Highbrow Magazine - Joel Coen https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/joel-coen en ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’: The Coen Brothers’ New Film Strikes a Chord https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3425-inside-llewyn-davis-coen-brothers-new-film-strikes-chord <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/film-tv" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Film &amp; TV</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 10:15</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumcoenbrothers_0.jpg?itok=JBnpSrj-"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumcoenbrothers_0.jpg?itok=JBnpSrj-" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>The latest film from filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, <em>Inside Llewyn Davis</em> deals with the 1960s folk scene in Greenwich Village with that classic Coen Brothers style. Loosely based on the life of the grizzly voiced Dave Van Ronk – the inspiration for the character of Llewyn Davis, who also has characteristics of a young Dylan, the film explores the misadventures of a struggling young folksinger with dark humor and wit. In the film, the title character, played by Oscar Isaac, jumps from one friend’s couch to another, gets physically assaulted for heckling, loses his friends’ house cat and grapples with questions about the future of his musical career. At times Davis comes across as a likeable and witty hipster and at other times as an arrogant schmuck. He is a complex character that Oscar Isaac convincingly brings to life, perhaps more lifelike than any other character in a Coen Brothers film.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>Llewyn Davis </em>is the Coen Brothers’ 16th full-length film, and their first in three years, since 2010’s <em>True Grit – </em>the latter a work that earned a whopping 10 Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture, but won none.  Though they directed two segments and contributed as writers to other projects in between, Joel and Ethan Coen’s body of work as directors started with 1984’s <em>Blood Simple </em>and has included 14 other works between that and <em>Llewyn Davis</em>, among them such works as: <em>Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading, No Country for Old Men </em>and <em>A Serious Man. </em>Often they have repeatedly teamed up with many of the same actors, including George Clooney, John Turturro, John Goodman, Richard Jenkins, Frances McDormand (Joel’s wife) and Steve Buscemi.</p> <p> </p> <p>Although the brothers have alternated lead billing credits for screenwriting, and have shared credit for editing under the nom de plume “Roderick Jaynes,” typically the director credit went to Joel and the producer credit to Ethan, despite having shared direction and production duties. Beginning with <em>The Ladykillers </em>in 2004, however (an enjoyable film, even if inferior to the 1955 version starring Alec Guinness), the Brothers Coen began sharing directing credits as an “established duo.” </p> <p> </p> <p>While some of their earlier movies met with critical acclaim, it was arguably 1991’s <em>Barton Fink</em> that really established their reputation as serious and respectable directors. That film, which won an unprecedented three awards at Cannes, including the <em>Palme d’Or,</em> starred two actors who would go on to become frequent Coen collaborators: John Turturro and John Goodman. The latter of the two, a likeable murderer in <em>Barton Fink,</em> plays Roland Turner, a sharp-tongued, handicapped jazz musician and junkie in <em>Llewyn Davis. </em></p> <p><em>Barton Fink</em> also established a surrealist style that could be described as “Coenesque,” though not too much emphasis should be attributed to this. And not only did that film star actors who would work with the sibling filmmakers many times over the years, but it also had many features that would come to define the Coen Brothers’ style: men that struggled to chase down some elusive dream (here, as in <em>Llewyn Davis</em>, it is career success; in others it is money, as in <em>Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading </em>or <em>No Country for Old Men</em>); allusions to real-life figures (Barton Fink is widely believed to have represented Clifford Odets and W.P. Mayhew, in that film, is clearly a depiction of William Faulkner; in <em>O Brother, Where Art Thou? </em>Tommy Johnson, who sells his soul to the devil at the crossroads, is an obvious portrayal of blues great Robert Johnson; and in <em>Llewyn Davis</em>, the character representations can be easily pinpointed to include such notable figures of the 1960s folk revival as Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Albert Grossman); violence (even one brutal ass-kicking in a film about the peace-loving early-1960s folk scene); and open endings, the kind that critics often adore and mainstream audiences often detest (case in point, there were several reports of audiences booing at the end of the critically-acclaimed <em>No Country for Old Men</em>).</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4coenbros.jpg" style="height:336px; width:626px" /></p> <p>But the Coen Brothers, like many modernists before them, seem less concerned with mass audience reactions than with art for art’s sake. As filmmakers, they still are standing in the shadows of giants (like Hitchcock or Peckinpah, both of whose influence was obvious in the critically acclaimed <em>No Country</em>), but they succeed in making films that make bold impressions, leaving audiences and critics alike thinking long after the final credits roll up the screen – impactful directors in their own right.</p> <p> </p> <p>We also find in <em>Llewyn Davis</em> other themes prominent in previous Coen Brothers’ endeavors. First, working-class struggles: Davis’ experiences – like those of the characters in many of the Coens’ films – are rooted in the working class. Davis is by no means a privileged character, not unlike Van Ronk, on whom he was modeled, and not unlike the gym staff in <em>Burn After Reading </em>or like Lebowski and his bowling buddies. Second, allusions to literature and Greek mythology: as with <em>O Brother, Where Art Thou?,</em> we have in <em>Llewyn Davis </em>a reference to Homer’s Odyssey, a cat named Ulysses, who, like Davis, makes his homecoming after a long, strange journey. Third, and related to the last point: philosophical questions. In this film we can find the Nietzschean notion of eternal recurrence. Earlier Coen Brothers’ films, like <em>A Serious Man</em> – a brave follow-up to <em>No Country for Old Men</em>, based in part on their own Jewish upbringing in Minnesota – and <em>The Big Lebowski </em>are both bottomless pools for philosophical analysis. And finally, their love of music, and especially music that is representative of the American experience. Prior to <em>Llewyn Davis</em>, this love figured nowhere so prominently as in <em>O Brother, </em>but it could also be found in works like <em>The Ladykillers</em>, about a bunch of criminals posing as classical musicians, featuring such blues classics as Blind Willie Johnson’s “Let Your Light Shine on Me,” and even in 2003’s <em>Intolerable Cruelty </em>(a piece with two frequent collaborators – Richard Jenkins and George Clooney) that ends with Big Bill Broonzy’s mesmerizing fingerpicking rendition of “The Glory of Love.” </p> <p> </p> <p>More indebted to a stark realism than some of their previous films, <em>Inside Llewyn Davis </em>is the Coens’ first real music film since 2000’s <em>O Brother, Where Art Thou? </em>But despite Oscar Isaac’s impressive vocals, the music in <em>Llewyn Davis, </em>which like <em>O Brother </em>is produced by T Bone Burnett, is a bit stale – Isaac’s covers of Van Ronk songs lack the grittiness that Van Ronk gave to them, with his famous growl and asthmatic wheeze. Isaac’s versions are pure, but lack style, especially if one is familiar with Van Ronk’s recordings.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/5coenbros.jpg" style="height:337px; width:625px" /></p> <p>Yet it is the music in this piece that really makes the film in a sense (after all it is about what Dave Van Ronk called the “Great Folk Scare” and it tells the story of a “first-rate second-rate” musical artist like Van Ronk trying to make it), but it is secondary to the acting performances and the fun scenes taken straight from Van Ronk’s memoir, <em>The Mayor of MacDougal Street </em>(written with Elijah Wald)<em>. </em>Scenes of this nature include the one where Mel Novikoff (the Coens’ version of Folkways Records’ Moe Asch) calls Davis’ bluff and offers him his own coat rather than giving him money when the title character (hinting for cash) says that he doesn’t even own a winter jacket.</p> <p> </p> <p>Other memorable scenes lifted directly from Van Ronk include: the scene where he loses his seaman’s papers; his experiences hitchhiking; and his meeting with Bud Grossman (the Coens’ obvious depiction of Albert Grossman, played superbly by F. Murray Abraham), who offers Davis a part as the third member of a folksinging trio (in Van Ronk’s book, he explains that this was the role of “Paul,” in Peter, Paul and Mary). And, of course, the film’s title is taken from the 1963 album, <em>Inside Dave Van Ronk, </em>which featured a cat standing in the doorway behind him – likely the inspiration for Ulysses in the flick. </p> <p> </p> <p><em>Inside Llewyn Davis </em>is not the Coen Brothers’ finest film, nor is it the greatest film about this period in American music. And it certainly is not best movie of this year. Yet, despite all of this, it is a daring new step (with a starker realism than elsewhere in their film catalogue) from filmmaking siblings who have no fear of exploring uncharted territory in their work. <em>Llewyn Davis</em> is still a likely nominee in the awards races this year, and although the soundtrack is weak (the best tracks are the actual recordings by Dylan and Van Ronk), it is likely to take away some awards in this category, or at least receive its fair share of nominations, for it has been gifted with T Bone Burnett’s Midas touch.</p> <p> </p> <p>If the Coen Brothers’ latest film has taught audiences anything, it is that we should continue to expect Coenesque brushstrokes in each of their works, but that we shouldn’t base our expectations too much on what they have previously done. The progression of films from <em>The Ladykillers </em>to <em>True Grit </em>has taught us that much (with films like <em>No Country, Burn After Reading </em>and <em>A Serious Man</em> in between). <em>Inside Llewyn Davis </em>employs familiar themes that we encounter in the Coen catalogue, but in it the Coens also surprise us again. It is precisely when you think you have them pinned down that they defy critics’ expectations<em>. </em></p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/6coenbros.jpg" style="height:469px; width:625px" /></p> <p><em>Llewyn Davis </em>may not be their greatest work – and no film stands a chance in the Best Picture race this year against <em>12 Years a Slave – </em>but it is fresh, acerbically funny and a fun ride back to a time when the scene of American music was changing forever – presaged in the film with Dylan’s performance of “Farewell” – a time foreshadowing what Van Ronk refers to as “the new song revolution,” during which the folksong (that ditty that Davis quips, “was never new, and it never gets old”) would soon be eclipsed by something new if not progressively different, launching some folksingers into superstardom, while leaving others in the dust. </p> <p>As Dylan said in 1964, “I once thought the biggest I could ever hope to get was like Van Ronk. But it’s bigger than that, now, ain’t it? Yeah, man, it’s bigger than that. Scary as all sh*t.” This change can be imagined by audience members familiar with the history of this period by the very end of the film, but the importance of Van Ronk on this scene is not captured so well by Llewyn Davis. But, of course, this is not intended as a biography of Van Ronk. He was only the inspiration for a character who is infinite<a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>ly his inferior, with touches of young Bobby Zimmerman added in.  It is a film about a time period and of a folksinger chasing after a dream, even if he isn’t quite sure yet what that means. And this is a story that the Coens communicate well, perhaps because it is the same struggle faced by so many of their lead characters, and perhaps because they – like many of us – have faced similar existential problems. Despite all of his doubts and the uncertainties that abound, Llewyn Davis plods forward, even if going forward only takes him back down the same roads he’s been down before, playing the same clubs that he’s played before, facing the same obstacles – more or less – standing in his way.  </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Benjamin Wright is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/inside-lleweyn-davis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">inside lleweyn davis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/coen-brothers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coen Brothers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/joel-coen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Joel Coen</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ethan-coen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ethan Coen</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/barton-fink" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Barton Fink</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/o-brother-where-art-thou" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">O Brother Where Art Thou</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ladykillers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the ladykillers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tom-hanks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Tom Hanks</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/frances-mcdormand" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">frances mcdormand</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">films</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/movies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Movies</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/directors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">directors</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Benjamin Wright </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 09 Jan 2014 15:15:10 +0000 tara 4087 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3425-inside-llewyn-davis-coen-brothers-new-film-strikes-chord#comments How the Eccentric Coen Brothers Became American Film Icons https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1298-how-eccentric-coen-brothers-became-american-film-icons <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/film-tv" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Film &amp; TV</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sat, 07/21/2012 - 19:16</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumcoenbrothers.jpg?itok=eCgqLi7z"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumcoenbrothers.jpg?itok=eCgqLi7z" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>Think of drastically different genres. Fuse some with others and add new elements. Borrow patterns, themes and impressions from the halls of movie history and blend them with postmodern philosophy, a wickedly self-deprecating sense of humor and a heavy dose of playful ironic detachment. The resulting mixture pays homage to directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, Sam Raimi and Preston Sturges, and writers like  William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler.</p> <p> </p> <p>I’m referring to none other than the work of Joel and Ethan Coen, the modern American maestros of cinematic cross-breeding. They’ve written and directed 15 pictures in the last 28 years, including a surrealist Hollywood satire, a chain gang musical, a western apocalypse, a Prohibition-era gangster film, a Midwestern thriller, a stoner noir, a screwball comedy and a slapstick family drama. They have produced two bonafide masterpieces every decade for the past 20 years: “Barton Fink” and “Fargo” in the 1990s, “No Country for Old Men” and “A Serious Man” in the aughts.</p> <p> </p> <p>Say what you will about their comedy misfires (“The Ladykillers,”— a remake of the classic 1955 Ealing comedy, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” “Intolerable Cruelty”), they still offer plenty of laughs along the way, though lack the narrative unity that make their most adventurous comedies (“Raising Arizona,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Burn After Reading”) so much more effective. The one possible exception to this generalization is “The Ladykillers,” which is, strangely enough, one of their most structurally cohesive pictures. It might suffer from sluggishness, redundancy and a kind of uneven comic excess, but the plot offers the kind of expected surprises that we want from the cinema: even if you know what’s destined to happen, you’re still surprised by how the outcome is executed.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumraisingarizona.jpg" style="height:337px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>That’s the Coen brothers’ most exemplary gift: the element of surprise. More specifically, it’s their mastery of manipulation. “Fargo” famously begins with a message that insists the film is based on true events, a claim that was proven false upon release. The Coens embrace every opportunity to play with the audience’s perception, and it’s not without reason. In a 1996 interview with Michel Ciment and Hubert Niogret, Joel Coen said “By telling the public that we took our inspiration from reality, we knew they wouldn’t see the movie as just an ordinary thriller.” In “Fargo,” the filmmakers offer their own unique perspective on a kidnapping thriller. Later in the interview, Ethan explained that “Fargo” evolved significantly between composition and final product: “All we know is that when we wrote the script and when the actors interpreted their roles, none of us thought of the story as a comedy.” And it’s not a comedy per se, but the bursts of black humor, and the way in which the humor intersects with graphic violence, is what sets it apart from other thrillers within the genre.</p> <p> </p> <p>Even in their most violent films, a smartass sense of humor plays a crucial role. The Coens never take themselves too seriously. That’s partially why they’ve produced so many enjoyable movies. The Coens regularly avoid the trap that trips up many brilliant directors. While several works by Kubrick, Coppola and Scorsese are marred by post-success self-importance, the Coens have proven immune to this pitfall. They’re compulsive storytellers, constantly engaging the audience in a meta-theatrical game.</p> <p> </p> <p>Reading their screenplays clarifies a lot of the surface-level ambiguity in their work. The scripts for the movies  “A Serious Man” and “Barton Fink” are surprisingly straightforward and explicit on the page, whereas the films themselves are implicit and even downright obscure. Their screenplays are considerably less mysterious. For instance, in “Barton Fink,” the movie wriggles away from cut-and-dry interpretation, but the screenplay confirms that the hotel is undoubtedly intended to be a depiction of hell. Charlie (John Goodman) is described as “hellishly backlit by the flame.” And before Barton (John Turturro) leaves at the end, “a horrible moaning sound — almost human — can be heard under the roar of the fire.” While the protagonist does manage to escape from the literal hell in which Charlie lives, and is a part of, Barton is condemned to a another kind of hell: a writer’s hell, where everything he writes is owned by the studio, which refuses to produce anything he writes.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumladykillersmovie_0.jpg" style="height:525px; width:700px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The Coens imply this is a just punishment for a writer who’s so self-absorbed he’s oblivious to the truth of reality. When Barton asks (with “self-pity,” the screenplay specifies), “Why me?” Charlie responds, “Because you DON’T LISTEN!” He’s too conceited to be perceptive. When Barton insists he wrote a screenplay about “all of us,” he is severely reprimanded by the producer, Lipnik: “You arrogant sonofabitch!...You swell-headed hypocrite! You just don’t get it, do you? You still think the world revolves around whatever rattles inside that little...head of yours.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The Coens take pleasure in playing God with their characters; they judge some and show wild affection toward others. They also play God with the audience by enveloping their process, and their stories, within alluringly impenetrable mysteries. They’ve been accused of using such esoteric symbolism that all significance is wholly subjective. Many of their films feature a particular object seemingly infused with meaning. In “Barton Fink,” it’s a box that goes unopened; in “Miller’s Crossing,” it’s a hat blown by the wind; in “The Hudsucker Proxy,” it’s a hula hoop. In 1991, Joel Coen told Jim Emerson that “It’s almost like a genre rule: Don’t Open The Box.” While these choices are practical in relation to the plot, they can also be mystifying, open-ended and deliberately enigmatic. They basically mean whatever you want them to mean, given the specific clues provided throughout the narrative. “‘Barton Fink’ does end up telling you what’s going on to the extent that it’s important to know,” Ethan said in 1991. “What isn’t crystal clear isn’t intended to become crystal clear, and it’s fine to leave it at that.”</p> <p> </p> <p>As puzzling and Lynchian as “Barton Fink” is, the Coens’ most mysterious film to date is “A Serious Man,” an overwhelmingly profound and timeless re-imagining of the Book of Job. It’s an adaptation of the biblical poem in the same sense that “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is an adaptation of “The Odyssey,” meaning the brothers have taken the framework of the ancient tale and updated it with their own unique imprint. In “Fargo” and “No Country for Old Men,” the cruelty of reality is presented deadpan-style with blood and gore. But the ingenious innovation of “A Serious Man” is the recognition that the ultimate depiction of the cruelty of reality is an innocent man who is afflicted for no reason. But because of their irrepressible comic sensibility, the Coens further recognize that there’s nothing funnier than an innocent who suffers for no reason. The cruelty of reality is as funny as it is terrifying.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumbiglebowski.jpg" style="height:600px; width:421px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The existential questions of the Book of Job are echoed and examined in this parable of cosmic persecution. God isn’t a character onscreen, but he’s certainly a presence. We watch as Larry, the protagonist, loses everything. By working with a character who’s forced to face life’s biggest questions, the Coens discover the similarity between people who question God’s purpose (because they don’t understand it) and critics who question the filmmaker’s purpose (because they don’t understand it). “What is Hashem trying to tell me?” Larry asks his rabbi, who admits it’s an excellent question but doesn’t have any answers. “Why does he make us feel the questions if he's not gonna give us any answers?” God — characterized in part by an impossibly old rabbi who is too busy to meet with Larry — gives an answer by not giving an answer. Likewise, the Coens reserve the right to make all conclusions mysterious.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Coens also portray God’s counterpart — a character type that makes an appearance in most of their movies: the adversary. Their depiction here of Satan himself might be their single most enjoyable creation ever: Sy Ableman. The outwardly evil archetype (like Javier Bardem in “No Country” or Peter Stormare in “Fargo”) is shelved in order to characterize the Devil as a velvet-voiced, bold-faced liar who insists he’s your best friend. It’s a testament to the movie’s strength as a whole that Sy doesn’t steal the show. He’s a one-man showcase of a character, and Fred Melamed plays him to absolute perfection, purring with torturous condescension.</p> <p> </p> <p>When the whirlwind finally appears, it’s of a different variety than the one from which God finally responds to Job. This whirlwind is a tornado of destruction approaching Larry’s family, indicating that the familial curse mentioned in the prologue will pass on down to Larry’s children. The grisly jest at the end of the movie is that Larry’s real test has just begun. It’s the kind of deviously nihilistic joke the Coens love to spring on their audience. Their American Job is destined to suffer the same losses as the man from the land of Uz: he will lose his family and his health — the very last things he has. “A Serious Man” paints a grim picture indeed — a black comedy almost too truthful to be funny. But the struggle to survive despite impossible adversity is the essence of drama. The awkward ugliness of that struggle can be hysterically, darkly funny.</p> <p> </p> <p>“A Serious Man” is a sort of mini-Ulysses. Larry, a Jew amidst Midwestern Gentiles, is a wandering outsider. Like Joyce’s protagonist, Larry is drawn as an isolated modern Everyman. The movie isn’t as epic in size as Ulysses, but like Joyce’s masterwork, it includes unsearchable depth. It’s a timeless and intimately detailed story told by filmmakers working at the very height of their intelligence.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Christopher Karr is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/coen-brothers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coen Brothers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/raising-arizona" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raising Arizona</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blood-simple" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Blood Simple</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/barton-fink" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Barton Fink</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ethan-coen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ethan Coen</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/joel-coen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Joel Coen</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/john-turturo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">John Turturo</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/o-brother-where-art-thou" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">O Brother Where Art Thou</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/no-country-old-men" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">No Country for Old Men</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/sam-rami" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sam Rami</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/stanley-kubrick" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stanley Kubrick</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/fargo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Fargo</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nicolas-cage" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Nicolas Cage</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/martin-scorcese" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Martin Scorcese</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Christopher Karr</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sat, 21 Jul 2012 23:16:12 +0000 tara 1269 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1298-how-eccentric-coen-brothers-became-american-film-icons#comments