A Life in Pictures: The Coen Brothers

13 December 07

The Academy celebrated the idiosyncratic and unforgettable contribution of the Coen Brothers to the world of film. Watch them talk about their remarkable career on stage at the Academy's headquarters.

Supported by The Farm Group.

On Thursday 13 December 2007 the Academy was delighted to welcome the BAFTA-winning director-producers Joel and Ethan Coen for A Life in Pictures event at our headquarters, 195 Piccadilly.

In front of a packed audience film critic and commentator Mark Kermode interviewed one of the most successful and critically acclaimed partnerships in film history. The brothers talked about their influences, their favourite films and the process of working together, before taking questions from a lively and engaged audience.

A Celebrated Career

Joel Coen was honoured by the Cannes International Film Festival in 2001 as Best Director for The Man Who Wasn't There and in 1991 as Best Director for Barton Fink. In 1996, he was honoured as Best Director by The New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review and the BAFTA Awards for Fargo, co-written by his brother Ethan, for which he also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The screenplay for O Brother Where Art Thou?, also co-written with Ethan, was nominated for a BAFTA and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Ethan Coen has produced and co-written such critically acclaimed films as Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, winner of the Palme d'Or, Best Director and Best Actor Awards at the 1991 Cannes International Film Festival and O Brother Where Art Thou?, which was nominated for two Academy Awards, four BAFTAs and two Golden Globe Awards. In 1996, one of the year's most honoured films Fargo, which he produced and co-wrote, received four Academy Award nominations and won two including Best Original Screenplay for Ethan and his brother Joel.

Other film credits include Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, The Ladykillers, and Intolerable Cruelty.

The brothers won the Director BAFTA for their latest feature, No Country For Old Men at the Orange British Academy Film Awards in 2008.

A Life in Pictures

The event was part of the Academy's A Life in Pictures strand of events, celebrating the art of film, exploring a major and distinctive contribution to the artistic development of the film form. This very special strand enables an audience to hear first-hand from a creative force in the industry. Previous A Life in Pictures focuses have been Paul Greengrass, Anthony Minghella , Cate Blanchett , Alfonso Cuarón and Tilda Swinton .