raising arizona (1987) the coen brothers. agenda for 2/3/10 housekeeping: roll call; reminder about...

Raising Arizona (1987)

The Coen BrothersThe Coen Brothers

Agenda for 2/3/10

Housekeeping: roll call; reminder about Coen Wiki; assignments, my Coen Bros. blog

Discussion of Raising

Screening of Miller’s Crossing : 1hr. 55 min (630-830).

Preliminary Discussion of Miller’s (830-900)



Cast




Joel: For a movie like Raising Arizona, I guess you can detect our admiration for Southern writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor

Ethan: Even if we don’t share her interest in Catholicism! But she has a true knowledge of Southern psychology that you don’t find with many other writers She also has a great sense of eccentric character. (The Coen Brothers Interviews 26)

Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner

The Sound and the FuryAbsalom, AbsalomAs I Lay DyingSartorisThe HamletA Light in AugustThe Wild PalmsGo Down, MosesIntruder in the DustThe Reivers


The book struck her directly over her left eye. It struck almost at the same instant that she realized the girl was about to hurl it. . . .

Mrs. Turpin’s head cleared and her power of motion returned. She leaned forward until she was looking directly into the fierce brilliant eyes. There was no doubt in her mind that the girl did know her, knew her in some intense and personal way, beyond time and place and condition, “What you got to say to me?” she asked hoarsely and held her breath, waiting, as for a revelation.

The girl raised her head. Her gaze locked with Mrs. Turpin’s. “Go back to hell where you came from, you old warthog,” she whispered.--Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation”

Chapter 18 of Raising Arizona: “Warthog from Hell”

My Grotesque Website

Flannery O’ConnorFlannery O’Connor

The Grotesque

Flannery O’ConnorFlannery O’Connor

Diane Arbus

"You see someone on the street," Arbus wrote, "and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.”

Diane Arbus: "You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw."

Diane Arbus: "You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw."

Chuck Jones



Parole Board chairman: They've got a name for people like you H.I. That name is called "recidivism."

Parole Board member: Repeat offender!

Parole Board chairman: Not a pretty name, is it H.I.?

H.I.: No, sir. That's one bonehead name, but that ain't me any more.

Parole Board chairman: You're not just telling us what we want to hear?

H.I.: No, sir, no way.

Parole Board member: 'Cause we just want to hear the truth.

H.I.: Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.

Parole Board chairman: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?

H.I.: Yes, sir.

Parole Board chairman: Okay, then.



Ed McDonnough: You mean you busted out of jail.

Evelle: No, ma'am. We released ourselves on our own recognizance.

Gale: What Evelle here is trying to say is that we felt that the institution no longer had anything to offer us.



Glen: How many Polacks it take to screw up a lightbulb?

H.I.: I don't know, Glen. One?

Glen: Nope, it takes three.

[Glen laughs. H.I. doesn't]

Glen: Wait a minute, I told it wrong. Here, I'm startin' over: How come it takes three Polacks to screw up a lightbulb?

H.I.: I don't know, Glen.

Glen: 'Cause they're so darn stupid!

[Glen laughs again. H.I. doesn't]

Glen: Shit, man, loosen up! Don't ya get it?

H.I.: No, Glen, I sure don't.

Glen: Shit, man, think about it! I guess it's what they call a "way homer."

H.I.: Why's that?

Glen: 'Cause you only get it on the way home.

H.I.: I'm already home, Glen.



H.I.: I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House. I dunno. They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused.



Prison Counsellor: Why do you say you feel "trapped" in a man's body?

"Trapped" Convict: Well, sometimes I get them menstrual cramps real hard.



H.I.: Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.



[an old convict and H.I. lying on their prison bunks, passing the time]

Ear-Bending Cellmate: ...and when there was no meat, we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand.

H.I.: You ate what?

Ear-Bending Cellmate: We ate sand.

[pause]

H.I.: You ate SAND?

Ear-Bending Cellmate: That's right!



Hayseed in the Pickup: Son, you got a panty on your head.



FBI Agent: Sir, we discovered you were born Nathan Huffheins.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Yeah, I changed my name. What of it?

FBI Agent: Can you give us an indication why?

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Would you shop at a store called Unpainted Huffheins?



[last lines]

H.I.: [final lines] That night I had a dream. I dreamt I was as light as the ether-a floating spirit visiting things to come. The shades and shadows of the people in my life rassled their way their way into my slumber. I dreamed that Gale and Evelle had decided to return to prison. Probably that's just as well. I don't mean to sound superior, and they're a swell couple of guys, but maybe they weren't ready yet to come out into the world. And then I dreamed on, into the future, to a Christmas morn in the Arizona home where Nathan Junior was opening a present from a kindly couple who preferred to remain unknown. I saw Glen a few years later, still having no luck getting the cops to listen to his wild tales about me and Ed. Maybe he threw in one Polack joke too many. I don't know. And still I dreamed on, further into the future than I had ever dreamed before, watching Nathan Junior's progress from afar, taking pride in his accomplishments as if he were our own. . . .



. . . Wondering if he ever thought of us and hoping that maybe we'd

broadened his horizons a little even if he couldn't remember just how

they got broadened. But still I hadn't dreamt nothing about me and Ed

until the end. And this was cloudier cause it was years, years away. But I

saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their

grandchildren too. The old couple weren't screwed up. And neither were

their kids or their grandkids. And I don't know. You tell me. This whole

dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I'm

liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It

seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a

land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable

and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.



The authentic tale from below, if it does not emerge in

full detail in Barton Fink, is the focus of Raising

Arizona, which, in this regard fills out the former film’s

failure to generate a story other than the story of that

failure. Raising Arizona, in contrast, offes the proper

kind of wish fulfillment in which the representation of

social materials is shaped into that “optical illusion” of

social harmony demanded by the mass cultural text.

The main character, H.I. (Nicolas Cage), is a career

criminal, wasting away in prison, and one night he

fantasizes what life would be like if, once released, he

married a beautiful prison guard named Ed (Holly

Hunter). H.I.’s story, which follows and constitutes the

bulk of the film, is either that dream or its actualization

in real life. (R. Barton Palmer [pictured], 129)

Coen Motifs: Howling Fat Men: The Snoates/Snopes brothers when they discover they have left the baby behindBlustery Titans: Nathan ArizonaVomiting: None, though a lot of droolViolence: Armed robbery, grenades, obliterated bunniesDreams: H.I. has several, and the whole film may be a dreamPeculiar Haircuts: H.I.’s Woody Woodpecker do, the Snoates/Snopes’ greased-back hairLost Hats: None

The Coen BrothersThe Coen BrothersFrom Tricia Cooke and William Preston Robertson. The Big Lebowski: The Making of a Coen Brothers Film. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998: 16-23.

raising arizona (1987) the coen brothers. agenda for 2/3/10 housekeeping: roll call; reminder about...

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