Joel Coen in Person

January 21–29, 2023

This carte blanche series provides the very special opportunity to see eight films selected by Joel Coen, four films of his own making and four films he admires.

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  • Inside Llewyn Davis

  • The Tragedy of Macbeth

  • A Serious Man

  • Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

  • Miller’s Crossing

  • The Dead

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • A Serious Man

    • Sunday, January 29 7 PM
    Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
    United States, 2009

    Via the existential, moral, and romantic crises of physics professor and family man Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), A Serious Man ponders the limits of human agency, reason, faith, and the meaning of life in the face of an impassive, chaotic universe.

    Joel Coen and Eric Karpeles in Conversation

  • A Man Escaped

    • Sunday, January 29 4 PM
    Robert Bresson
    France, 1956

    From the true account of a Resistance leader who escaped from a Nazi prison just before he was to be executed, Bresson created a film where the drama is all internal. “Essential viewing” (Jonathan Rosenbaum).

    Introduced by Joel Coen

  • Le trou

    • Saturday, January 28 3:30 PM
    Jacques Becker
    France, 1960

    A group of convicts attempts an escape in Becker’s last film, one of the great prison-break movies and, for Jean-Pierre Melville, “the greatest French film of all time.”

    Introduced by Joel Coen

  • Miller’s Crossing

    • Saturday, January 28 7 PM
    Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
    United States, 1990

    Director’s Cut

    Replete with crackling dialogue in fluent gangster-ese, elegant production design, and affecting performances, Miller’s Crossing—a Prohibition-era period piece conjured from Dashiell Hammett’s influential novels The Glass Key and Red Harvest—is classic Coen and quintessential Hammett. “An intoxicating achievement in cinematic chemistry” (Christopher Orr, Atlantic).

    Joel Coen and Mark Danner in Conversation

  • Inside Llewyn Davis

    • Sunday, January 22 7 PM
    Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
    United States, 2013

    In New York City in 1961, on the cusp of the efflorescence of the American folk scene, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) navigates the chilly metropolis in search of a gig, a handout, and/or place to sleep, accompanied on his picaresque journey by an aptly named cat.

    Joel Coen and Timothy Hampton in Conversation

  • The Dead

    • Sunday, January 22 4 PM
    John Huston
    United States, 1987

    Adapted from the final story in James Joyce’s Dubliners, John Huston’s The Dead considers the passage of time, morality, and shared and divergent relationships amongst the guests at an Epiphany party on a snowy Dublin evening. 

    Introduced by Joel Coen

  • Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

    • Saturday, January 21 3 PM
    F. W. Murnau
    United States, 1927

    Restored 35mm Print

    Murnau handpicked Janet Gaynor to star in his first Hollywood feature. A masterpiece of silent cinema widely considered among the greatest films ever made, Sunrise tells an elemental tale with virtuosic visual invention.

    Introduced by Joel Coen; Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • The Tragedy of Macbeth

    • Saturday, January 21 7 PM
    Joel Coen
    United States, 2021

    Starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, Joel Coen’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s cursed tragedy is attentive to the power of its language while being profoundly cinematic, rendering a fog-shrouded, haunted place where fate and ambition collide. 

    Joel Coen, Frances McDormand, and Eileen Jones in Conversation