4. The Coen Brothers
Directed Memorable Performances in: O, Brother Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country For Old Men (2007), Burn After Reading (2008), A Serious Man (2009), and
True Grit (2010)Best of the Best: Billy Bob Thornton in
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) The quirky and witty sibling writing and directing team have been producing some of the most memorable off-beat dramas for the last twenty-years. Continuing from their unqualified success
Fargo, the two have continued to make their own unique take on different stories and characters. From re-imagining Homer's the Odyssey as a deep south on-the-run comedy, to chronicling the downward spiral of a normal everyday small-town college professor, to doing their own takes on the western genre in
No Country For Old Men and
True Grit. Although they tackle different subjects from movie to movie they have always managed to direct their actors in engagingly off-beat manners.
This style of theirs was never more apparent in their portrayal of isolation and alienation
The Man Who Wasn't There, starring a never better Billy Bob Thornton as the always pondering and simple Ed Crane. Narrating the twisty tale, Crane gives us insight into the alienated and isolated as he goes about his life as a barber in small-town America. He doesn't understand anyone around him, his wife, friends and neighbors are all aliens to him. He tries to go about his daily life, mayhem in the form of murder creeps into his normal life. Thornton is never better at portraying Crane's quiet disgust with the world around him, yearning for someplace he can understand. A signature character for the dynamic filmmaking sibling duo.