The new exhibition celebrates one of the most important film releases of the fall, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS by ETHAN COEN.
Since Tuesday 3 October 2023
“THE COEN BROTHERS AND 25 YEARS SINCE THE BIG LEBOWSKI”
A stunning collection, designed as a celebration: on the one hand, the 25th anniversary since the release of The Big Lebowski – made unforgettable by the extraordinary performance of Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” –, on the other hand the imminent release of Drive-Away Dolls by Ethan Coen.
THE EXHIBITION
“THE COEN BROTHERS AND 25 YEARS SINCE THE BIG LEBOWSKI” is the tribute that Soggettiva Gallery reserves to the films by the Coen Brothers on the occasion of the release of their new road-movie Drive-Away Dolls, scheduled for October 5, 2023
THE ARTWORKS
The Big Lebowski is the absolute protagonist of the show : the posters by Dave O’Flanagan and Malone offer an unprecedented point of view on this extraordinary cult. Particularly original is the reinterpretation offered by Casey Callender, which mixes Lebowski with Steven Spielberg’s E.T imaginery. The exhibition includes works dedicated to Coen films such as No Country for Old Men, Fargo, True Grit, Barton Fink and Blood Simple.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DUDE!
Upon its release on US screens in 1998, The Big Lebowski did not get the expected response. Yet, in the following years, the film has turned into a real cult object and will soon return to the cinema in a restored version by the Cineteca di Bologna.
What are the reasons for such an idolatry towards this film? First of all, the mix of genres such as noir, musical, western, among which the comic and ironic register is imposed. Secondly, cinematic allusions and quotations. Finally, the dreamlike and surreal aspect, which enriches the narrative with recourse to the dream and the grotesque.
THE COMEDIES
Awarded in 1991 at Cannes FIlm Festival, Barton Fink is the title that made the two brothers of Minnesota famous for the first time, and still remains one of their most fascinating and mysterious films.
Inside Llewyn Davis is dense with emotions, artistic talent and the typical Coen Brothers’s grotesque atmosphere. The laughter, the bizarre expressions of the characters, the hypnotic atmospheres and the original car movements make it an essential part of the cinematography of Joel and Ethan Coen.
KILLERS AND DETECTIVES
Half road movie and half theater of the absurd, but also acute black comedy able to skillfully blend comedy and tragedy in a continuous reflecting game between literature, theater and life, Fargo is a great example of fiction, yet, on the black screen, an epigraph warns us that what we are about to see is inspired by true story.
The story of Blood Simple follows a noir plot, with a love triangle, murders, blood and tension: but the ability of the Coen Brothers (Joel, credited as director, and Ethan, only as producer) is precisely in subverting the rules of a genre that they know well and with which they have grown, in order to deconstruct and restructure it in a totally different and atypical way.
NEW WESTERN
With No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers return to their origins, to their favorite atmospheres, examining the many consequences that pure chance can bring with it in human relationships. For the first time in his career, the Minneapolis duo wrote a screenplay adapting a text by a well-known author, Cormac McCarthy.
When they approach a new genre Coen Brothers always make it their own, using it to blend their poetics of the transience of the human being, but at the same time they deeply respect the rules of the genre itself: that’s what happens for True Grit and for the western genre that the film belongs to.
GANGSTERS
If there is one thing that the Coens know how to do it is to build surprising plots, with complex and often brilliant twists. Miller’s Crossing makes no exception: while displayinga substantial linearity at the narrative level (no flashbacks), this does not prevent the Coen to enact unpredictible turns.
A “TWO-HEADED” DIRECTOR
Coen films and characters are very difficult to forget, succeeding in insinuating themselves into the deepest meanders of our psychology: a cinema capable of expressing lightness and crude originality at the same time, just like the Alternative Movie Poster exhibited at Soggettiva Gallery.
SOGGETTIVA GALLERY
Via Pasquale Sottocorno 5/A, 20122 Milano
3357722437 – 3458463222
Opening hours: Tuesday-Friday / 10–20.30
Saturday and Sunday / 10-13.30 16-19.30
