How did you do the two interviews?
ETHAN COEN: It's nothing. But we prefer to do that movie geek-style interview. It's easier to do interviews like yours in Europe. In America, the mainstream media is always looking for something other than movies.
Is it an unreasonable request?
EC: Pretty much, not the obscene kind. It's warm, sweet, and delightful. But definitely private.
Then I will try to ask questions as close to the film level as possible.
EC: Very good.
The villain in The Green Toe Murder appears to be a frail German nihilistic porn photographer. Why choose German? Why so vain?
JOEL COEN: Obviously we are not saying that all Germans are nihilists. Just some specific ones. JOHN GOODMAN's character is a violent Jew, so it makes more sense. There's also the TECHNO-POP relationship, and we make this music relevant to all the characters. We always make the geographical, social, and anthropological attributes of characters as specific as possible. The more specific, the easier the characters are to expand and the more interesting they are to us and the audience. But people sometimes ignore this, they always like to speculate on the commonalities of a geographical population.
A lot of people did analyze your films to the bone. I found an article on the Internet that analyzes the bottom line of "Barton Fink": the hotel represents hell, and the whole movie represents the natural bait of fascism.
EC: There will be such a situation. When people interpret things through code -- very specific code, it's also a very weird thing.
JC: We never thought of that when we made the movie. The symbol of that subdivision does not exist. We always create according to our instincts. A good example would be two police officers who came to Patton and we just wanted them to represent the Axis powers at the time. That's interesting for us. Just kind of teasing. Charlie's character's "Long Live Hitler" behavior is also a tease. we are very sorry.
EC: America is extremely sensitive to racial political correctness. A lot of people are critical that the studio owners in the film are Jewish, but the real world studio owners are indeed Jewish! What's wrong?
JC: A critic in the US was upset that Bernie's character was dragged into the woods and shot to death in Miller's Crossing. He said it was all too easy to recall the persecution of Jews in Europe. Well, that's our risk of making the characters too specific.
You've made your own New York movies, Texas movies, Minnesota movies. Is Green Toe an LA movie?
EC: Of course it is. The original idea was that, and all the characters were LA-ish too. But L.A. is also Chandler's—there are ghostly plots in different parts of the city, and so are the characters.
JC: I never developed an intimate relationship with Los Angeles. I will always be a tourist. What makes me happy is being able to make movies there instead of living there. Chandler's novel definitely inspired Green Toe - both the story and the setting.
How well do you know the people in your videos? There is a big difference between the ordinary people in "Frozen" and the stunners in "Green Toe".
EC: Some of the characters in Green Toe do have real references. I know a middle-aged marijuana hippie, and a Vietnam veteran who lives forever in wartime memory. Setting the characters in the sixties and living in the nineties should be fun.
Are you digging the magic of bowling on a movie level?
EC: Yes. The master in the film is a member of a softball club based in Los Angeles. It's just that we changed to bowling, which is more visually interesting. Bowling-related things, buildings, machines, it's all reminiscent of the 50s and 60s. In Los Angeles you can see all the designs from the golden age of bowling.
Should it be darts in the UK?
JC: Yeah, the same thing. Men with big bellies drink, chat, and do some exercise. It doesn't have to be flexible, sloppy people can do the job.
Your films always give the impression that human nature is either insane or imbecile, and Green Toe has both.
JC: Telling a story is one thing, defining human nature is another. The two do not have to intersect. But you're right, our characters are basically unsettling, losers or idiots. But we also love them, and you rarely see stories based on them in movies. We're not interested in burly superheroes.
One criticism is that none of your characters are heartless and mechanical.
EC: The creation of scripts is different from commercial production, such as prescribing what they do or how they interact.
JC: Green Toe is a good example. If you condense this story into a bridge, it will be boring and absurd. Chandler is the same, the plot is for the characters.
Why did 'Shadow Tycoon' fail at the box office?
JC: I don't know, why didn't "Frozen" fail? Many people dislike Shadow Tycoon, and I don't know why. The people who watch "Frozen" are also a mystery to us. We thought that it would be good to have three people watching it, and it would make sense for us.
How did you work together? Do you have to produce and direct your own script, or have you thought about using someone else's script?
JC: We edited the script together, we were on set together, we edited together. There is not much quarrel in the creation. Being able to shoot my own script is quite a blessing. Psychologically we are not opposed to using someone else's script, but it can be difficult because for us everything comes from imagining the story. The whole process can get weird and difficult to get used to. Until now we have not found something more attractive to us than our own.
You seem to have a preference for rude and corrupt business men. Do you encounter it often in your life?
JC: Yes. But we didn't come across too many. We do have a lot of these characters, Arizona in Raising Arizona, Jack in Button Funk, Sidney in Shadow Tycoon.
EC: Maybe there's Waring in Shadow Tycoon, but that's not really a stage, it's a threshold.
Is it true that they say you have to wait until the ideal actors are in place?
JC: Green Toe, yes, the script was done before Frozen. We waited a while, mostly because of John Goodman, until he was available. And Jeff Bridges, though he wasn't on his mind when the script was written. Every script is different, and Frozen was written for Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, and Francis McDormand.
What Hollywood movies have you watched recently?
EC: I love Starship Troopers, it's a lot of fun. A blockbuster with a budget of several hundred million yuan is powerful enough without a star.
JC: "Stunning Flowers" is also good. A lot of people say it's the Coen Brothers type of movie, I don't know why, but it's interesting and I like it.
EC: L.A. Confidential, okay.
Has mainstream Hollywood filmmaking dried up?
JC: I think there are still a lot of interesting and good films being made. It's the same as any other mass entertainment - most things won't be of high quality. Like music and novels, most works are naturally boring. This is not surprising. That's just a healthy, extremely high-yield by-product of industrialization.
Are you flattered after winning the Palme d'Or and two Oscars?
JC: 1996 was a lucky year.
EC: Well, there really wasn't any other important movie to award that year.
JC: We have an odd relationship with Hollywood. We don't feel marginalized, except for a few choices of our own -- not living in Los Angeles and not taking on commissioned scripts. We have a friendly relationship with the studios, they have been releasing and producing our films.
EC: This is also a business rule. Box office success, awards are all impermanent, you can't predict. But personal interest can be seized.
I heard that "Frozen" will be remade into a TV series. Will you be involved?
EC: There has been a proposal to make a multi-episode one-hour episode where the female lead could have different cases. They seem to be doing a pilot, directed by Casey Bates.
JC: We were not involved. I can't say we'd be unhappy if it had a difficult birth.
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