Super Bowl 51 Gets a Coen Brothers ‘Easy Rider’ Commercial
While countless football fans — myself included — embark on a stomach and liver-related training regimen for the next week, there is more to the Super Bowl than just the Big Game. The Super Bowl has always not-so-secretly been a big day for cinephiles as well, featuring trailers for much-anticipated movies and clever commercials from some of the best filmmakers in the business. Directors such as Doug Liman, Ridley Scott, and Judd Apatow have all directed Super Bowl commercials, and now you can add two more big names to the mix: Joel and Ethan Coen.
In their latest television commercial (via Rolling Stone), the Coen Brothers have partnered with Mercedes to deliver a middle-aged riff on the Easy Rider generation. Their amusing take on a modern biker bar — including a jukebox that only plays Steppenwolf and dance moves thwarted by joint pain — blends their underrated physical humor with a few gentle pokes at a generation of free-spirited anti-authoritarian types. And what happens when the crowd is confronted with one of their original heroes? Well, you’ll have to watch to find out. It’s only about a minute long.
The Coen Brothers have previously shot commercials for a range of for-profit and non-profit organizations, including Alliance for Climate, GAP, and H&R Block. Like their Mercedes commercial, each advertisement featured a mix of humor and throwbacks to the films that have influenced them throughout their careers. And while the Mercedes commercial might be a lighter entry in the Coen Brothers ouevre, the money both men make from the advertisement will hopefully roll over nicely to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the brand new television series the Coen Brothers are working on with Annapurna’s new television branch.
Fingers crossed that next weekend’s commercials and trailers will be just as good as the game itself (or vice-versa I suppose, depending on your preference).