Last year’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” marked filmmaker Joel Coen’s first time going solo following decades-long collaborations on-screen with his brother Ethan Coen.
The split wasn’t seen as one of tension between the pair, rather both Joel and the pair’s long-time collaborator Carter Burwell indicated in interviews that Ethan was pretty much done making movies.
Then, Ethan and editor (and wife) Tricia Cooke surprised the Cannes Film Festival last month with the announcement of the inclusion of the documentary “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind” which he directed in his first solo outing. Talking with the Associated Press, the younger Coen brother discussed his change of interests:
“Oh, nothing happened, certainly nothing dramatic. After 30 years, not that it’s no fun, but it’s more of a job than it had been. The last two movies we made, me and Joel together, were really difficult in terms of production. I mean, really difficult. So if you don’t have to do it, you go at a certain point: Why am I doing this?
Going our own separate ways sounds like it suggests it might be final. But none of this stuff happened definitively. None of the decisions are definitive. We might make another movie. I don’t know what my next movie is going to be after this. The pandemic happened. I turned into a big baby and got bored and quit, and then the pandemic happened. Then other stuff happens and who knows?”
The two films he’s likely referring to are 2016’s “Hail Caesar” and 2018’s “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”. Reviews for “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind” out of Cannes have been good and A24 controls worldwide rights to the film.
