FILM AND OTHER MEDIA

Coen brothers' neo-noir: The Man Who Wasn't There and James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice

By means of an intertextual analysis the text interprets the Coen brothers’ film The Man Who Wasn’t There and argumentatively defends the three assumptions: (1) that the Coen brothers shot most of their films inspired by classic film noir and hard boiled fiction; (2) that the neo-noir films of the Coen brothers are composed of a series of self-reflexive citations and references from a large number of films; (3) that even though the Coens rely on a large number of references, they basically build their films adapting one film or one novel, upgrading it in details with citations or allusions from a wide range of other texts. The text particularly dedicates attention to James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice which served as a model for the Coen brothers’ film.

Ljubomir Maširević