With landmark films such as Fargo O Brother Where art Thou? Blood Simple andRaising Arizona the Coen brothers have achieved both critical and commercialsuccess.... » 

With landmark films such as Fargo O Brother Where art Thou? Blood Simple andRaising Arizona the Coen brothers have achieved both critical and commercialsuccess. Proving the existence of a viable market for small films that arealso intellectually rewarding their work has exploded generic conventions amidrich webs of transtextural references. In Joel and Ethan Coen R. BartonPalmer argues that the Coen oeuvre also forms a central element in what mightbe called postmodernist filmmaking. Mixing high and low cultural sources andblurring genres like noir and comedy the use of pastiche and antirealistelements in films such as The Hudsucker Proxy and Barton Fink clearly fit thepostmodernist paradigm. Palmer argues that for a full understanding of the Coenbrothers unique position within film culture it is important to see how theyhave developed a new type of text within general postmodernist practice thatPalmer terms commercialindependent. Analyzing their substantial body of workfrom this generic framework is the central focus on this book. «