Sculpture on Film #2: The Coen Brothers and Frederic Remington

This post combines two things I really like doing: watching Coen Brothers films and pointing out sculptures by Frederic Remington. Remington is one of America's best-known artists of Western subjects. He was active in the art world from the early 1880s until his death in 1909, producing scores of paintings, small bronze sculptures and magazine illustrations glorifying the American West, a subject that by the end of the 19th century was already ripe with nostalgia. Remington's work doesn't always appeal to me - it usually has an air of rah-rah Americana that is a little over the top for me - but I find his small bronzes to be rather compelling. I first began looking at them for comparison purposes when I was working on similarly-scaled bronzes by James Edward Kelly for my undergraduate thesis, and since then, I've noticed that Remington sculptures have a tendency to pop up in unexpected places, from films to antique stores to bed and breakfasts, and more.

The Bronco Buster, first copyrighted in 1895, is probably Remington's most recognizable sculpture:


Hundreds of authorized casts and untold numbers of unauthorized casts of the exist; the one above, cast in 1918, is from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the most famous individual Bronco Buster casts, though, and one of the best for eagle-eyed TV and movie viewers, is the cast that belongs to the White House collection. Given as a gift during the Carter administration, the sculpture resides in the Oval Office, and is thus constantly working its way into the frame, both with real-life presidents and with fictional presidents.

Real president:


Fake president:


Oh, and then there was this one time when I was in this weird store at Caesar's in Vegas, and they had a Bronco Buster that was about eight feet tall, and it was for sale!


Not really sure who the intended audience for this thing is, or who might buy it, but I thought it might be worth bringing up in a post about Remington.

But where was I? Weren't we talking about the Coen Brothers?

I noticed a few years ago that bronze sculptures and other works of art tend to show up in the background in Coen Brothers films A LOT. There are a lot of examples, but today I'm going to focus on two that feature Remington, one from Fargo and the other from Burn After Reading. Interestingly, both of these scenes feature characters who decide to pull the rug out from under close family members.

The first is Fargo. William H. Macy's hapless car salesman arrives at a meeting with his much wealthier father-in-law, played by Harve Presnell. Macy is looking for a loan for a real estate deal, but as the conversation progresses, it becomes clear that the father-in-law has no intention of lending the money, that he holds nothing but barely veiled contempt for his son-in-law, and that furthermore, he plans to cut Macy out of the deal entirely and use his money to fund the purchase for himself. And meanwhile, Remington's Bronco Buster and Cheyenne (copyright 1901) look on:


If you've seen Fargo, you know that this conversation, spurred by Macy's desperate search for money, begins a devastating chain of events that results in several deaths.

Remington's Cheyenne (the same cast perhaps?) witnesses another scene of familial cruelty in Burn After Reading:


This time, the sculpture resides in the office of Katie Cox's (Tilda Swinton) lawyer. During the scene in question, she negotiates with her lawyer to bring divorce proceedings against her husband, played by John Malkovich. Not only is the divorce a complete surprise to her husband, but she accompanies the announcement by freezing his assets and changing the locks on their Washington, DC townhouse. As in Fargo, this action sets off a desperate chain of events, this time played for broadly comic effect.

So what does this say about the Coens' opinion of people who own and display Remington sculptures? I'm almost afraid to speculate.

Personal note: Once again, I'm realizing that other responsibilities are keeping me away from blogging as much as I'd like. I'm going to keep posting as much as possible in the next six weeks, but look for much more regular posts after September 1! I'm going to be relocating to DC in September, and I'm hoping I'll get a lot of new inspirations for blogging in that environment.

Sculpture on Film #1: My Cousin Vinny

Part of watching a movie with me is dealing with the fact that I spend a lot of time scrutinizing the frame around where the main action is happening for fun or worthwhile visual things, and when I find one, I tend to tug on the sleeve of whoever is sitting next to me to whisper about it, because I have a hard time keeping things to myself. This new feature, which will repeat at random whenever I have material for it, is the blogging version of my annoying whispering in the dark. Here, I hope to share films with scenes that prominently feature sculpture.

First up: My Cousin Vinny (1992)! This movie is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, at least partially due to my ongoing and slightly embarrassing crush on Ralph Macchio, and also for the fun it has with its goofy North v. South plotline, and for Marisa Tomei and her *thunk-thunk* biological clock. I had to come up with a way to justify watching it over and over again, and thankfully I found one that is related to my dissertation.

The first time we meet Joe Pesci in the film, he is driving his big, outrageous convertible into a sleepy Southern hamlet to defend his cousin and a friend, wrongfully accused of murder. As rock music blares, shots of Pesci's car are intercut with the locals, who are utterly shocked to see such a person pulling into their town. What interests me is the town itself: one of those typical Southern county seats, with the wide town green in front of a grand courthouse. The setting is supposed to be in Alabama:


Pesci gets out of the car first, followed by Marisa Tomei:


And what's that behind her? Why, could it be a Confederate war memorial? I think it might be!

Whoever was in charge of scouting locations for this film really did a great job. A lot of the film's exterior scenes take place in this town square, and it really adds a lot to the kind of juxtapositions that are so integral to the movie's storyline. It's a popcorn, Saturday afternoon kind of film, yes, but its visuals tell a compelling story.

I did a little sleuthing, and it turns out that the town square and monument actually belong to Monticello, Georgia:


Fabricated by the McNeel Marble Works of Marietta, Georgia, it was dedicated on April 6, 1910. I haven't visited the monument to photograph it myself yet, but I'm hoping to do so sometime in the fall. The second chapter of my dissertation is on Southern monuments, and I have a feeling the Georgia monuments are going to tell me some compelling stories.

And that's how I managed to work My Cousin Vinny into my dissertation!