Top Non-Cartoons: Brazil

As a former member of Monty Python, Terry Gilliam has a vision and mindset that differs from most filmmakers. He is outlandish, inventive, and ferociously ambitious, and Brazil, his biggest and best film, stands as the ultimate map of his mind. I can’t say that it’s absolutely perfect, but I also don’t think it should be changed. Gilliam’s cut is so dense with symbolism, imagery, and ideas that to shave even a frame would be to kill something magical.

Brazil is an homage to George Orwell’s 1984, in that it involves a dystopian society in Europe that’s at odds at a nebulous “terrorist” threat. The difference is that instead of telescreens and thought police, this dystopia employs an encroaching state swollen with bureaucracy. Its most prominent fixture is the Ministry of Information, where an army of white-collars shuffles papers, ostensibly to keep terrorism in check.

The cause and identity of the terrorists are never explained. The only evidence of their presence is the occasional Gilliam-esque explosion, which the characters typically brush off as an irritation. Just as in modern life, the Enemy is cloudy and faceless, a threat that exists so the government can exist.

Sam Lowry, played by Jonathan Pryce, is a low-level worker at the MOI. He keeps a seat at the Department of Records, a nightmare of an office where young men in suits sweep documents about in an endless hurricane. It looks like hell, but Sam is quite happy there. He’s skilled at his job, and his boss, Mr. Kurtzmann (a terrific Ian Holm), leans on him to solve all his problems. Kurtzmann is so grateful for Sam’s aid that he’s fine with letting Sam kick up his feet and coast.

Sam’s mother, an aging socialite played by Gilliam mainstay Katherine Helmond, wants more for Sam. She pushes him to aim high and accept promotion to the department of Information Retrieval, but Sam wants none of it. The only thing that motivates him is the appearance of Jill Layton, a woman that he’s repeatedly seen in his dreams, and with whom he’s madly in love.

Jill (Kim Greist) only shows up at the Ministry to report the wrongful arrest of her neighbor, Archibald Buttle. Thanks to a random malfunction at the Ministry, Security went to capture Buttle when they meant to go after Archibald Tuttle (Robert freaking De Niro), who is suspected of terrorism. What’s more, this mistake has led to Buttle’s death due to, well, enhanced interrogation.

This questioning, and the potential exposure of a Ministry error, has put a target on Jill’s back, and soon she is considered a terrorist as well.

Tuttle and Jill are, in fact, not terrorists, but working class individuals who are sick of the Ministry’s bullshit. Tuttle is a rogue heating engineer who sneaks into people’s homes to fix their air conditioners. Jill works in a factory and only wants justice for the traumatized Buttle family. When Sam gets involved with both of them, the Ministry decides that Sam must have caused the Buttle/Tuttle mixup in order to defame the state and aid the terrorist cause. This being a sendup of Orwell, you can guess where this all goes.

I know I’m making this all sound very serious, but somehow, that’s not how Brazil comes across. It has its dark moments, but most of the time it plays with a distinct, professional absurdity.

Unlike Winston Smith, Sam is a childlike fellow who has no interest in the whys of his life. He oversleeps and rarely gets a good meal. When he’s not behind a desk, he’s nervous and awkward, and says the strangest things. His painting as a revolutionary is only done out of convenience: he has no interest in bringing the Ministry down, only in getting Jill out of its iron sights.

Information Retrieval, the euphemistically named wing where suspected terrorists are tortured, is home to two of my favorite characters: Mr. Warrenn (Ian Richardson) and Harvey Lime (Charles McKeown). Warrenn is a cheerful chap who strides the department halls with no real destination, while a whirling entourage clamors for his decisions. Lime is a whimpering weirdo who literally shares Sam’s desk, a situation that sets up a couple of very funny gags.

You also have Sam’s old buddy Jack (Michael Palin), a genial man who’s found success at the Ministry, but only because his smile is a simper, and his hands bloody. He can never remember which of his kids is which, and when his boss calls his wife the wrong name, Jack chooses to adopt the name instead of correcting him.

Then there’s Tuttle, a man who really is fighting the power, but only in a private, mischievous way. The idea of a roof-swinging repairman is so silly that it could be basis of a Python sketch. Still, the state-run department, Central Services, doesn’t like anyone doing its work for it. After Tuttle fixes Sam’s ducts, CS sends two goofballs to tear up Sam’s apartment. The way Tuttle deals with them is disgusting, but also hilarious.

Even the setting is funny, in its own off-putting way. Brazil’s set design has been described as “retro-tech,” as nothing looks as modern as it should. The purpose, says Gilliam, is to give the film a timeless quality, and I have to say that it works. None of the technology in this film seems right, and yet it all fits. Every screen in the movie is monochromatic and tiny, requiring magnification by massive lenses. Computer terminals lack casings, so their clacking, teletype guts are always exposed. Roads are encased in propaganda to hide the withering landscape, and folks chug down them in cramped Messerschmitts. Restaurants serve hideous space food. Telephones buzz like beetles.

Most notably, every building seems infested with ductwork, as though this civilization has grown so rapidly that its infrastructure couldn’t keep up, and utilities had to be thrown on top of it at the last second. Whatever nation the people of Brazil inhabit, it looks like an awful place to be.

Oddly, I find the world of Brazil to be more interesting than its plot. I have so many questions about just how things got this way that the movie never answers for me. Who’s really in charge of the country now? Are there any modern movies being made anymore? Why would anyone use acid for cosmetic surgery? And for Heaven’s sake, where can I get one of those executive decision-makers?!

It’s all so strange, yet all so familiar, that I want to learn more about it. When Sam takes action in this movie, it pulls attention away from these details, and I start to get bored.

Oh man — I haven’t even mentioned the other world in this movie yet, where Sam’s dreams unfold. Yes, there’s a parallel narrative in which Sam becomes a winged hero, fighting for the freedom of his lost love. He encounters barriers that burst from the earth, shuffling trolls with horrifying baby masks, and a massive, armored samurai. Each dream sequence relates to a conflict that’s keeping Sam and Jill apart, and the final one is so lengthy and bizarre that it left me unsettled and confused the first time around.

So there’s a lot going on in this movie. Were it not for the constant humor, it would probably be pretty tough to digest. As it is, I still don’t really understand its message. Does Sam deserve his fate? Should a man be punished for his romantic dreams? Are the nails that stick up really doomed to be hammered down? For all its kookiness, Brazil is really kind of a downer.

Sid Sheinberg certainly thought so. He was president of Universal Pictures at the time of Brazil’s creation, and he wanted the film simplified and retold as a love story. The resultant “Sheinberg cut” was a travesty that infuriated Gilliam. This turned into a whole big thing between the two men that’s been exhaustively documented, but it’s worth reading about if the endless battle between art and business interests you.

That Brazil made it to us in its intended form is a minor miracle. The film is long, mystifying, and ends bleakly, but it’s still enjoyable. Gilliam’s directorial skill ensures that its vacillation between mirth and misery never jars. It presents a fascinating, completely unique setting that I enjoy getting lost in again and again. In fact, I kinda had to get lost in it again and again in order to catch all its details and make sense of its plot threads. There’s just so much to this comedy/horror/fantasy/sci-fi epic that it’s nigh-impossible to nail down. I don’t much care for its action sequences, and I wish it had done more to explain its world, but as it is, I can appreciate it as a thrilling and mysterious place that’s never been seen before or since.

Now, for some strange reason, if Brazil was to be animated, I can see the studio Nelvana doing the honors. Of course, it doesn’t need to be a cartoon, but there’s a distinctive quality to Canadian animation that I think would lend itself well to Gilliam’s material. Rock & Rule had only come out a couple of years prior to Brazil. Maybe there’s something about the era that seems to connect the two.

Final: John Goodman as Roland Turner

“Why is nothing going right for me? My life is a big bowl of shit.”

Here’s another certainty for you: If John Goodman is in a Coen brothers movie, he’s going to be a monster.

No exceptions. Consider Gale Snoats in Raising Arizona. Consider Karl Mundt in Barton Fink. Consider Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski. Consider Big Dan Teague in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and then consider this: Roland Turner, the junkie jazzman of Inside Llewyn Davis. It’s Goodman’s best role yet, in the best Coen brothers movie yet.

Inside Llewyn Davis is a masterpiece of all things film. It reminds me of Barton Fink, in that it’s about an idealistic New York artist whose life enters progressive collapse, but its ambition is restrained. Llewyn’s purpose is small and specific: it means only to explain how its title character winds up beaten in a back alley. It walks to that line and then stops, and this frustrates people, because the story leading to the event is so captivating.

Llewyn Davis is an aspiring folk singer in the 60s, and a mess of contradictions. He has an image in his mind of what a musician should be, and he feels that uncompromising adherence to this image should be enough for him to find financial success. Of course, this attitude gets him nowhere: he surfs couches, eludes pregnancies, judges his peers, and generally bums off everyone he knows.

When a fellow musician offers a car seat for a trip to Chicago, Llewyn sees a real opportunity to break into the business and turn his life around. Maybe, once he gets there, Llewyn can get face-time with club owner Bud Grossman, and land himself a serious gig. It’s during this surreal sojourn that he becomes trapped with the grumbling beatnik Johnny Five, and the ultra-hip Turner.

Turner reminds me of Barton Fink’s W.P. Mayhew, in that he’s also an older, more successful version of his film’s protagonist, but who is also broken down, washed up, and chemically dependent. Worst of all, Turner is unlikeable in the worst possible way: he’s a complete and irredeemable egotist. Like the know-it-all at your office, Turner has an opinion on everything, and he’s happy to let you know about it. To him, folk songs are a joke, and only jazz counts as true music. He considers himself a master pool player, and a worldly connoisseur of food, though some of it makes him shit himself.

Turner occasionally shows interest in Llewyn’s life, but it’s only so he can find a platform to spring into stories about himself. Aside from that, Turner peppers Llewyn with insults, jabs him with his cane, and requires frequent stops for “bathroom breaks.” The only peace Llewyn gets on the trip are during the long periods when Turner’s zonked out on smack.

In time, Turner waddles into dangerous territory when he asks about Llewyn’s former singing partner, who committed suicide. This is a subject that, for Llewyn, is still fresh and painful, and even touching on it causes him to lash out in anger. Of course, Turner doesn’t touch on it, but stomps on it like a child on an anthill, and so Llewyn quietly threatens him.

In response, Turner explains that he’s a practitioner of Santeria and other strange arts. He tells Llewyn that he’s above the folderol of fist fighting; he has the power to curse people. At first, this bluster sounds like the “Real mature, guys” thing that nerds use on bullies, but one must wonder, in light of the events that follow, whether there’s something to it after all.

Going over this, I’m not really sure why I find Roland Turner so fascinating. Maybe it’s because I feel for his rap, as it were. He’s a terrific asshole, forever in the process of salving his own ego. He is proud to be so many miles above the rest of the world, and yet he’s bitter that the world doesn’t understand his greatness. His character is a sad warning to Llewyn, who is similarly deluded. The fact is that Llewyn may not be suited for the life of a professional musician, but to him, anything else is mere “existence.” He doesn’t see that living in his own head and craving superiority over others only results in hateful isolation.

John Goodman, for all his charm, has always had a bit of menace about him: there’s a well of rage beneath his skin that you don’t want to poke into. He doesn’t unleash that beast in this movie, though. Instead, he affects a distant haughtiness that’s perfect for the role. Some viewers might be confused at his inclusion in the story, as it seems ornamental, but the performance is too tremendous to leave out. I also think that his presence facilitates a certain decision for Llewyn, one that will devastate most audiences. God bless Mr. Goodman for making it unforgettable, and God bless the Coens for bringing us one of the best movies ever made.

John Mahoney as W.P. Mayhew

“The truth, my honey, is a tart that does not bear scrutiny.”

There are many Johns in the Coen brothers’ weird thriller Barton Fink (Turturro, Goodman, Polito), but the chameleonic Mahoney, playing a tragic caricature of William Faulkner, always stood out to me. An ostensible gentleman with a pleasing Southern accent, Mayhew is a lot like the movie’s protagonist: a celebrated writer who’s sold himself to Hollywood, he’s a bit haughty, a bit selfish, and completely incapable of listening. He’s also a raging drunk and a woman-beater, a man we’d easily hate if he didn’t seem so sad, so lost, and so lonely.

You know what? Maybe I should just stop here. As much as I love Mayhew’s character, there’s little I can say about him that could provide any unseen insights. I think you’d do better to read this little celebration of Mahoney’s great work, and assume that its views mirror my own.

Jeff Bridges as The Dude

“Oh man, lodged WHERE?”

The Big Lebowski is not my favorite Coen brothers movie. I feel like many of its comic scenes miss their marks by miles. Combine that with irritating and unpleasant characters, like the pompous Maude Lebowski and the repulsive Jesus Quintana, and you have a movie that’s hard to take at times. Still, there are also many great comic scenes, and many lovable characters, not the least of which is the legend himself, Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski.

The Dude is the only protagonist on this list of faves, and that’s because he’s the ultimate Coen everyman: easygoing, put-upon, and unimpressed. His friends? A gun-flashing vet and an empty-headed surfer. His enemies? A wheelchair-bound mogul and a pack of German nihilists. His acquaintances? A milquetoast landlord and a mysterious cowpoke called The Stranger. It’s crazy-ness, but that’s L.A., and these are the 90s. The counter-culture is dead, Vietnam forgotten, and deregulation all but embraced. The Dude’s a burned-out hippie in a sold-out city, living in a soulless time.

That’s okay, though, because like most of us, all The Dude wants is a smooth cocktail and a bowling lane. Oh, and a new rug, too.

The Dude’s mission to replace his urine-stained rug sends him from the ‘burbs of West Hollywood to the beaches of Malibu, encountering all manner of mixed nuts along the way. It’s notable that The Dude also happens into an eclectic symphony of music, one including lounge, hula, experimental vocalization, and techno-pop. Despite all this, though, The Dude never strays from home for long. At day’s close, he always comes shambling back to his buddies: Walter, Donny, Creedence, and Bob.

As The Stranger explains, it’s this simple constancy that turns The Dude into The Man For His Time and Place. Even as a parade of jackasses aims to make his life hell — his car and apartment are repeatedly ravaged until, by the end of the film, they’re unrecognizable — Duder chugs along, donning his sunglasses, shaking his head, and uttering a “Fuck it.” I suppose it’s also what makes his adventure such a huge cult favorite: nothing about The Dude’s life seems probable, and yet, we’ve all lived it.

Alan Mandell as Rabbi Marshak

“Be a good boy.”

A common question asked when the credits roll on a Coen brothers movie is, “That’s it?” This is because their films are often mysterious, ambiguous, and just plain confusing. I wouldn’t place them beside the masturbatory ciphers of David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch, as Coen brothers movies are actually enjoyable and funny. However, this makes them all the more frustrating when they invariably yank the rug out from under us. A Serious Man is one of their most mystifying films. It begins with a short story that has no connection to the main one, and ends with several plot threads just waving in the air.

Probably the heaviest of these is the growing desire of its hapless protagonist, Larry Gopnik, to make some sense out of the worst two weeks of his life. With a divorce, bratty children, pushy neighbors, fender benders, student bribes, and felony charges all growling at his door, Larry is sinking in tsuris. He receives mounting advice from friends and acquaintances, alive and dead, to seek the counsel of his local rabbis. The most renowned of these is Rabbi Marshak, an ancient man who may well have the answers to Larry’s questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Unfortunately, the man is quite difficult to get a hold of. In fact, Larry never actually gets to meet Marshak. To Larry, the rabbi is but a tiny face at the end of a dark hallway, a hall he may not enter out of concern for Marshak’s thinking time.

This precious privilege goes instead to Larry’s son Danny, as a post-bar mitzvah blessing. Having suffered through the ceremony while heroically stoned, Danny finds Marshak’s chamber to be an eclectic laboratory. Inside are stacks of what could only be described as “tomes,” grave paintings of Isaac and Abraham, and biological samples suspended in jars. Then, at last, Danny takes his seat before this bearded font of wisdom, to receive the pearls we’ve waited the whole film to hear.

And they’re paraphrased lyrics from a Jefferson Airplane song.

See, this is why Marshak is so great: he’s a pure example of the Coen brothers’ inimitable talent for making the profound seem absurd, and the absurd seem profound. Even after Marshak gives the emptiest blessing one can imagine, we, as an audience, can’t help but feel that we’ve experienced something soul-changing.

The plot’s buildup, Mandell’s enigmatic performance, and our own collective respect for our elders are masterfully harnessed to fashion a joke that doesn’t feel like a joke at all. Is Marshak messing with Danny? It doesn’t seem that way: the reference to Danny’s favorite band instantly connects the two. Is Marshak senile? It doesn’t seem that way: he knows who Danny is, and returns a precious MacGuffin to him. Is Marshak, maybe, not quite as wise as we’ve been led to believe? It doesn’t seem that way, either: there’s a playfulness about him, one found only in the greatest of gurus, that says he knows better.

I don’t know if any of this is what the Coens intended their viewers to feel, but all great art allows for interpretation. I believe that Marshak, and the terrific galaxy of storytelling at which he is centered, prove the Coens to be great artists after all.

George Clooney as Harry Pfarrer

“Can’t always wear a condom, right?”

Here’s a certainty for you: George Clooney, once known as the mom’s-fantasy pediatrician on the TV series ER, will instead be remembered — unquestionably, unarguably, and immovably — as an idiot.

Thank the Coens for this, as they sought Clooney out to play no fewer than four total dopes: Ulysses Everett McGill in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Miles Massey in Intolerable Cruelty, Baird Whitlock in Hail, Caesar!, and Harry Pfarrer, my favorite of the four, in Burn After Reading.

Like the other idiots on his Coen resume, Pfarrer is genial, persuasive, and very concerned with his personal appearance. Unlike them, he’s obsessed with floors, philandering, and food allergies. When he’s not drawing ladies into his bed while his wife is out of town, he’s boasting about his work as a bodyguard, or constructing sex devices in his basement.

There’s no way to put a nice face on it; the man is simply weird. He might be a perfect example of a sociopath coasting by on charm and good looks.

Now, is that the sort of man who should be trusted with a big gun? Ask Brad Pitt, who also stars in this movie. As you might expect, this is no Ocean’s Eleven: the single exchange between the two men is wordless and brief. It always yanks a gasp from its audience, though, and Harry’s subsequent breakdown is both confusing and hilarious. Clooney may not be too proud of these roles (he famously proclaimed upon finishing this movie that “I’ve played my last idiot!”), but I think he should be grateful for them. Any good-lookin’ Joe can make a drama or romance; it takes a real actor to do funny. Good on ya, George, we love you and your idiocy.

Chelcie Ross as the Trapper

“She was often vexed with me. I seldom knew why.”

After Hail, Caesar! tanked, little was heard from the Coen brothers. For a frightful time, it seemed that they had slunk away forever, to join that gallery of failed directors who’d exhausted their goodwill.

Then Netflix, emboldened by the rising winds of streaming and Peak TV, put faith in the brothers once more. The result was The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology that almost feels like the Coens’ revenge. It’s a six-course feast of beautiful shots and bizarre events, extreme violence and playful dialogue, crusty villains and charming cowpokes. And, like all the best Coen movies, it is a meditation on the Struggle — with a capital S — to put a make on that thing that’s always remaking itself.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t have a little fun.

Buster is rife with Coen-isms, some of them traditional, others esoteric. There’s florid, extensive speech that just kisses the listening ear. There are cold, oblique stabs at the Coens’ staunchest critics. There’s an errant, noisy dog who’s more trouble than he’s worth, and there’s a slow, sad nod to the success of stupid entertainment.

Then there’s the loudmouth: a hairy, ‘coon-hatted man known only as the Trapper. The story is The Mortal Remains: the final, and most mysterious of Buster‘s tales. It plays like a particularly interesting episode of The Twilight Zone. You get five individuals on a long coach trip, one of them the Trapper, who are drawn into an impassioned philosophical discussion. That’s about the size of the whole episode, but that’s all the Coens need to weave many strange and hilarious situations. Indeed, the whole blowup begins with an interminable speech from our feculent friend.

Like Mr. Mohra, the murmuring witness from Fargo, the Trapper tells his tale like a man hurling himself from a cliff, heedless of concerns like points or meaning. Yet, it’s all so very rich: just a minute of his yammering paints years of the man’s life. Through his words, you feel the loneliness, the rejection, and the disgust with mankind that grow out of a life spent in the wild. To him, human beings are really no different from ferrets. He even lifts a romantic anecdote — a period of years spent with a native woman who doesn’t understand English — as further proof of this. After all, the sounds she made during lovemaking weren’t all that different from those an animal would utter.

The other coach riders can barely contain their irritation. This trapper simply won’t shut up — until he does, and the sudden silence is as funny as the speech itself. It bothers me that Buster will never get the audience it truly deserves, as moments like this alone outshine most anything else in theaters right now. Hurry, Netflix, hurry, and get our boys back on the trail! We’d be lost in Fort Morgan without them.

Jon Polito as Creighton Tolliver

“Oh, those fiery Mediterraneans!”

Most won’t agree with me, but I consider The Man Who Wasn’t There to be one of the Coens’ best films. Most say that it’s dry, it’s boring, it’s slow, and it’s soooo long, but what I say is, “Look at all the fast-talking kooks in this movie!”

Yeah, yeah, I know, Billy Bob Thornton is given a pitiful role in a sad story, but there is so much Coen-esque nonsense around him that I can’t knock the whole movie for it. Just look at Creighton Tolliver, a loquacious entrepreneur on the ground floor of the dry-cleaning game. Cheerful, charming, and ferociously friendly, Tolliver just wants to find an investor for his latest scheme and make a little dough.

Well, maybe he wants more than that, considering the uncomfortable pass he makes at Thornton’s character. Hey, we all have our appetites.

Polito gives a lesson in precision acting in this movie. He changes expressions from frame to frame like a cartoon character. He grins, he cheers, he pouts…he becomes the fulcrum of the entire plot, simply by appearing at the worst times possible. Nowhere will you find a less assuming figure for such things as both Plot Point 1 and Plot Point 2.

Now sadly passed, Polito was a tremendous part of the Coen actors’ stable, from the days of Miller’s Crossing, which I didn’t really care for. Most remember him as Da Fino, the P.I. who sucked at tailing in The Big Lebowski, but I’ll always think of him as Tolliver, the dry-cleaning pansy. Bless you, Polito. I hope you’re up there, soaking the angels’ gowns in perchloroethylene right now.

Harve Presnell as Wade Gustafson

“What do you think they do there? They don’t drink milkshakes, I assure you.”

Here’s a plan that can’t go wrong: You hire two thugs to kidnap your wife, extort a million dollars in ransom money from her old man, and then keep half the cash for yourself. It’s too bad that the larcenous Jerry Lundegaard of Fargo chose to deal with two bumbling oafs, as well as this, his impossible father-in-law.

Wade Gustafson, midwestern land mogul and owner of the local car dealership, is a granite wall of a man who speaks in terse growls and is always on the lookout for a scam. It’s clear from his first disinterested grunt that there’s no way he’s going to play along with Jerry’s scheme, and he digs in his heels at every step.

First off, old Wade’s immediate instinct is to offer only half a million dollars for the safety of his daughter. Second, he doesn’t trust Jerry to make the deal properly, and so he insists on being involved, which threatens to reveal Jerry’s complicity. Third, he stands up, unwisely, to the enraged Carl Showalter, sealing his own fate.

What I find fascinating about Gustafson is his own obliviousness. While he appears to hold position of great financial strength, he has no clue about the criminal world or of matters of life and death. In this regard, he’s really no more prepared for this foolish plot than Jerry is. He can’t even shoot a target at point-blank range — although he was already wearing a bullet himself at the time. His complete belief in his own alpha-male toughness proves his undoing, and when he goeth to his fall, foolishly concealing a revolver, it’s the little guy who’s kinda funny-lookin’ who brings him down. It’s a statement of a common Coen brothers theme, one that most of us would do well to remember: it’s not the toughest one who wins the showdown, it’s the one who’s least predictable.

Hooked on the Brothers

I was chatting about movies with a friend the other day, when I caught myself saying that “The Coen brothers are the finest filmmakers of our time.” I hadn’t considered my words before I used them; they just spilled out. It was weird to hear myself express something so strong without really thinking about it. I now accept that I was being completely honest. Joel and Ethan Coen have created, will hopefully continue to create, the greatest movies my generation will ever see in their first run.

Of course, superhero movies like Deadpool have all but assured us that far superior films like Hail, Caesar! will never receive the attention — or ticket sales — that they deserve. As a result, most major studios have blackballed the brothers with the dreaded red stamp of “unbankable.”

There is hope, however. Last year, the Coens took advantage of Netflix’s facility to bring us The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a wondrous western which went up for some Oscars. After years of being battered with relentless Avengers spectacle, I was refreshed to dive into that inimitable blend of humor and horror that the Coens have mixed so well over the years. God, I missed them.

Amazingly, the Coens not only direct great movies, they write them. From mere dust, they craft a gallery of memorable faces and voices. Then they gather up the world’s hugest movie stars, force them into roles that make them unrecognizable, and then get them to dance in magical, spotlight-sharing ensembles. It’s really quite miraculous.

Over the next few days, I want to share my favorite characters from the post-Fargo Coen library. I won’t be including characters from adaptations, such as True Grit or No Country For Old Men, since they aren’t characters that the Coens actually created. So, let’s start with a character from the movie that was so unduly neglected thanks to shitty superhero nonsense: Hail, Caesar!

Ralph Fiennes as Laurence Laurentz

“HOBIE DOYLE CANNOT ACT.”

The struggles of the legendary Eddie Mannix as he juggles the problems of Capitol Pictures are studded with many terrific actors, but none of them is of this caliber. For God’s sake, it’s Amon Göth in a Coen brothers film!

Here, Voldemort puts his nose back on to play a temperamental director, who is cursed with a miscast cowpoke as his newest dramatic lead. Fiennes only gets two scenes in the movie, but they’re both gold. We see him glide from cautious, star-stroking gentleness, to restrained frustration, to full-on artist’s fury, and it’s a joy. He gets one of the film’s best bits of wordplay, and he winds up key to the movie’s biggest mystery: a homosexual scandal involving George Clooney’s and Channing Tatum’s characters. Now how many movies can you say that about?

Thanos/Cable might be the center of Hail, Caesar!, and he does an admirable job, but the cold eyes of this former Nazi will always glow out of the crowd for me. God bless the Coens for bringing him into their stable. I hope they’ll work together again.