Joel Coen Quotes

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

Funny, Sometimes, Characters

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

Fun, Character, Characters

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

Work, Last, Interested

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

Time, Home, Together

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

Means, Three, Written

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

Fact, System, Beat

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

Happier, Disney, Easier

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

Hard, Everything, Tell

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

Living, Guess, Trash

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

Work, Film, Excited

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

Work, Happy, Mean

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

Yourself, Challenge, Material

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

Funny, Hope, Down

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

Almost, Open, Rule

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

True, Story, Maybe

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

Movies, Real, Around

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

Character, Different, Stars

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

Education, Age, Mother

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

Trying, Leave, Movie

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

Important, Sometimes, Story

The architecture of a story can be a little bit different if it's a true story.
Joel Coen

True, Different, Story

The characters are the result of two things-first, we elaborate them into fairly well-defined people through their dialogue, then they happen all over again, when the actor interprets them.
Joel Coen

Happen, Through, Two

The point at which we worked with some of these actors, they weren't really stars yet. Nicolas Cage was not a big star when we did Raising Arizona. A lot of these people were also virtually unknown, too, when we worked with them first.
Joel Coen

Big, Stars, Point

The question is: Where would it get you if something that's a little bit ambiguous in the movie is made clear? It doesn't get you anywhere.
Joel Coen

Made, Question, Movie

These things are hard to pin down. We work on a script a bit, then work on a different one.
Joel Coen

Work, Hard, Down

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: November 29, 1954

Links

Find on Amazon: Joel Coen

Cite this Page: Citation

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