And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.
Joel Coen

Barton Fink got written very quickly, in about three weeks. I don't know what that means.
Joel Coen

I always admired Stanley Kubrick for the fact that he managed to beat the system somehow. I think he kind of had it all figured out.
Joel Coen

I couldn't have been happier with the relationship we had with Disney, it couldn't have been easier.
Joel Coen

I guess everything having to do with your background has some influence on how you tell stories but it's hard to parse how growing up in a Jewish community in Minnesota really affected it.
Joel Coen

I guess it beats throwing trash for a living.
Joel Coen

I guess there's a certain amount of poking fun at certain characters, but that's because there is something amusing about them or about the way they behave, so I guess you can say that that's poking fun at the character. But the character is your own invention, so who cares?
Joel Coen

I think when you watch the dailies, the film that you shoot every day, you're very excited by it and very optimistic about how it's going to work.
Joel Coen

I'd be perfectly happy never to have to answer anything again about how I work with Ethan, or whether we have arguments, or... you know what I mean? I've been answering those questions for 20 years. I suppose it's interesting to people.
Joel Coen

I've never really understood that. It's a funny thing; people sometimes accuse us of condescending to our characters somehow-that to me is kind of inexplicable.
Joel Coen


If the material is challenging, it forces you to challenge yourself when handling it.
Joel Coen

It's a funny thing because you look at the careers of other filmmakers, and you see them sort of slow down, and you realize, maybe this becomes harder to do as you get older. That's sort of a cautionary thing. I hope it doesn't happen to me.
Joel Coen

It's almost like a genre rule: Don't Open The Box.
Joel Coen

Maybe our telling of the story wasn't as clear as it should have been, but I don't think that's true. In terms of understanding the story, it comes across.
Joel Coen

Maybe there should be less of a mystique around making movies. I just don't think that there's any real mystery there.
Joel Coen

Other kinds of movie stars, it's a different thing, they bring their persona to the part and that's what people like to see, and they are not really transforming in terms of their character.
Joel Coen

Our mother was a very religious and observant Jew, our father less so. She was kind of driving the religious education, so for us it was more a burden and an obligation when we were kids at that age.
Joel Coen

People that have been interested in our work for awhile... those are the last people you want to disappoint.
Joel Coen

Some people come out going, I don't get it. And I don't quite know what they're trying to get, what they're struggling for. We have had the reaction where people leave the movie sort of uncomfortable and befuddled. Although that wasn't our intention.
Joel Coen

Sometimes, in certain stories, I think we know at the outset essentially what the tone is going to be, or it becomes important that we're groping toward some kind of story with a certain kind of tone that we both get somehow. But I don't think how that's combined with other elements is ever in any way overtly discussed.
Joel Coen