Page - 114 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

114 | Christian Wessely www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 113–120 they are screenshots from widescreen versions on differently sized monitors (see, for example, pp.193f.) or are poorly trimmed (for example, pp. 209 and 253). They are, however, all carefully placed and important illustrations for the respective text. Refer- ences are grouped at the end of the book. This practice – unfamiliar to European eyes – benefits the reader. My preference for footnotes – which seem to me better suited to scholarly reading and looking up references – is merely a matter of taste. The editor chose to group the articles by the period the films were produced in – after the introduction by the editor, the first part thematises the “early” films from Raising Arizona (1987) to The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). After an intermission on Fargo (1996), the second part deals with the “middle” films (from The Big Lebowski [1998] to Burn After Reading [2008]). Another intermission on No Country for Old Men (2007) separates part two and three, the latter claiming to cover the “later” films (A Serious Man [2009] to Inside Llewyn Davis [2013]). The book concludes with an epilogue on Hail, Caesar! (2016). This classification is as good or as bad as any other. While the editor is not fully consistent in terms of a timeline, each part and chapter has a systematic subtitle (Reading Religion as … , Analyzing Religion and … , Theorizing …) offering an alternative criterion for the inner choreography of the book (thus, for example, The Man Who Wasn’t There [2001] can be found amongst the “later” films). The references are consistent and clear; the index provided at the end of the book contains names, film titles, and keywords – (too) short, but useful. The list of con- tributors provided is helpful, too, given that I knew few of the authors. What I miss, however, is a bibliography – if a second edition should be printed, I highly recommend its inclusion. CONTENT In his introduction, Siegler presents the Coen brothers as persons and as filmmakers and frames the research question of the book: “What do their films mean?” (p. 1). He does not hesitate to put his finger on a sore spot, pointing out that the Coens’ films are generally open to an interpretation that favours a moral order at least implicitly, but that they also may well be the intellectual and skilful études of two undoubtedly gifted directors who, at some point, chose to test the patience of the audience and its willingness to take seriously what I might consider rubbish (Burn After Reading would be my evidence for the latter interpretation). Artists, yes, but “postmodern contempt artists” (p. 4) feeling unbound to any code or iconic literacy… or, indeed, artists who enfold a hitherto unseen potential for transmitting moral concerns be- tween the lines and are deeply rooted in North American and/or European tradition? Siegler uses Blood Simple (1984, the Coen brothers first official film) to consider the (in)sincerity of this approach. Although I am not convinced that sheer counting (“the hero of Miller’s Crossing is addressed as “Jesus” almost thirty times” [p.9]) or im- plicit reference to biblical allusions is more than just an attempt to link to some rel-