When the Oscar nominations were announced back in January, few were surprised that There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men led the way with eight nods. Searing visions of life in the American West, both struck a chord with critics from coast to coast. Each picture also marked a powerful return to form for the creative masterminds involved: Blood‘s Paul Thomas Anderson and No Country‘s Ethan and Joel Coen had lost their way in recent years. These movies returned them to critical and popular attention.
But as great as they were, something felt different. Blood and No Country looked like products created by Anderson and the Coen brothers–and yet, at the same time, they didn’t. A key ingredient was missing, something that escapes attention at first but becomes more obvious in retrospect: There were no familiar faces on the screen.
This isn’t to say there were no stars. Who hasn’t seen a handful of Tommy Lee Jones movies? And Daniel Day-Lewis may not be Tom Cruise, but he’s turned in his fair share of memorable performances over the years. No, what I mean is that there were no faces common to the movies of Anderson or the Coen brothers. There were no regulars.
For the past quarter-century, Ethan and Joel Coen have made films focused on petty criminals and the consequences of their actions. No two films were directly connected, but there was a certain continuity. The same faces popped up again and again, like seldom-seen neighbors reminiscing at the annual block party: “Oh, there’s John Goodman in Raising Arizona and O Brother, Where Art Thou? It’s nice to see Jon Polito in The Man Who Wasn’t There; we lost touch after The Big Lebowski. Frances McDormand again? She comes to everything.”
Paul Thomas Anderson’s body of work is much thinner than the Coens’, but his two most celebrated films had substantial cast continuity. Boogie Nights and Magnolia each featured turns by Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alfred Molina, Ricky Jay, and Luis Guzmán. Though Punch-Drunk Love, Anderson’s quirky take on the romantic comedy, dropped most of those actors it still featured memorable performances by Hoffman and Guzmán.
No such overlap existed in their films last year, and each was its creators’ best product in almost a decade. Compare that with the work of another Anderson returning to the big screen in 2007. The Darjeeling Limited starred Owen Wilson and featured Bill Murray; both have appeared in all but one of Wes Anderson’s movies. The Indian character actor and Anderson favorite Kumar Pallana returned, as well, as did Jason Schwartzman, the idiosyncratic star of Rushmore.
Critics collectively shrugged their shoulders, and audiences did the same: This was Anderson’s worst grossing major release. While it’s hard to pinpoint a reason for Darjeeling‘s poor performance, I’d venture a guess that audiences are tired of seeing the same family squabbles and cute dialogue played out on screen over and over again. You might also argue that Wilson should be contributing in a more constructive way, as Anderson’s cowriter. Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums were all written by Wilson and Anderson, but since Wilson’s departure from screenwriting, the films have suffered.
As Field Maloney suggested a few years ago, “What if Owen Wilson, America’s resident goofy roué with the broken nose and the lazy nasal drawl, was the rudder keeping USS Anderson on course, steering its captain away from solipsism and ironic overload?”
Wes Anderson isn’t the only director employing a familiar troupe to diminishing returns. Christopher Guest, the mockumentary filmmaker behind Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration, always works with the same core group of actors. In addition to cowriting those titles with Guest, Eugene Levy stars as well. Joining them in all three films are Michael McKean, Fred Willard, John Michael Higgins, Parker Posey, and Jennifer Coolidge. Not joining them are audiences: Their most recent production grossed less than $6 million. As with Wes Anderson, the Guest formula has grown stale, and you have to wonder just how much that familiarity has dampened audience enthusiasm.
A director working with a familiar cast is neither new nor something to be avoided. Orson Welles and the members of his Mercury Theatre Company appeared in several of Welles’s early pictures, including Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. Another directing Anderson (a Brit, Lindsay) worked with the same group of actors so often on stage and on film that they came to be known as the Lindsay Anderson repertory.
Directors often form connections and tight working relationships with individual actors. Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro were very close, pairing up eight times in the 20 years between Mean Streets and Casino; Leonardo DiCaprio appears to be Scorsese’s new squeeze, starring in three of his movies during the last five years. Johnny Depp often lends a certain gothic sensibility to Tim Burton’s pictures–including this year’s winner for best musical/comedy at the Golden Globes, Sweeney Todd–and Ben Affleck has brought his idiotic grin to every Kevin Smith movie since his breakout hit, Clerks.
I point out these examples to show that there is nothing inherently wrong with a director leaning on familiar actors. But it’s important not to get caught in a rut. Now and again directors need to do something really creative and unexpected. This isn’t the first time that the Coen brothers have ditched the regulars: Their 1994 homage to the old screwball comedies, The Hudsucker Proxy, starred no one the Coens had worked with before (though Charles Durning would go on to appear in several of their films). It wasn’t a blockbuster at the time, and critical reaction remains mixed, but it’s fair to say Hudsucker has become one of their more discussed films. (In truth, the movie feels more like a Sam Raimi flick; in addition to serving as the cowriter and second unit director, the Spider-Man director brought along his most frequent contributor, B-actor Bruce Campbell.)
No Country for Old Men may not be quite as different as Hudsucker, but it certainly isn’t like anything the Coen brothers have done recently. There Will Be Blood‘s setting and subject matter are certainly a break from Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous features. It’s good for directors to climb outside the box now and then. And it’s nice to see they were rewarded for it on Oscar night.
Sonny Bunch is assistant editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
