Image via Complex Original
Today marks the official release of the Coen brothers' 16th film. They're American masters, two of the greatest artists working in any art form today. Even if their latest, Inside Llewyn Davis, were a brick (and isn't; it's excellent), their status would still be unimpeachable. Let's talk titles: Miller's Crossing. Barton Fink. Fargo. The Big Lebowski. No Country for Old Men. Those are all universally regarded as classics, to say nothing of smaller efforts that deserve props, like A Serious Man.
There isn't one thing the Coens do poorly (unless you place a high value on having a sunny outlook on life). They operate at such a high level of excellence, you could begin talking about what makes their movies work with just about anything. Cinematography. Editing. Narrative control. Subtext. But let's talk about characters. The Coens have given us so many. What does your favorite Coen brothers character say about you?
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Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996)
Portrayed by: Frances McDormand
Oh, is dat right? Margie's your favorite character? Well, dats somethin don't-cha-know. You're sympathetic and a bit of a realist mixed with indelible optimism. In fact, you might be optimistic enough to bring a kid into a world where you just saw a guy take a trip through a wood chipper. You have a kind demeanor, but that doesn't mean you get walked all over. You're actually pretty friggin' tough despite that squishy and friendly exterior.
Solving kidnappings and conquering morning sickness, all why saying its a beautiful day? If Marge is you're favorite character, then you might be our favorite kind of person.
Llewyn Davis in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Portrayed by: Oscar Isaac
You're stuck in the past and everyone is moving faster toward the future than you are. Rather than join the race, you hold onto your role as Oscar the Grouch's BFF and snarl at anything new. You know what works, man. To Llewyn, that's his folk songs. Not some new shit that sounds like a cow throwing up. To you, modern Llewyn Davis, that's the Internet era, cat memes, and GIFs.
But you're not a Debbie Downer for no reason. There's pain behind those lost eyes, whether it be from an unrequited love, a death of a friend, or the fact that your dreams are crumbling all around you.
Tom Reagan in Miller's Crossing (1990)
Portrayed by: Gabriel Byrne
A quiet type, you fancy yourself. Not one to waste words, you say what you mean and you say it only once. That includes how you order a drink. You point to the dustiest bottle behind the bartender and announce that you want it neat.
Aside from a closet full of lengthy dusters (which you will sport late into the summer), your apartment library prominently features your copy of Ulysses which, if anyone were to care to look, was last earmarked on page 142, before you decided that you wanted to savor it and not rush through with anything. You've tried love, but it doesn't go well. Better to just get stinko than have someone look for your heart.
Maude Lebowski in The Big Lebowski (1998)
Portrayed by: Julianne Moore
After her performance with Jay Z at the MoMA, you've officially disowned Marina Abramovic and warning your artist friends that her art hadn't felt "real" for a few years anyway. When you're not accepting UPS packages in the nude, you're working as a barista; you draw a middle finger into the foam of every person that dares ask if you know how to do latte art.
You haven't completed a single art project yet so you arrogantly responded that "art doesn't work that way," every time someone asks you what you've been working on. In your playlist, right under that Ke$ha song you love, is a Fiona Apple album you can reflexively skip to should your roommate ever barges in unexpectedly.
Norville Barnes in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Portrayed By: Tim Robbins
A "Carpe diem" poster hangs very earnestly on the wall above your bed. It matches the "Success" posters in your bathroom, living room, and kitchen. You live within your means but can't help but splurge on bow ties (#menswear?). Your grandmother told you it made you handsome when you were 6, so this is how you keep her memory alive.
You have a good job but your true passion is Rube Goldberg machines. You go on dates but your relationships don't last because the second you get a girl back to your place, you excitedly insist if she would like to see your Rube Goldberg machine. This is a bad look.
Loren Visser in Blood Simple (1984)
Portrayed By: M. Emmet Walsh
Speaking plainly, you're demented—or at least your taste in fiction is. Case in point: that shoddy paperback copy of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me you keep safely tucked into your briefcase, for those long train rides home after enduring the monotonous grind of your 9-to-5 gig.
Despite all of those speed-dating events you attend, and those frequent Match.com renewal payments, you've still yet to meet the right lady to bring home and introduce to your Huey Lewis & the News Greatest Hits CD. Not to mention, that chainsaw in the closet. Yes, the Fisher-Price one. But you wouldn't hurt someone, would you?
Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski (1998)
Portrayed by: John Goodman
You unequivocally believe soccer is the most un-American activity that exists and dole your wrath upon any poor soul that meekly suggests that the bartender put on an MLS game. If it were up to you, Bill O'Reilly would be required reading in every high school curriculum; asked which one in particular, you'd scream, "all of them!"
But you have a soft side, you go fishing to get away, stuffing your canoe with every gun you own because you refuse to take any chances.
H.I. McDunnough in Raising Arizona (1987)
Portrayed by: Nicolas Cage
You're something of a charmer. That doesn't necessarily mean you could saunter into any club and get any girl's number. Your charms are more folksy. You'd woo a lady with your "Yes, ma'ams" and door-holding.
Plus you're a bit of a bad boy, which is always a hit. Not a bad boy like you're in a gang and would beat up someone's mom or something, more like you'd do anything to provide for your family.
You know, like kidnapping a kid for your wife when she's upset she can't have any of her own, and then robbing a convenience store just to clothe that baby in some diapers. Regular type stuff.
Barton Fink in Barton Fink (1991)
Portrayed by: John Turturro
Your friends love to mockingly call you "Brian Griffin," in connection to the late Family Guy dog's long-running, early seasons' joke about his unfinished novel, Faster than the Speed of Love. Despite your buddies' constant heckling, you're still plugging away at those uncompleted screenplays, as well as the epic novel for which you've been stuck on Chapter Two for the last three years. It's no wonder dinnertime meals are always accompanied by hard liquor, and the rent for that overpriced shanty of a Hollywood apartment to which you moved—to become the next Quentin Tarantino—is two months behind.
Big Dave Brewster in The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
Portrayed by: James Gandolfini
You're the cock of the walk, the living urban legend that swallows six raw eggs each morning and can wrench the subway doors open after they've closed. Your boisterous presence is so intimidating that it silences everyone around you. Or maybe it's because they're politely waiting for you to stop boasting about attending the Yeezus concert you went to last night or the new bread-maker you got from Japan.
Life is swell. You're a big fish swimming comfortably in a small pond but you're ready to move on up. It's time to flex your entrepreneurial skills and think about starting up your organic fair labor t-shirt company. Just be wary of others around you. Your confidence is easily mistaken for arrogance, which makes people think you're dense and easy to take advantage of, so choose your partners wisely.
Chad Feldheimer in Burn After Reading (2008)
Portrayed by: Brad Pitt
Though you don't realize it, you're the laughing stock of whatever gym claims your membership payments every month. It's not because you're a weakling, or even due to that skintight spandex shorts you wear while banging out those reps. It's because of how you so enthusiastically spot dudes using benches, and how much money you spend at the natural juice bar after each set. Also, listening to Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical" at an obnoxiously loud volume on your iPod while doing arm-curls doesn't help matters—those earbuds don't exactly drown out what's playing.
Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007)
Portrayed by: Javier Bardem
Like Curtis Jackson, you cry when bad guys die in movies. Which explains why you love No Country for Old Men so much, since, you know, Anton Chigurh and his sick combover win everything. Fuck ABC Family and Disney, your DVR is constantly recording FX and AMC dramas.
Speaking of which, you're still in mourning over how Breaking Bad ended. Every year on Halloween, since 2008, you've dressed as Walter White and just stood in the corner of your friend's costume party, giving everyone in attendance that death stare you often practice in the bathroom mirror. Well, except 2009, when you bought a wig and a cattle gun and creeped all of the women in Watchmen's Silk Spectre costumes on as a makeshift Anton Chigurh.
Ulysses Everett McGill in O' Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)
Portrayed by: George Clooney
You believe yourself a wickedly clever fella with a sharp tongue, in short a natural performer. You made the first traffic cop to ever pull you over regret it; you spouted off a long list of provisions and subsets of rights you pieced together from your hundreds of hours of Law & Order, fading bits of information you retained from that required Government class in college, and of course, your faith in your silver tongue. Though you got the ticket anyway. You hate Mumford and Sons because people don't appreciate the brilliant underground blue grass folk bands that aren't getting any shine.
Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr, Ph. D in The Ladykillers (2004)
Portrayed by: Tom Hanks
Wait, really? Your favorite character comes from one of the Coens' worst movies, and on top of that, the character is played by Tom Hanks. Get lost, pal. Take your smarmy accent and hit the bricks.
Charlie Meadows in Barton Fink (1991)
Portrayed by: John Goodman
Look at you, savvy Coen bros. lover—you've made an unorthodox pick. Let's break it down: First, you've picked a character from one of the the Coens' more difficult movies, Barton Fink, the only movie of theirs to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Second, you've picked the character that isn't John Turturro's Barton. You've sought out John Goodman's amazing Charlie Meadows, the maybe serial killer staying at the same hotel in Hollywood as Barton.
But aspirations to rarefied cool aside, you've made a great choice. Because Meadows is awesome. You must love torturing your artistic friends by torching their houses and screaming, "I'll show you the life of the mind!" like a maniac. That's such a good joke.
Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man (2009)
Portrayed by: Michael Stuhlbarg
Don't take this the wrong way, but are you Jewish? Because you've picked a character from the Coens' most explicitly Jewish film, one of their funniest and, surprise, bleakest. Larry Gopnik is the nebbish college professor completely at the mercy of an inscrutable and merciless universe. He might be dying. His wife is cheating on him. He's having these problems at work with a student who cheated. And at every turn, he's asked to "Accept the mystery." How's that sound to you? Fucking terrifying, right?
The Dude in The Big Lebowski (1998)
Portrayed by: Jeff Bridges
You may not have a rug, but you definitely have several Grateful Dead stickers, special edition tour posters and stray tie-dye shirts that tie all of your rooms—and car seats—together. Your whole apartment—'cause it's definitely not a house—reeks of a dense scent cocktail of incense, weed, and microwavable clam chowder. Every Friday, you stride from your unusually plush (but messy) apartment for someone underemployed to the local ATM to collect that sweet Mom and Dad money.
And you were always that way. Back in college, whenever your friends came over to your place, they complained about your five cartons of milk, bottles of vodka, and no cereal. But it's cool, you know? Roll up another. There's bowling to contemplate.