Coen brothers collection on DVD

Published 3:38 pm Tuesday, November 27, 2007

“Blood Simple” opens with these lines: “The fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. I don’t care if you’re president of the United States. Something can go wrong.”

Ethan and Joel Coen wrote this in 1984 for their first film, shadows of which can be seen in almost everything the two have made since.

“No Country for Old Men,” the pair’s latest outing, shares with “Blood Simple” a story about a crime gone horribly haywire.

Five of their hits — “Fargo,” “Miller’s Crossing,” “Barton Fink,” “Raising Arizona” and “Blood Simple” — have just been issued in a boxed set timed to the release of “Country,” which is almost certain to earn them Oscar nominations for screenplay and directing. (They won an Academy Award for their “Fargo” script.) The package is a great way to catch up with the Coens’ early work and see how their movies have evolved.

Like “Country,” they all feature an illegal act. Kidnappings, burglaries and murders, at close and far range, abound. Another recurrent motif is the way greed and desire mess up people’s lives.

The brothers have a spectacular eye for talent. They cast Frances McDormand in her first role in “Blood Simple.” Marcia Gay Harden made her major big-screen debut in “Miller’s Crossing.” The Coens found meaty roles for then-unknowns including Holly Hunter, Tony Shalhoub, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and John Turturro.

The best among the extras in the set is an interview the Coens did with Charlie Rose when “Fargo” came out in 1996. Joel expresses surprise that he and his brother are “considered so aggressively idiosyncratic,” adding that they don’t think of themselves as “quirky and odd.”

“We try to do something different than we did before,” Ethan tells Rose, “to keep things interesting.”

“The Coen Brothers Movie Collection” (from Fox and MGM Home Entertainment) is $49.98.