Watch: A Video Essay on the Coen Brothers’ Search for Truth

At one point in this intensely clever video essay, Jeff Bridges, as The Big Lebowski’s "The Dude," says, "I am not Mr. Lebowski." Immediately, William H. Macy, as Fargo‘s Jerry Lundegaard, responds, blankly but nervously, "Yeah?" The two carry on a brief rapport, and then the piece moves on. Steven Benedict looks at the ways the Coen brothers’ films "talk" to each other, by presenting the lines from disparate films as parts of an actual dialogue. The effect is hypnotic, and the message is clear. In the films of the Coen brothers, little is certain–except for one thing: the search for whatever certainty there might be. Benedict has offered up films from across the brothers’ career. Barton Fink (often). O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Hudsucker Proxy. A Serious Man. Miller’s Crossing. Inside Llewyn Davis. And the list goes on! Benedict’s arrangement succinctly and beautifully orchestrates the gleeful discombulation of these films into a harmonious whole.