The lucrative 2014 movie the Coen brothers couldn’t turn down: “Which is really a motherfucker”
There might not be a more distinctive American filmmaking duo to emerge in the last 50 years than Joel and Ethan Coen, the directorial brothers responsible for over a dozen stone-cold classics, but they also have a secret second career as for-hire writers.
The Coens have seemingly succeeded on every level that a filmmaker could: they’ve directed an Academy Award ‘Best Picture’ winner, helmed many cult classics that still have enduring fanbases, directed many box office smash hits, and made a great film in nearly every genre. Although they have seemingly split up for good, Joel has developed an interesting directorial career of his own with The Tragedy of Macbeth, and his new film, Jack of Spades, is set to debut at some point within the next year.
As is often the case with famous writer-directors, such as Quentin Tarantino and Paul Schrader, the Coen brothers have also helped write films that they don’t intend to direct. While these films might not end up having the striking style that their own projects do, they do allow them to pass on promising material that other directors might be able to work with.
These writing projects are often done for the sake of their friends; they helped to write Crimewave, which was directed by their childhood friend Sam Raimi, and also wrote Suburbicon for George Clooney, an actor that they worked with in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After Reading, and Hail, Caesar!
The script for Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie, was based on the extraordinary true story of the Olympic champion Louis Zamperini, who served in World War II after running in the games. It’s after he was captured by the Japanese forces that he endured horrific torture at the hands of his captors, yet survived in a true triumph of the human spirit. According to Ethan, these types of writing gigs were always part of their output, even if it wasn’t until more recently that they started actually getting made.
“We have always taken writing gigs. It’s kind of fun, interesting and lucrative,” he admitted, “We have always done it, and just in the way of Hollywood that 80 or 90 per cent of what is written never gets made, it’s just in the last few years a couple of them have got through.”
Although far too old to star as Zamperini, the Coens were approached about Unbroken by Brad Pitt, who they had previously directed in Burn After Reading, on behalf of Jolie, who was interested in directing. Ethan was somewhat surprised by the request, given how challenging a shoot Unbroken was going to be because of the historical accuracy required.
“There is something good about being able to blithely write whatever you want without having to worry about having to think, even in the back of your mind about the reality of production,” Ethan explained, “It’s really true, especially that movie, which is really a motherfucker, a difficult production thing, there is aerial combat stuff, dogfight stuff, and there is stuff on a lifeboat on an open sea, but you know, it’s from a book, it’s not fiction stuff, so it’s not like Angie can blame us for that.”
Unbroken was a success that, despite not quite being the awards contender it was expected to be, showed that Jolie was worth taking seriously as a filmmaker, but it was a much more standard Hollywood biopic, which makes it all the more fascinating to ponder what it would have looked like if the Coens had directed it.
