"Many people think we're always referencing movies, but it's the books those movies are based on that are more influential to us."
— Joel Coen
Many People Think Were Always Referencing
Many people think we're always referencing movies, but it's the books those movies are based on that are more influential to us.
About this quote
Joel Coen has stated this in interviews about the Coen Brothers' creative process, notably in discussions of adaptations like No Country for Old Men (from Cormac McCarthy's novel) and True Grit (from Charles Portis's novel). Both brothers are voracious readers, and they have consistently credited literary fiction — not film — as their deepest creative wellspring, despite being among the most cinematically literate filmmakers of their generation.
Source
Interview