The Coen brothers’ latest movie, A Serious Man has been nominated for two awards at the 25th Film Independent Spirit Awards. The nominations for Joel and Ethan Coen in the Best Director category and for the ridiculously awesome, Roger Deakins in the Best Cinematography category. In addition the movie has been awarded their Robert Altman Award which is a special one awarded to just one film’s the director, casting director and its ensemble cast. The award ceremony takes place on Friday March 5th 2010.
The Coens have been successful at the Spirit Awards before. In 1997 Fargo won the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Female Lead (Frances McDormand), Best Male Lead (William H. Macy) and Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins – told you he was awesome!). In 1986 Blood Simple was nominated for Best Picture but was beaten by Martin Scorsese’s After Hours while that movie and Blood Simple shared the gong for Best Director, M. Emmet Walsh also won the Best Male Lead award for his creepy, slimey portrayal of Loren Visser.

Skip Lievsay has worked on EVERY single Coen brothers movie. Now, as if that wasn’t impressive enough, he’s also worked with Martin Scorsese, Joe Carnahan, Cameron Crowe, Spike Lee and John Sayles. Much like longtime Coen cinematographer, Roger Deakins, he is very much at the top of his game. Indeed Lievsay received Academy Award nominations for Best Achievement in Sound and Best Achievement in Sound Editing for No Country for Old Men. FilmInFocus, the official Focus Features site, has interviewed him about his work in general and particularly on A Serious Man.

Of working with the Coen brothers he says;

“The Coens are precise — they have very specific ideas and they are very articulate in their scripts about the sound.  And they shoot their films in a way that lends itself to a more abstract sound [design].”