![]() ![]() ![]() Knowledge, meaning, and even, perhaps, purpose can be found in them. They seek eternal verities in a universe that only provides constant change, shifting perspectives, cultural relativisms, random sets, infinite fractals, and distant enlightenment. The films are full of characters who quest for meaning and purpose, but they quest badly. They are only nihilistic, though, in the sense that Buddhism is nihilistic. The Coen brothers' films are sometimes criticized as nihilistic. In fact they were what had originally inspired me to enter government service."īurn After Reading is a film about containment and knowledge, or, to put it another way, a tale of wars against chaos. We have previously heard Oswald Cox (John Malkovich), while struggling to dictate his memoirs, declare: "The principles of George Kennan - a personal hero of mine - were what animated us. Kennan and the Origins of Containment: 1944-1946: The Kennan-Lukacs Correspondence. When Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton) descends into her husband's basement office and copies financial records off of his computer, we get a glimpse of a book on the desk, a book that looks to be George F. THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO: BURN AFTER READING The essay is called "They Know Not What They Do". Press Play is running a series of essays on the Coen Brothers' films this week, and they very kindly asked me to contribute and let me pick the movie I wanted to write about.
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