As I said earlier, I think the reason
for the success of the Coen brothers is their unique style of black humor. But nothing in the world just falls from the sky overnight, and the Coen brothers' comedic style didn't come out of their womb or when they first started filming. This style is also what they have accumulated and perfected step by step, and the first stage that prompted this style to have a little sign must be their childhood when they chose to stay at home more because of bad weather. We know that the Coen brothers lived in the cold climate of Minnesota in their childhood, that is, the white snow and ice everywhere in "Frozen". I think it was this stay-at-home period that brought them into contact with two of the most important factors in their dark humor - Kubrick's films and the unsatisfactory state of affairs in America at the time. The Coen brothers have said more than once in public that they love Kubrick, which is of course understandable, because Kubrick's masterpiece "Dr. Strangelove" can be described as a masterpiece of black humor. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Coen brothers' dark humor style has been inherited by Ku Lao. But the Coen brothers' dark humour differs from Kubrick's, due to another important factor in the current state of affairs. The Coen brothers, who were children at that time, naturally had to "accompany" their father who just got off work to watch some news reports. Although they did not take the initiative to accept it, the unbearable social news in the news was still very ironic and realistic for them in the future. The piercing image style laid the groundwork.
My opinion of the characters in the black humor style is
just like the actors are the most important elements in the drama performance, and the characters or characters in the movie are the most important carriers that carry the connotation of the movie. But this is not enough to explain that the role of the characters in the Coen Brothers films is more important than the image style. Even if the characters are the most important carriers, they still bear what the image style wants to tell. But at the same time, it has to be admitted that the characters in the Coen Brothers films convey the dark humor style of the images to the audience more intuitively and vividly. Take Walter played by John Goodman in "Murdering Green Toes". At the beginning of the film, when he learned that the "Duke" was going to send money to the kidnappers, he wanted to keep the money on his own accord. This led to a series of incidents that followed. In the end, Walter and the Governor just used a biscuit box to contain the ashes because they didn't want to spend a lot of money to buy an urn for the dead Downey. It is precisely because of his extremely absurd and humorous performance from beginning to end that the audience has a deeper understanding of the phenomena and characters that the Coen brothers want to satirize in the film. But Walter's more prominent part is the humorous part of the Coen brothers' films, and the most prominent part of the irony is the appearance of beings in "Barton Funk". Whether it’s the boss of a production company who only talks big words, kisses Patton’s feet to get his script, or drinks alcohol all day long until it turns out that his books are famous writers written for him by his female secretary, Each character is real and evocative. It can be said that the unbearable phenomenon in the entire film industry has been ridiculed again, and the specific presentation of this kind of role can be described as the irony of black humor to the extreme in my opinion.
My Opinion on the Uniqueness of Black Humor
The so-called black humor style, on the surface, is no wonder that the two aspects of black and humor are prominent. These two points seem simple on the surface, but the Coen brothers' films have a more unique place compared with other film styles. Let’s talk about the black aspect first. I understand that the black element in the film in the traditional sense refers to a situation of helplessness, and the Coen brothers took this helplessness to a higher level and became an elusive fate. When the audience sees the unexpected ending at the end of the film, they always sigh at the director's strong ability to structure. Just as in "Blood Labyrinth", the characters who tried to kill or wanted to escape from being killed ultimately died without escaping the arrangement of fate, which is precisely the situation that they had not planned. This black has also become a means of attracting the audience's attention. Let's talk about humor. The Coen brothers' humor is neither like Chaplin's early days with exaggerated actions and other external stimuli to make people laugh, nor like Zhou Xingchi's unique and nonsensical lines. The Coen brothers' humour is the highest form of humour, which is everywhere, not only deep into every scene of the film, but also full of ironic joy in the intricate relationships between the characters. The scene is like the mirror that "Duke" saw when he went to another Liporsky's house and was made into the cover of Time magazine. And the relationship between the characters is like the character played by George Clooney in "True Love". He is a good divorce lawyer himself, and after helping the rich man successfully win the divorce case, he is with his ex-wife Zeta Jones. Get involved. And the ex-wife is actually a liar who defrauded the rich, and she approached Clooney to avenge him for humiliating himself in court. The two of you come and I fight openly and secretly, and a hand-to-hand battle between love and greed is staged fiercely in the movie. This ironic and complex relationship is one of the Coen brothers' magic weapon of humor. And another magic weapon for them to create humor is the comedy that seems to be ordinary but actually implies a very deep level of comedy. Even if you don't laugh right away when you first see that shot or dialogue, it won't take long for you to realize the subtlety of the Coen brothers. This sense of humor is nonsensical or It's a level that no other humor can reach. This kind of line is like the character played by Tim Robbins in "Money Empire" and the guy driving the elevator, both holding a circled paper in front and back to sell their invention to others, and they both say at the same time Yes: you know, for xx. At first glance, this line may think that it is just a crazy talk made by two silly boys who are dragged down by their own imaginary world. When their inventions have become right In the future, when things have far-reaching influence, we realize that the people who think they are stupid boys in the play are the most ridiculous. Where does this cryptic comedy come from, it seems to me that it has something to do with Ethan Cohen's Bachelor of Philosophy at the University of Texas. It's this philosophical mindset he carries that makes their way of humour more profound than anyone else's.
My View on the Versatile Style of Black Humor
As I said at the beginning, other means in the Coen Brothers films are also there to serve this style of black humor. Their role is to promote the formation of the final image style. But from the previous in-depth understanding of the image style of the Coen brothers, we know that the formation of this style is definitely not the result of one or two factors. Therefore, it is necessary to have certain black or humorous elements in all aspects in order to finally integrate into the video style with strong Coen Brothers colors that we see now. Among them, in addition to the characters we have introduced before, the role of script and screen cannot be ignored. The Coen brothers usually write their own scripts, so there is absolutely no doubt about the dark humor in the script, whether it is the love story in "Blood Labyrinth", the kidnapping plot in "Murder Green Toe" or the "Murder of Green Toes" The love traps in "True Love and False Love", every story makes people seem to smell the strong Coen brothers when they read the synopsis. In terms of photography, although the Coen brothers did not do it by themselves, whether it is the dark light and shadow or the eerie atmosphere, it is definitely the lens language chosen by the photographer under the understanding of the Coen brothers. It is the use of these more superficial and multi-faceted means that makes the Coen brothers' black humor style more intuitive and vivid to the audience. From this point of view, these means are not the most important elements, but they also contributed to the success of the Coen Brothers film.
In my opinion, it was this unique style of dark humor from the Coen brothers that ultimately laid the foundation for their success. But if they choose to try more styles of movies in the future, I don't think it's a bad thing. Because they are destined to forge an indissoluble bond with the movie, even if they embark on a new road of exploration, they will definitely walk out of the road full of their own characteristics.
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