New details from the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! emerge

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

During the Dolby Institute: The Sound of the Coens" Master Class, which is part of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, frequent Coen brothers collaborators Carter Burwell (composer) and Skip Lievsay (sound mixer) revealed several new details about the Coen brothers' upcoming film HAIL, CAESAR!. The film tells the tale of Eddie Mannix, a fixer who worked for the Hollywood studios in the 1950s, as it follows him during a single day of his life where he is presented with plenty of problems to fix.

"It's a musical comedy that takes place on a Hollywood backlot, so you pass through all these pictures that are in production there" said Carter Burwell of HAIL, CAESAR!, saying that one such scene will be a "tap-dance water number." The composer later elaborated on the tone of the film:

I wouldn't actually call it a 'musical comedy' — there are movies within the movie, and those movies might have comedic music, but the movie we're making is actually not comical. I haven't written the music yet, but I'm quite certain it's actually going to be quite the opposite. It's going to be rather serious, and it's about faith. It's not about the music. It's actually pretty complicated, musically — you'll see, the themes that I'm writing for the movie have to relate to the themes of the movies within the movie. So it's actually this rug with all these threads going in and out. But I haven't written it yet!

Joel and Ethan Coen are certainly no slouches when it comes to casting and they've assembled quite the cast indeed for HAIL, CAESAR! which includes George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Channing Tatum, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, and Jonah Hill among its fantastic ensemble.

Burwell praised the Coen brothers' saying that "they write knowing the importance of sound and music, and a lot of people don't, they feel free to have minutes with no dialogue." As a fan of the Coen's I'm quite looking forward to seeing what they give us with HAIL, CAESAR! which will arrive in theaters on February 5, 2016.