Joel and Ethan Coen

An analysis of the Coen oeuvre through O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). The authors, German film critics, include a previously unpublished interview with the filmmaking brothers on their off-center work in genres they both satirize and pay tribute to: film noir, horror, screwball comedy, and buddy escapade. As Ethan Coen says: "We grew up in America, and we tell American stories in American settings within American frames of reference. Perhaps our way of reflecting our system is more comprehensible to non-Americans because they already see the system as something alien." Well illustrated.