10 Filmmakers Obsessed With ONE Thing
4. The Coen Brothers - A Lack Of Closure
The Coen brothers are two of the most consistent filmmakers working today, guaranteeing a witty, darkly hilarious good time as delivered by a spectacular ensemble cast.
But their signature trait as directors must be their tendency to leave their stories at least somewhat unfinished, concluding with a final scene which offers little true closure, often for the sake of dramatic irony.
Though their most famous non-ending is surely No Country for Old Men's defeatist climax - which netted them Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars, by the way - it's been a prominent fixture in their work, ranging from Miller's Crossing to Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, and Inside Llewyn Davis.
It speaks to the Coens' general desire to deny audiences a concrete meaning to their movies, perhaps most obviously literalised in A Serious Man, a film entirely consumed with the meaning of life, and which in its stormy climax denies both its protagonist and the audience any such concession.
It's certainly not a bad thing, even if the Coens' eccentric, wide-open endings aren't for everyone.