Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order
Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit—Joel and Ethan Coen make movies. They make movies that matter. But do these movies matter for religion?

Coen is a masterful response to this question of religious significance that neither imposes alien orthodoxy nor consigns the Coens to religious insignificance. The Coen movies discussed each receive a chapter-length investigation of the specific film's relation to the religious. Far more than just documenting religion in all Coen films—from blink-and you'll-miss-them biblical references to gospel tunes framing the soundtrack—the volume, cumulatively, mounts a compelling case for the Coens' consistent religious outlook with an original argument about precisely what constitutes religion. The volume reveals how Coen films emerge as morality tales, set in a mythological American landscape, that critique greed and self-interest. Coen heroes often confront apocalyptic and unredeemable evil, face human limitation and the banality of violence, and force audiences to wrestle with redemption and grace within the stark moral worlds portrayed on screen. This is religion on Coen terms.

Coen teaches its readers something new about religion, about film, and about the kind of world-making that each claims to be.

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Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order
Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit—Joel and Ethan Coen make movies. They make movies that matter. But do these movies matter for religion?

Coen is a masterful response to this question of religious significance that neither imposes alien orthodoxy nor consigns the Coens to religious insignificance. The Coen movies discussed each receive a chapter-length investigation of the specific film's relation to the religious. Far more than just documenting religion in all Coen films—from blink-and you'll-miss-them biblical references to gospel tunes framing the soundtrack—the volume, cumulatively, mounts a compelling case for the Coens' consistent religious outlook with an original argument about precisely what constitutes religion. The volume reveals how Coen films emerge as morality tales, set in a mythological American landscape, that critique greed and self-interest. Coen heroes often confront apocalyptic and unredeemable evil, face human limitation and the banality of violence, and force audiences to wrestle with redemption and grace within the stark moral worlds portrayed on screen. This is religion on Coen terms.

Coen teaches its readers something new about religion, about film, and about the kind of world-making that each claims to be.

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Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order

Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order

Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order

Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order

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Overview

Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit—Joel and Ethan Coen make movies. They make movies that matter. But do these movies matter for religion?

Coen is a masterful response to this question of religious significance that neither imposes alien orthodoxy nor consigns the Coens to religious insignificance. The Coen movies discussed each receive a chapter-length investigation of the specific film's relation to the religious. Far more than just documenting religion in all Coen films—from blink-and you'll-miss-them biblical references to gospel tunes framing the soundtrack—the volume, cumulatively, mounts a compelling case for the Coens' consistent religious outlook with an original argument about precisely what constitutes religion. The volume reveals how Coen films emerge as morality tales, set in a mythological American landscape, that critique greed and self-interest. Coen heroes often confront apocalyptic and unredeemable evil, face human limitation and the banality of violence, and force audiences to wrestle with redemption and grace within the stark moral worlds portrayed on screen. This is religion on Coen terms.

Coen teaches its readers something new about religion, about film, and about the kind of world-making that each claims to be.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781481302838
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Publication date: 03/15/2016
Pages: 325
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Elijah Siegler is Associate Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at The College of Charleston.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Are the Coen Brothers Religious Filmmakers? Or How Simple Is Blood Simple?

Act One: The Early Films: Reading Religion as...
1. Morality in Raising Arizona
2. Theology in Miller’s Crossing
3. World Creation in Barton Fink
4. Community in The Hudsucker Proxy

First Intermission: So Are the Coen Brothers Religious Filmmakers? Fargo between Christian Moralism and Post-Modern Irony

Act Two: The Middle Films: Analyzing Religion and...
5. Fandom in The Big Lebowski
6. Race in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
7. Money in Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers
8. The State in Burn after Reading

Second Intermission: Are the Coen Brothers Formally Coherent? No Country for Old Men between Time and Eternity

Act Three: The Later Films: Theorizing...
9. Transcendence in The Man Who Wasn’t There
10. Hermeneutics in A Serious Man
11. Death in True Grit
12. Absence in Inside Llewyn Davis

Epilogue: Hail, Caesar?

What People are Saying About This

Elegantly conceived and consistently provocative, this is the definitive work on the religious and moral aspects of the Coen Brothers oeuvre. In their range and dexterity, these essays work with the Coens’ capacious irony. In turning each of their movies anew, the collection sheds light on the particular genius of two American masters.

Amir Hussain

The Coen brothers are not just two of our finest filmmakers, but two key figures in the making of American mythology. Elijah Siegler and the splendid team of scholars he has assembled for this volume help us to better understand the vision and films of the Coens. This is a marvelous book, as much about our American selves as it is about religion and film.

John Modern

Elegantly conceived and consistently provocative, this is the definitive work on the religious and moral aspects of the Coen Brothers oeuvre. In their range and dexterity, these essays work with the Coens' capacious irony. In turning each of their movies anew, the collection sheds light on the particular genius of two American masters.

Diane Winston

A tour de force not just for cinephiles and students of religion, Coen: Framing Religion in Amoral Order is compelling reading for anyone seeking meaning, identity, and purpose in the contemporary world. Each chapter dives deeply into a Coen film, illuminating how the brothers, and by implication, all of us, tease transcendence from the heartbreak of everyday life.

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