The Hudsucker Proxy
1994movie
The Coen brothers are not shy about their love of movies: it shows up over and over again in their films, many of which are blatant homages to bygone genres. The Hudsucker Proxy is full of Golden Era references; the Coens clearly love these callbacks.The style is the point, the genre conventions, the coloratura performances by leading ladies like Hepburn, Lombard, Russell, Stanwick, and now Leigh. You’re not meant to want to know them, you’re meant to want to watch them walk a tightrope, and laugh when they inevitably tumble.
Editor’s Note: “The Hudsucker Proxy” screens December 16 at midnight at IFC Center in New York City, in a nearly pristine 35mm print. For details, click here. A critical and box-office bomb when it came out in 1994, the big business comedy-fantasy “The Hudsucker Proxy” looks better and smarter by the year.The tone of “Hudsucker” is madcap, the scale epic, and the script is a pastiche of elements taken from filmmakers that the Coens adore but who wouldn’t ordinarily seem compatible (indeed, most critics argued that they still weren’t compatible).
