Last year I gave up beer for Lent. I am not a practicing Catholic in any form, and I only made it to St. Patrick’s Day, which I called an Irish Lent. The thought was that I had just indulged during the Carnival season in New Orleans and an imposed limitation on beer would encourage some healthy behavior. Instead, I ended up drinking more tequila.
With that in mind, I decided this year to give up some beer-like indulgence for which the “tequila” replacement is something I’ve been actively missing in my life. So I’m giving up Television for the next 40ish days with the intention to fill the that screen time with films. I used to be an avid movie-watcher, back when I had unlimited rentals at the nearby Hollywood Video and before binge-watching TV was common or even possible. I’ve tried in this era of high-quality series to be selective about the shows I watch. Why watch something mediocre—or even something good that doesn’t quite do it for me personally—when I can certainly find something very good that does do it for me. Still, I have found that even with the highest quality shows available, it can be one hell of a time suck.
I just don’t watch movies in the same way I used to. Bingeable TV has hardwired my brain for a certain type of narrative consumption. That, combined with the formula-fed high budget blockbusters that I often indulge in myself, means that 20 year-old me was more willing to sit down and watch a challenging artistic drama than 30 year-old me, who would rather watch an Avengers Movie for the third time or a season of The Office for an umpteenth time than finally watch a classic like Chinatown. At some point in the past ten years I went from renting every gritty 70s film I could get my hands on to Netflix binging TV shows and often rewatching shows I’ve already seen.
I’m not saying that consuming TV is an unworthy endeavor. I think there are a lot of great shows out there and by all means, we should enjoy them. TV has the time and space to build mythologies, to let characters and relationships develop in complex and nuanced ways, and that extensive world- and story-building can often pay off beautifully. I just miss movies—the discreet experience of it, the contained story arc, the efficiency of plot and character development. With a TV show, you know the characters, you know the world, you know the visual language, and so you get to revel in the plot, and you’re often propelled forward by twists and turns.
With a movie, you’re starting fresh, and so it takes a little more work. Which is why I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this rise of television has coincided with an era of movies that has more reboots and sequels filling theaters. We’ve just fallen out of the habit of putting in the work, of consuming something without knowing what to expect. I’ve noticed that I often don’t watch serious new releases until after the Oscar buzz is so developed that I know what I’m getting into, or I’ll wait a few years until there is a common critical and popular consensus. Long gone are the days that I would rent a decades-old movie because I liked the cover at the video store, or just because I liked the actor or director.
So now, I just want to put in that little bit of work and try to watch a bunch of movies with a blank slate. I want to fill some of the gaps in my film knowledge in terms of classics, old and new. I want to watch fun things I’ve always meant to watch but didn’t. I’m sure along the way I will revisit some old favorites, too, but I plan to have more first views than rewatches.
I also want to do a little extra work and write about some of these movies. I think I would have enjoyed being a film critic, so I’ll try it on as a hobby, likely with an audience of few to none. It’ll be good to stretch the old writing muscles for things other than my day job at The Nature Conservancy.
Besides the general rule of no television—a rule I will break for just a couple shows Maddy and I watch together weekly—I’m going to layer in a specific project. I’m going to watch the entire Coen Brothers filmography in order and record my thoughts in a series of essays. Why the Coen Brothers? First and foremost, I love their work. A lot of other people do too, and there is plenty of great discussion and criticism for each of their films. Their body of work is also incredibly varied—both in terms of genre and quality, although when it comes to quality they are exceptional. Their best films of masterworks. Their middling films would be considered top-tier in other people’s filmography. And for the most part their worst films still have ideas worth talking about.
This is not a unique project. I was initially inspired when Christopher Orr at The Atlantic did it a couple years ago. Recently, I listened to an episode of The Big Picture Podcast where they discussed the Coens’ work extensively with author and critic Adam Nayman, whose book The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties The Films Together is yet an even more expansive text that covers every single film and is currently on its way to my house. I don’t expect that I’ll have any particularly hot takes or uncover anything that hasn’t been said, but I figured why not take an active step into the conversation.
Despite how different their films can be, I expect to notice common threads and echoes when I’m doing this chronological viewing of their 18 films. I’ve seen all but 4 already (marked with an asterisk below), some many times, others just once. I want to watch them all with an open mind, even those I think I have grip on. One of the great things about the Coens is that they can be dense and subtle, and you always notice something new, even on your 17h viewing of The Big Lebowski. They are so referential—to history, other films, and to themselves—that often you’ve acquired some new knowledge between viewings that changes your perspective. I’ve consumed a good deal of criticism on them in the past, but I will avoid reading about each film before I watch it to maintain some sort of objective blank slate.
I intend to write about at least the Coen movies, but maybe I’ll write some other stuff along the way. We will see!
- Blood Simple*
- Raising Arizona
- Miller’s Crossing
- Barton Fink
- The Hudsucker Proxy*
- Fargo
- The Big Lebowski
- Brother, Where Art Thou?
- The Man Who Wasn’t There*
- Intolerable Cruelty*
- The Ladykillers
- No Country For Old Men
- Burn After Reading
- A Serious Man
- True Grit
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Hail, Caesar!
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Colin May Or May Not 