The Coen Brothers' Art of The Minor Character

I'll put some music on it thank you to MU B for sponsoring this video one of the things I absolutely love about the Coen brothers is their knack for creating vibrant and interesting minor characters with Cincinnati Cincinnati it's not in here their main characters are wonderfully realized but often play a sort of straight man to a world filled with wacky and unique individuals sorry if you'd like to kiss him it would be alright thank you the spirit has flown your wire said $50 you didn't see Benny bambam before he was shot across Oh No the characters that surround the main characters often found behind a desk can I share something with you Lydia's mom what'd you do I know this kind of man yet older skin in here or a counter if you don't want to accept that I don't know what else I'm gonna do for me welcome to Los Angeles mr. Fink watch your language young fella I'm just one person so don't matter the size of the bed these minor characters are only minor in the amount of screen time they receive my god my dogs are barking we started out at this little place right off of Wilshire and quite beautiful in a lot of films the minor characters that surround the main characters are either non-existent or a bland afterthought but in a Coen Brothers film the minor characters can be just as interesting as the protagonists and villains the Coen brothers ability to quickly create interesting characters with a short amount of screen time is a critical element of their latest film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs where the anthology format guarantees almost every character will only have a short time to be developed on screen and yet in the short moments many of these characters have on screen I found myself more invested in them that I often end main characters that inhabit a lot of feature-length films these types of minor characters are non-existent in their first film Blood Simple but we'll start to see examples pop up in their second film raising Arizona well which is it young feller you want I've said freeze or get down on the ground and their use of minor characters has gradually increased throughout their filmography the brothers want these characters to immediately stand out and make a strong first impression and there are a lot of ways they do this they'll use exaggerated costumes well ma bear skin or mannerisms an obvious mood they'll introduce the character on screen in an unusual way and sometimes use small details like the dirt around the character's fingernail welcome to the hotel may I help you sir sometimes it's the posture of the character what's the rumpus or their accent oh yeah no no no mostly pretty good and even kids oh so you think I'm some kind of jerk for asking only you don't use the word jerk or the way the protagonist reacts the first time they see the character or talks about them when they're not on-screen her wants to see me and the Cohens are not afraid to let these characters momentarily take center stage and to the Dame there's one in every story ten bucks says she's looking for a handout well what about those our reps are all up there are two ways the brothers use casting to help minor characters stand out the first is by using relatively unknown actors that have an interesting look and these people catch our attention at first glance the Coen brothers have been known to put out casting calls for regular looking people and they're often looking for the types that are the opposite of extras that just blend into background long-term parking charges by the day the second way they used casting when they've employed more often in recent movies like Hail Caesar is using a relatively well-known actor for a fairly minor role a great example of this is Jonah Hill's character in Hail Caesar who appears on screen for all of a minute and 40 seconds as part of the job but examples of this go as far back as raising Arizona where they used Emmett Wolff for only two scenes perhaps most importantly these minor characters stand out because they aren't just filler the rabbi is busy they often have something the protagonist once I don't see a lot of money here or are thwarting the protagonists goals I will pay two hundred and twenty five dollars and keep the gray horse I don't want the Pope there will be no settlement after I leave this office it will go to law they create obstacles for the protagonist now we got a nice quiet little beach community here and I aim to keep it nice and quiet or are an obstacle their presence has a real effect on the protagonist the God is working in shoes which makes them an important and memorable part of the world what are you nuts there's a certain amount of subtlety and slower pacing that's usually effective for developing a main character however when trying to quickly create a memorable minor character there's often not enough time to be subtle about things the Coen brothers are a lot of things but subtle is not one of the words I would use to describe most of their filmmaking the over-the-top and exaggerated style they've perfected for their comedy films makes them well-suited to create these characters quickly hiya buddy my name's buzz I got the fuzz I make the elevator do what she does but they've also learned to apply some of those techniques more subtly in their dramatic films three years ago I said then Barry no and good having these vibrant minor characters in a film makes the world of the film feel larger and more expansive finally got I got the venue I wanted I'm performing my dance quintet you know my cycle it makes the audience feel like the place the protagonist inhabits is living and breathing and larger than just the main character the clone brothers obviously care about these characters and put just as much effort into writing directing and casting them as they do their main characters and I think it pays off of course a lot of credit goes to the individual actors that play these wonderful supporting roles so well but the Coen brothers attention to detail and willingness to be a little over the top is what has led them to create some of the most memorable minor characters we've ever seen in film [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Commission whiskers thank you - movie for sponsoring this video movie is a cinema streaming and download service with a heavy emphasis on curation it's available globally there are no ads ever they have 30 movies available in their library that you can stream or download and every day one gets added and one gets taken away it's a great way to find new interesting stuff to watch and explore new corners of cinema if you know someone who's a cinephile or film lover movie makes a great gift and when you give a year you get a month free for yourself but even if you're not giving it as a gift get your 30 day free trial today at MU b.com / thomas flight that's mu bi comm / thomas flight thank you so much for watching huge thank you especially to my patrons go to patreon.com slash thomas flight to learn about how you can support the content i make on this channel and get a few cool bonus things along the way thanks as always for watching I hope you have a great holiday and I will talk to you again next time [Music]

Channel: Thomas Flight

Views: 876,585

Keywords: The ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Coen Brothers, The Coen Brothers video essay, The ballad of buster scruggs essay, Fargo, Miller's Crossing, Minor Characters, Filmmaking, Film Writing, writing minor roles, joel coen, ethan coen, The Big Lebowski, Hail Caesar, O Brother Where ARt Thou?, video essay, film analysis, Thomas flight, Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, No Country for Old Men, The Jesus, John Turturro, Barton Fink, a serious man, true grit, inside llewyn davis

Id: GfJx5k278V4

Length: 8min 42sec (522 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 18 2018