The Coen Bros. have attracted a wide following and been rewarded with Oscars and other honors. Some of their films are cult favorites and box office hits, such as Fargo , The Big Lebowski , and No Country for Old Men . Yet the team of filmmaking brothers remains misunderstood in some circles. Ethan and Joel Coen deliberately unsettle conventional expectations and raise disturbing questions about human nature while mischievously mixing film genres and styles. Their films display shocking tonal shifts as they blend comedy and drama and, most controversially, comedy and violence. This potent mélange of themes and stylistic approaches makes the Coens’ films adventurous, unpredictable probes into contemporary social anxieties. As brilliant satirists, they are heirs to Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder. But they resist easy definition and raise the ire of some critics who like films to fit more comfortably into preexisting formats. Film historian and critic Joseph McBride ― author of acclaimed biographies of Frank Capra, John Ford, and Steven Spielberg, along with critical studies of Orson Welles, Ernst Lubitsch, and Wilder ― jousts with the Coens’ detractors while defining the filmmakers’ freshness and originality. The quirkily individualistic Coens are the kind of personal filmmakers the increasingly conglomerated American cinema rarely fosters anymore, and this critical study illuminates their artistic personalities and contributions. “A marvelous and unexpected critical study of the Coen brothers from one of the great historians of American cinema. In The Whole Durn Human Comedy , McBride sets himself the task of uncovering the humanist core in a body of films too often disparaged as aloof and ironic.”―Rob King, Professor of Film and Media Studies, Columbia University, US “This book adds to current scholarship a sense of sustained respect and appreciation for the Coens’ body of work that is nonetheless tempered by the recognition that, like all artists of every kind, they are hardly unerring or infallible.”―David Sterritt, Editor in Chief, Quarterly Review of Film and Video "McBride from Wisconsin meets the Coens from Minnesota at high noon at the intersection of noir and black comedy, and the result is a supremely intelligent, passionate, riotous shoot-out in which the brothers' films are deeply analyzed, the naysayers get their just desserts, and the good guys―and readers―win."― Patrick McGilligan, author of biographies of Alfred Hitchcock, Mel Brooks, and Woody Allen “This is an outstanding study that provides fresh insight into the work of the Coen Brothers, questioning the standard view of them as cold and cynical, instead arguing for a fresh perspective that appreciates their playful cinematic virtuosity and their humane response to the conundrum of human experience.”―Robert Shail, Leeds Beckett University, UK “In a very detailed, well-researched thesis, Joseph McBride draws you into the Coen Brothers’ world. It’s like he’s gotten inside their heads―or at least their creative process. His facts, figures and knowledge will spark serious debate about the Brothers’ legacy. Fans on one side. Critics on the other.”―Dwight Brown, Film Critic, DwightBrownInk.com and NNPA News Wire Syndication "Joseph McBride, that exemplary critic and historian of the Golden Age of Hollywood, has now turned his attention to two of the most acclaimed and controversial figures of our current cinema, the Coen Brothers. But this lively, engaging volume is fully a piece with McBride’s prior work while also extending it. As he situates the Coens within contemporary filmmaking, McBride also links their rigorous attention to form with such dazzling filmmakers who have preceded them such as Billy Wilder, John Ford, Steven Spielberg, and Orson Welles, all of them subjects of earlier McBride volumes, as well as with Stanley Kubrick and Preston Sturges. What McBride terms the 'guarded idealism' of the Coens, with the complex tension in their films between caricature and empathy and where bold tonal shifts place demands on viewer expectations, is at the center of this important, highly readable and compelling new study."― Joe McElhaney, Hunter College/City University of New York, US; author of Luchino Visconti and the Fabric of Cinema “The Coen Brothers, serious artists who routinely test the limits of facetiousness, have long delighted, befuddled, and infuriated both critics and paying moviegoers, sometimes all at once. As narrative provocateurs, the Coens have so far been understandably reluctant to explain, much less justify, their peculiar aesthetic. Luckily for their fans, they have now found a proper champion (and explicator) in Joseph McBride, last seen dissecting the comedic ironies of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder with his characteristic blend of scholarship, insight, and wit. The Whole Durn Human Comedy will certainly remind you of the many unique pleasures to be found in the Coen Bros.' filmography, an