The many faces of the Coen brothers

Tor­ment and glee are almost inter­change­able looks in the con­tra­dic­to­ry movie land of Joel and Ethan Coen, a place where absur­di­ty, dark­ness, and come­up­pance cohere in dia­bol­i­cal­ly clever ways. Often, the height­ened, exag­ger­at­ed, stymied, shocked, and baf­fled faces of their pro­tag­o­nists help estab­lish this tricky mix of tones. So in hon­our of the Coens’ lat­est film, Hail, Cesar!, which con­tin­ues their life­long obses­sion with declar­a­tive mugs, here are eight mem­o­rably expres­sive faces from their estimable canon.

“Son of a bitch… you son of a bitch!”

A mad dash of a com­e­dy, Rais­ing Ari­zona has enough ener­gy to tuck­er out Wile E Coy­ote. Amid its chaos resides a mater­nal force for calm named Ed. As played by Hol­ly Hunter, she’s a mosa­ic of moods that fluc­tu­ate direc­tions like the desert wind. This is none bet­ter on dis­play than the man­ic chase scene involv­ing her dia­per steal­ing hus­band HI (Nico­las Cage), a pack of neigh­bour­hood dogs, and some trig­ger hap­py cops. Fed up with all the chaos, Ed switch­es from angry wreck to badass sav­iour. She’s offi­cial­ly the first of many pissed off women in the Coen uni­verse who refuse to let men muck up a good thing.

“We must all have waf­fles forthwith.”

Slimy, ver­bose, prone to bouts of ner­vous laugh­ter and unso­licit­ed ora­tions, Tom Han­ks’ slip­pery eel GH Dorr stands at the cen­tre of the Coens’ mis­guid­ed remake as a talky, con­fi­dent mae­stro of none. It’s a strange, intox­i­cat­ing role, one defined by the sud­den moment he begins ​“vocal­is­ing” in the base­ment of Mrs Mar­va Mun­son (Irma P Hall). How­ev­er one decides to describe the pitchy sounds that emanate from Han­ks’ mouth, we see the wacky ded­i­ca­tion Han­ks brings to this grin­ning aca­d­e­m­ic that likes to daz­zle you with con­ver­sa­tion. That grin is the devil’s work.

“Hey, any you boys smithy’s?”

George Clooney’s prison bird on the run is ever the opti­mist, hop­ping on a mov­ing train and ask­ing the hobo’s aboard if any­one has an exper­tise in the ​“met­al­lur­gi­cal arts.” That his face hits the floor a few sec­onds lat­er speaks to the volatil­i­ty of this Odyssey-sized hero’s jour­ney. Everett is all furled eye­brows and greasy smirk, and his face fit­ting­ly becomes the film’s key mode of express­ing a col­lec­tive anx­i­ety, joy, con­cen­tra­tion, and pain (i.e. John Good­man wal­lop­ing him in the mug with a stick).

“Sir, you have no call to get snip­py with me. I’m just doing my job here.”

The great scene between Frances McDormand’s preg­nant police offi­cer and William H Macy’s guilty car sales­man marks a key turn­ing point in Far­go and could be sub­ti­tled, ​‘Doth protest too much, Jer­ry.’ It also show­cas­es how small details in a reac­tion shot can estab­lish every­thing you need to know about a char­ac­ter. In Marge’s case, her face tran­si­tions from curi­ous to sus­pi­cious to res­olute as Macy’s Jer­ry con­tin­ues to blab­ber on about his inno­cence. She lets every man in this film dig their own grave by choos­ing her words carefully.

“I lost their fuck­ing cat. I feel bad about it.”

Sad­ness has become the new nor­mal for Oscar Isaac’s down but not quite out folk singer attempt­ing to go solo in 1961 Green­wich Vil­lage. The wavy curls and thick beard, that face look­ing off into the dis­tance, his pas­sion­ate per­for­mances; this char­ac­ter breathes equal parts artis­tic genius and self-pity. More so than most Coen char­ac­ters, Llewyn’s frus­tra­tion with life’s con­tra­dic­tions cracks through his emo exte­ri­or. He tru­ly is the man of con­stant (self-sus­tain­ing) sor­row, and it’s hard not too feel some­what bad for his plight.

“He’s a real moron. That’s a five-let­ter word for imbe­cile. As pure a spec­i­men as I’ve ever run across.”

Jen­nifer Jason Leigh’s sharp and sus­pi­cious jour­nal­ist Amy Archer bull­dozes any man that gets in her way. She takes her edi­tor to task one moment and then bats her eyes like a true femme fatale the next. Like the sec­ond com­ing of Ros­alind Rus­sell in His Girl Fri­day, her pow­ers are on full dis­play ear­ly on inside the news­room of the dai­ly paper (a male insti­tu­tion). She types away furi­ous­ly while yelling into the phone and con­tribut­ing to the cross­word puz­zle being cre­at­ed across the room. Archer clos­es out the scene with cinema’s great­est whis­tle, con­firm­ing that indeed, the future is now.

“In a sense, we’re all alone in the world, aren’t we John?”

John Tutur­ro meets the dev­il (John Good­man) and gives him advice on the irony of iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness. This neb­bish writer from New York City who’s just trav­eled to Hol­ly­wood has no clue of what’s com­ing, and the way Barton’s face shifts from starv­ing artist apa­thy to real con­cern through­out is one of the film’s many joys. The begin­ning of the end comes when Barton’s writ­ing is inter­rupt­ed by a deaf­en­ing shot­gun blast from anoth­er room. Peer­ing out into the emp­ty hall­way, his fright­ened face waits for some kind of ratio­nal rev­e­la­tion. It will nev­er come.

“Me, I don’t talk much. I just cut the hair.”

Pos­si­bly the qui­etest (and sad­dest) pro­tag­o­nist in the Coen’s fil­mog­ra­phy, Bil­ly Bob Thornton’s repressed bar­ber does most of his talk­ing through voice-over. But the deep wrin­kles on his fore­head com­mu­ni­cate the wear and tear of a life numbed by con­for­mi­ty. Set­tling down has dark con­se­quences, and when Ed Crane begins to realise the pow­er he has to shape his life anew, things turn south very fast. No mat­ter what das­tard­ly deeds occur, his skele­tal façade stays patient­ly aloof. Not even a death sen­tence can cause a spark of emotion.