“It is true that most of it is shit”: the Coen brothers’ constantly conflicted relationship with Hollywood – Far Out Magazine

Just like any industry, the film business is complex. Despite being rooted in creativity, there are inevitably going to be issues of greed, corruption and all the evils that come with capitalism. The Coen Brothers get that.
However, they also get that it’s not as simple as tarnishing the entire works of Hollywood with one brush. In the same way that discussions of the music industry have to accept that good and bad can exist side by side, that things like social media can have a benefit as well as a negative, and that record labels can be just as helpful as they can be damaging, the same balance has to be applied to Hollywood.
Obviously, the issues are major. The Me Too movement shone as a glaring light on the issue of abuse and power within the world, or even looking towards the career of someone like David Lynch, who often struggled for funding because the mainstream industry still didn’t quite believe in his vision. Across each level, from nepotism to the new threat of AI, there are problems. 
But without the big money, some of the most impactful movies ever made wouldn’t exist.
“We have an odd relationship with Hollywood,” Joel Coen admitted. Despite often being seen as left-fielders in the industry, the brothers held their hands up to The Guardian in 2011, stating, “We are like Hollywood insiders now. It’s really weird.”
Their films aren’t the kind you’d typically expect to come from the mainstream industry, but as the Coens had to confront, where else are you getting the money to make it happen?
“We’ve always had pretty cordial relationships with studios—y’know, they’ve distributed and financed our movies,” Joel said, while Ethan added, “that’s the nature of this business. Box-office success, awards—it’s all very capricious, and never quite what you’d expect. But you tend to snatch your moment of favour.”
They’re pointing out the fact that while all artists strive for independence and idealise the image of being unburdened and free from the mechanics of an industry, it simply can’t really work that way.
Realistically, the only reason why the Coen Brothers are known is because of studio support. They won Oscars for Fargo because they linked up with Universal to foot the bill for the campaign. While actors might have teamed up with the Brothers solely based on vision, the fact that they now had accolades under their belt and big studios fighting to distribute their projects far and wide definitely doesn’t hurt. By 2011, when they dubbed themselves insiders, they’d worked with Focus, Paramount, Warner Brothers and weren’t far off making a Netflix movie. It doesn’t get more insider than that.
But, they get the dislike of that whole world, as Joel put it candidly, “It’s the same with music, books… most of it is naturally going to be dull. Movies—especially Hollywood movies—are an easy American whipping boy, because it is true that most of it is shit. But it’s not surprising.”
You can, however, put your own boundaries in place. “We’ve never really felt marginalised from them, except through our own choice—we don’t live in L.A., we don’t develop stuff through the studios,” Joel explained as the distance between them and Hollywood is one they put in place.
And that’s how they managed the conflict, keeping the relationships good enough to get what they want, but refusing to sell their souls.

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