Different shades of tragedy always seem to expound from filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen.
Different shades of tragedy always seem to expound from filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. For 30 years they’ve been enticing us with their strange but strikingly great movies that seem to run the gamut of eccentrics being surrounded by oddballs, creeps, and weirdos. It’s never easy to pin down what they’re saying or where exactly their going, but they’ve been breathing life into fools amid compelling farces longer than I’ve been on this planet. Their movies would be utterly heartbreaking if they weren’t so savagely satirical. While their films often deal with dark cruelty, it’s never an empty bag of tricks. Coen brothers protagonist can often find themselves the center of a great catalyst and usually silently asking themselves the very present and existential question of “Why me?”
Inside Llewyn Davis takes place in a lost moment before Dylan blew up the scene and the campiness of folk from that era hadn’t yet faded. Our hero, or antihero rather, is Llewyn Davis a solo folk singer who puts his heart into his craft but suffers from constant stagnation while couch surfing and rubbing everybody the wrong way. He’s the true artist that just won’t rise to his potential. Llewyn’s lost former partner, Mike, looms over the film like a ghost but is never directly apart of the story. It’s a literal ghost that is never directly addressed and haunts Llewyn’s budding solo career and agitated attitude. Davis plays much like a comedy of follies as we see him lock himself outside of a friends apartment with their cat, lose said cat, get beat up outside of a club, a surprise pregnancy is sprung on him after previously sleeping with one half of a husband and wife duo (Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake) who one half (guess which one) hate his guts, goes on a road trip from hell to Chicago with an antagonistic hipster braggart (John Goodman), ruins dinner parties, and stumbles through scene after scene driving home the point that his life is shit. In perfect Coen brothers’ fashion, in a comedy of resistance if you will, each event is hilarious, poetic, and darker than the next.
The Coens have never shied away from their musical leanings as O Brother, Where Art Thou? had a massive soundtrack steeped with sublime original-ish depression era country and folk music. Davis is in many ways that film’s musical spiritual sequel, just with the Great Folk Scare of the early 60’s taking its root and modernized. This allowed the Coens to collaborate once again with T-bone Burnett with maybe more mixed results. The satire of the songs are very evident as on the Adam Driver featured “Please Mr. Kennedy”, but some feel a little too modern to be as exact of its era as the film tries to be and mostly succeeds. It’s a reflection of the romanticized version of the world the film inhabits that could of used a little less polish. It would incredibly easy for the movie to be steeped in nostalgia and it’s own charms with basement shows and folk legends, and the music finds itself sadly not authentically dated.
Inside Llewyn Davis is the first Coen brother’s film to be released by the Criterion Collection and hopefully it won’t be the last (I’m looking at you Barton Fink). Included is not only the film mastered in a 4K digital transfer, but is direction approved with HD soundtrack with it. It features a commentary track with authors and music aficionados Robert Christgau, David Hajdu, and Sean Wilentz, a fascinating conversation between the Coens and director Guillermo del Toro, the 40 minute documentary Inside “Inside Llewyn Davis”, a 101-minute concert documentary celebrating the music of Inside Llewyn Davis, a conversation between The Coens and music producer T-Bone Burnett, a piece about the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 60s, Sunday a short film documenting a 1961 clash between folk musicians and police in Washington Square Park, trailers, and an essay by film critic Kent Jones. It’s a lot of material for a wonderful film that really did its homework. This release simply outdoes any prior release with features aplenty. Fan of the Coens or Criterion, this is a must buy for either.
Instead of doing a straight music biopic, the Coens went with a character study of somebody who is more of an amalgam of unsung singers of the era. Enlisting Oscar Isaac may not be the most apparent choice, as the role requiring not only the actor to act but to also perform live, was a tough find. For a movie that is also esoteric as it is, it’s hard to imagine anybody else as Isaac who delivers an outstanding performance of mostly having a hard time and continuously choosing the more difficult road. Isaac is featured in every frame of the movie and it never gets tiresome seeing his often-bleak struggle. Instead of folding for a record executive (F. Murry Abraham) willing to take a slight chance on him and being added to an ensemble, Llewyn stubbornly stands firm that he is a solo act now. Everybody in Davis is a phony besides maybe Llewyn himself. The world isn’t very kind to Llewyn for never bending, as luck is never on his side either. It’s an admirable fault and a compelling one that drives the film. What the Coens do say about Llewyn is that he’s the real deal. Every performance by him shifts in vertical to create something that is special. It’s a subtle clue that maybe Llewyn is right musically, but does him no favors in life. Perhaps this is all to say being an asshole doesn’t make you a great musician and being a great musician doesn’t absolve you of being an asshole. Llewyn’s own laziness is often masked by this sincerity and his fate is severely dealt to him. It’s that relentless stagnation that bleeds from this film and Coen brothers simply riff on it and make it into a dark comedy.
Inside Llewyn Davis
2013
Joel & Ethan Coen (United States)
Spine #794
Available on DVD & Blu-Ray
