The Coen Brothers and Moral Discourse

If the script for critique in US religion is sadly relatable to Brian whistling about the bright side of life, what might we see if we approach Hail Caesar and Fargo_S2 seeking added depth? The first thing to notice is how legacies of Hollywood censorship—elegantly sliced and diced in Hail Caesar!—make it hard to inhabit genres that are overtly preachy or moralizing. Filmmakers often face a choice between distancing themselves from past genres or falling flat. This dynamic has transformed cops-and-robbers genres so that today—after landmark works like The Godfather, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad—plots typically have murky distinctions between good and evil and shy away from neat resolutions. The challenge is acute for films approaching Christianity directly, as Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments did in earlier years. Notwithstanding exceptions, the major terrain on which today’s film and television approaches religion demands a sort of via negativa. Either the moral compass is evoked implicitly as a road not taken, or must be understated yet bright enough to shine through layers of irony.