I just saw the A&E Biography on the Coen Brothers so I can add a couple of lines here:
The
Coen Brothers got started in
filmmaking as
kids, making
silly movies with their
friends in
Minnesota.
Joel went on to
NYU to study
film, whereas
Ethan went to
Princeton to
major in
Philosophy (of all things!) One of
Joel's early jobs was as an
assistant editor on
Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (
1982). Around that time, the two started working together, writing
screenplays for
low budget movies. Eventually they were given the
opportunity to make a
film themselves,
Blood Simple (
1984), which was
critically acclaimed, as have just about all
Coen Brothers movies been.
Although not a formal division of labor, of the two, Ethan is usually more concerned with issues of plot and story whereas Joel is more concerned with issues of dialog and action. They tend to work very quickly -- in fact Barton Fink was written in the middle of the writing of Miller's Crossing.
Anyhow I want to know what kind of crack Madas is smoking to say that Fargo is "more obscure" than Barton Fink.