sometimes leads to a newfound humility or simply destroys them in one way or another.
Their characters' plans often stem from a desire to elevate themselves in some way, whether through the most basic acquisition of wealth to the most tenuous states of being: some kind of enlightenment.
Of course these movies mostly pluck along with great humor as the Coens seem to understand that we cannot take ourselves or humanity too seriously. We are all just bumbling along, often attempting to increase ourselves in some way while the world around us tampers our efforts in one way or another.
Other directors I have ranked:
JJ Abrams | PT Anderson | Wes Anderson | Judd Apatow | Darren Aronofsky | Ari Aster | Sean Baker | Bong Joon-ho | Jane Campion | Charlie Chaplin | Damien Chazelle | Sofia Coppola | Cameron Crowe | Andrew Dominik | Robert Eggers | David Fincher | Alex Garland | Greta Gerwig | Todd Haynes | Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu | Jim Jarmusch | Rian Johnson | Spike Jonze | Satoshi Kon | Stanley Kubrick | Sergio Leone | Richard Linklater | George Lucas | David Lynch | Martin McDonagh | Steve McQueen | Sam Mendes | Nancy Meyers | Hayao Miyazaki | Jeff Nichols | Christopher Nolan | Alexander Payne | Sarah Polley | Lynn Ramsay | Céline Sciamma | Ben Stiller | Quentin Tarantino | Andrei Tarkovsky | Taika Waititi | Edgar Wright | Chloé Zhao
