Angelina Jolie’s favourite Coen brothers movie: “What I love about them is how diverse they are”
The Coen brothers have amassed a list of collaborators that would make any filmmaker green with jealous rage. Ethan and Joel have been able to pull in some of the finest acting talent known to man, either for a one-off appearance or as regular cast members. It helps that Joel is married to Frances McDormand, one of the finest actors of her generation, but their list of star friends extends far beyond the bonds of matrimony.
Steve Buscemi and John Goodman have each appeared in seven of their films, the most of anyone behind McDormand. John Turturro and George Clooney have worked on their films four times, while their two-time hirees include Tilda Swinton, Jeff Bridges, and Scarlett Johansson. As for one-offs, that list features the likes of William H Macy (Fargo), Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), and a young Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit). On his own, Joel directed The Tragedy of Macbeth, which starred the almighty Denzel Washington as the celebrated Shakespeare creation.
One person who has never appeared on screen for the siblings is Angelina Jolie. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know their work, however. Joel and Ethan contributed the script for 2014’s Unbroken, the World War II drama that helped launch the Hollywood career of Jack O’Connell. Jolie directed the project, so she would have had a say in who was hired to write it. As it turns out, the ‘Tomb Raider’ icon also has a habit of dating Coen brothers favourites.
“I loved when Brad [Pitt] did Burn After Reading, and I was with Billy [Bob Thornton] when he did The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Jolie told Slate. Thornton, to whom Jolie was married between 2000 and 2003, also appeared in the film Intolerable Cruelty. “They have a signature and a certain flavour, but their films are so different,” Jolie continued. “One can be so full of humour and the next can be so frightening, but you always know going into a Coen brothers movie that it’ll be something special.”
The interviewer picked up on Jolie’s affinity for the brothers, which not only stretched to hiring them for Unbroken, but also to bringing about their preferred cinematographer, Roger Deakins, to shoot it. This led to them asking the star which her favourite Coen movies were, which inspired the somewhat non-committed answer of, “Maybe No Country for Old Men? But what I love about them is how diverse they are.”
No Country for Old Men is widely regarded not only as the Coens’ best film, but also one of the greatest movies of the 21st Century. Inspired by the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, it tells the story of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a man who stumbled across a briefcase full of money in the middle of the desert. Little does he know that the cash has put him in the crosshairs of sinister hitman Anton Chigurh, the role that won Javier Bardem an Oscar and continues to define his career.
It might be a bit of a basic pick from Jolie, but No Country for Old Men is a classic for a reason. However, as she stated, so many of the Coens’ films tick so many different boxes that deciding which one is ‘the best’ is an exercise in futility.
