The pandemic is awful, obviously, but there have been some highlights inspired by it. One of those highpoints is Team Deakins, the podcast that legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins—known for his work with the Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, and Denis Villeneuve, among many others—started with his wife and digital workflow consultant James Ellis Deakins. Their podcast has included many guests that the Deakins have worked with including Sam Mendes, John Crowley, and Denis Villeneuve.
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Their latest podcast episode features a longtime friend and collaborator, Joel Coen, one half of the directing duo the Coen Brothers, that has worked with Roger almost exclusively since 1991—12 features in total including “The Big Lebowski,” “Fargo,” and “No Country For Old Men.”
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The one-hour-and-twenty-minute podcast covers their entire career, but there are tons of nuggets strewn throughout. One of the early highlights is Joel explaining how the Coen Brothers have had final cut since their very first movie, “Blood Simple” (1984). The short version: “Blood Simple” was financed independently, in a Limited Partnership business agreement. “They have no liability, but they have no say,” Coen explained about his investors. This led to the Coen Brothers essentially telling 20th Century Fox, who produced their second movie “Raising Arizona,” we had final cut the last time, why would we give it up now?
“At the time, had there been a studio or legitimate production company willing to [finance the movie], but also have a say in how it’s done, we would have said, ‘sure, let’s do that,’ he explained. “But no such company was forthcoming. But because of that, because we have final cut, unlimited freedom to do what we wanted to do on our first movie, we got used to it.”
READ MORE: Denzel Washington & Frances McDormand To Join Joel Coen’s ‘Macbeth’ Adaptation From A24
When “Raising Arizona” came around the brothers thought to themselves, “Why should this be any different? Why should anyone have any say in what we’re doing?” And so the deal with Fox remained that the Coens would have final cut and they’ve retained it for their entire career since. “The deal with [20th Century Fox] was, no, we have final cut and you can’t say anything about what we’re doing and so we’ve always had that kind of control.”
Nice work if you can get it and FYI to young filmmakers I guess.
One of the more controversial choices the Coen Brothers have made is switching to digital photography after years of holding out. While they said they were likely switching to digital in 2013, it wasn’t until 2018’s “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” that they finally made the decision to stop shooting on film. Coen suggested the switch was an inevitability (Deakins himself said the technical challenges of film in a digital world meant shooting on film was over in 2016) but also talked about the benefits of digital photography.
Coen said he was a longtime proponent of shooting on film, but has changed his tune now. “I’m completely sort of enamored now with certain aspects of digital photography,” he admitted with a laugh. “But it’s just like anything else. You go, ‘it’s a technological medium, the technology moves on, the technology on balance almost always affords possibilities you wouldn’t have had earlier and you don’t want to lose and go backward.”
Coen did lament some of the characteristics of film, however. “There are other aspects of the old technology that wither, and it’s very unfortunate that those things then get lost forever because they are not practiced anymore. Those are parts of the art form that essentially disappear and it’s the disappearance of those things that you mourn even though you know you need to keep marching on.”
Asked about his favorite filmmakers, Coen rattled off some of the usual suspects—Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, and Federico Fellini, but also how he’s come around to Orson Welles and John Ford, filmmakers he didn’t love when he was younger (“Yeah, I know [Orson Welles] is a genius, but I just don’t like his fucking movies!” Coen laughed).
As for contemporary filmmakers? Cinephiles note: Joel Coen loves Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev (“Leviathan,” “Loveless”). “He’s amazing,” Coen said. “He’s never made a bad movie. He was born to make [movies], that’s his medium. He’s not a writer, not a painter; he’s a guy who should be making movies.”
Next up for Coen is an adaptation of “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” starring Denzel Washington and McDormand and it’s perhaps most notable for being the first movie Joel will be making without his brother Ethan. The reasons why have never been explained, and he doesn’t speak about the movie, much at all. But one minor clue as to the split on this one may be the fact that Joel describes it as very un-Coen Brothers-eque.
Asked about what kind of movies he’s like to make, given his eclectic career that has covered all genres, he says, “Well, the next thing I’m doing is Shakespeare, which is completely, completely out of my wheelhouse, but was very interesting.” That’s all we get, but file under Joel Coen’s Macbeth will be very different from what we usually get from this filmmaker.
Continuing the thread, Coen said he would never make an outer space movie (cross that one off your list) and doesn’t think he’ll ever make a Western again—he loves them, but it all “Westerned-out” despite loving the genre.
Well, there you have it. If that seems a lot, well, it’s nearly an hour and half podcast talk, and really, this just scratching the surface. Listen to the entire podcast below and subscribe because you’re likely going to want to make this essential weekly listening if you haven’t already.