Alltid med en fot i filmhistorien : Coenbröderna i skärningspunkten mellan genrefilm och auteurfilm

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to study the films of the Coen brothers at the intersection of the auteur film and the genre film, by conducting a literature review of the current research on their films. By means of a hermeneutic approach, mainly focusing on the term of genre, four major themes have been established based on the literary review: genres and conventions, hybridization of genre, other art cinema features, and the spectator as auteur. The analysis of the previous research shows that all Coen films have strong genre affiliations, foremost pertaining to classic Hollywood genres such as film noir, screwball comedy, and western. Furthermore, the Coens use gamesome strategies such as hybridization and allusions, which can be regarded as art cinema features. The meaning making is thus to a large degree left to the audiences, allowing them to be placed in the position of the “auteur”. These gamelike strategies and the fact that audiences are given the role as sort of co-creator constitute key auteur features in the filmmaking of the Coen brothers, who could thus be defined as auteur filmmakers rather than mainstream genre filmmakers.