Coen Brothers and Wittgenstein

Jan 9, 2011 by Farhang Erfani

Nearly 30 years before brother filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen released their new film True Grit, the younger sibling, Ethan, wrote his senior thesis at Princeton on the works of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

One of Wittgenstein’s major areas of philosophical concern was religion and religious ideas, including how people believe and express those beliefs in the way they define themselves and orient their lives.

Though it would be a leap of faith to claim that the Wittgenstein thesis directly shaped the making of True Grit, hints of the philosopher’s take on religiosity float through the film like tumbleweeds.

via Coens spin moral thread through True Grit remake | Religion | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.