Why is he uncredited in about half of the Coen movies?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Joel Coen
mattiasflgrtll6 — 10 years ago(November 07, 2015 06:56 PM)
I don't mean as a writer of course, but as a director. In every single movie before The Ladykillers, he's literally NEVER credited. Why is that? It seems a little unfair to make Ethan take all the spotlight for the directing when Joel is a trustful partner.
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franzkabuki — 10 years ago(November 15, 2015 10:25 AM)
As for their respective credits though, they used to have an agreement that Joel gets the director's credit and Ethan gets the producers, even though in reality they both directed and produced together (there was some kind of problem with double credits, the precise nature of which I can't recall at the moment). As a matter of fact, until now I hadn't even noticed they've been both getting the director's credit starting with The Ladykillers. Wonder how that could happen.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan -
snowman-94299 — 9 years ago(April 11, 2016 10:39 PM)
About 15 years ago, I read an article somewhere that there was some sort of Director's Guild of America rule that two individuals could not share name credit for directing a film (ie they could not be credited as "Joel Coen and Ethan Coen"). The Wachowskis got around that rule by having the credit read "The Wachowski Brothers" (same with the Hughes brothers).
For whatever reason, the Coen brothers did not want to use the "brother" credit and so agreed to give Joel the Director credit and Ethan the Producer credit. It may also be that since they predated the Wachowskis and the Hughes that they did not challenge the DGA rule in that fashion. I suspect the Wachowskis and Hughes challenged the DGA rule and were allowed to use the "brother" credit as a compromise. The b68Coens probably just continued to use their old practice for credits until the rules changed and two individuals could be credited.