“I don’t see a lot of money here.”
With these simple words — oh, the tiny scornful emphasis on the word “money”! — unimpressed impresario Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham), after a beat of immaculate unreadability, casually snuffs out the already sputtering flame of Llewyn Davis’ musical ambitions. Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) has a shoe full of slush, a married lover about to abort her child on the off-chance it might be his, and a date with a beating in an alleyway. And on his way to meet it, he will hit and probably kill a cat that may or may not be the same one he abandoned earlier. If the nameless animal’s fate, and its identity, will forever exist in a state of uncertainty (let’s just call this second cat Schroedinger and be done with it), from this point in the movie, there is no such uncertainty about Llewyn’s trajectory. He is never going to make it.
With “Inside Llewyn Davis,” which arrives on the Criterion Collection this month, the Oscar-winning Coen Brothers, perhaps the most broad-terms successful American independent filmmakers of our time, made a film about failure. Having enjoyed a near-unprecedented level of consistent respect as artists, they wrote a story about an artist faced with consistent peer indifference. They cast imminent megastar Oscar Isaac, now a lynchpin of the America’s highest-grossing film of all time, as this also-ran, this nearly-man, this future obscurity. Into a vortex of high expectations, as the Cannes-competing follow-up to the Coens’ biggest-ever box office hit “True Grit,” which netted them 10 Oscar nominations, came a movie that deals almost exclusively in the currency of disappointment.
Critics adored it. Well, the majority did, enough to have the film hold a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though safe to say J.Hoberman was not among them. And a small section of the moviegoing public was just as worshipful, giving it a remarkable per-screen average when it opened in limited release. But then, when it expanded, general audiences largely stayed away, maxing its domestic gross out at just over $13 million — far less than 1/10th the take of “True Grit” and just under half that of the inarguably lesser “Burn After Reading.”
I don’t see a lot of money here.
It would seem, not to retrospectively credit them with God-level metatextual creative integrity or anything, that the Coens made a film about self-defeat that kind of self-defeated. But of course, there are reasons other than what-it’s-about that contributed to its financial underperformance — chief among them the absence of marquee stars and the lack of big-studio backing. As far as marketing pushes go, CBS Films can’t compete with the likes of Paramount, whose gamble on “True Grit” paid off so handsomely. But there are also narrative factors at work that both made it hard to get people into theaters to see it, and made it so valued by those who did.
So it didn’t make a lot of money, and it’s about things we’d rather not talk about — is it any wonder that, certainly prior to Criterion affixing their seal of approval, ‘Llewyn Davis’ was heading for classification as inessential, a “minor” Coens film? It’s minor-key, certainly — but in the quietest, most ruefully autumnal manner possible, it might also be their bravest and most unique film. A grand claim perhaps, so let’s go one grander: In form and in theme, “Inside Llewyn Davis” challenges storytelling norms on a practically subterranean level, burrowing into and gently undermining the foundations of what we, as consumers of American moviemaking in the mid-2010s, think movies are supposed to be like and supposed to be about.
There are the obvious ways the film kicks against traditional three-act movie structure. In a conversation with Guillermo del Toro featured in the extras of the Criterion package, the Coens assert that the idea of starting at the end and bringing us back there through the course of the film was one of the first concepts they thought of. Indeed, the story now goes that the image of a folk singer being beaten in an alley was the kernel of the whole film — grist to the mill of those who accuse the Coens (wrongly) of misanthropy. But even discounting time-manipulation formal trickery, the film’s story, told chronologically, is a circle, or at least the first complete circuit in an ever-decreasing spiral.
Great read, but I don\’t agree that this dude (Llewyn Davis) is very talented. And definitely not sublimely so. The writer of this article should have remembered the Dylan figure at the end of the film. It begs for comparison between Davis and Dylan. It\’s a great study of mediocrity, and we know Davis is mediocre because of the man with the guitar we see only obliquely. The comparison tells all.
I found the movie to be highly entertaining. I\’m also a creative person who struggles in anonymity and I can identify with Llewyn. The thing that struck me the most is that if he had patiently waited for his record label\’s clearance he would have gotten royalties and credit for "Please Mr. Kennedy" and if he had taken up Bud Grossman\’s offer to perform in a folk trio (an obvious allusion to Peter Paul and Mary he wouldn\’t have toiled or struggled so much.
@Romeo So, as a final response to your comment, I would say the film isn\’t really even about the White disillusionment that led to the hippie counterculture, but the thrust of the film and its focus on Llewellyn Davis is on how that disillusionment and counterculture represented the death of a certain way of life, a certain idea of "Whiteness" that could only be rescued by a Jew who grafted his Old Testament Jewish influences onto White folk music to preserve the culture and "spirit" that the music embodied.
@Romeo You\’ll notice in many points of the film, Davis\’s ethnic origins are brought into question. He is alternately Welsh, half-Italian, but also has many characteristics that have traditionally signified the "wandering Jew" in the Western canon. So, in the sense, the hippies and oounterculture movement perhaps meant one thing to White people, but to Jews and other people of color, it meant something else. It meant an opportunity to expand the definition of Whiteness, to perhaps change its course entirely.
@Romeo Their choice of casting Oscar Isaac is of course part of the subversiveness and funniness of their inside joke. Isaac is of course an actor of Hispanic descent who has changed his working name to an ostensibly "White" name. So, in the same way that the Old Testament passages in Coens\’s films and Dylan songs are ways of infiltrating "Whiteness" by Jews, so has Oscar Isaac infiltrated Whiteness by his screen personas.
@Romeo In many ways, American folk music is a code word for one of the last bastions of "Whiteness" as a cultural and racial trope, as a symbol of purity. Llewyn Davis\’s purity and defiance of changing with the times, and ultimately being left behind is symbolic of this trope of Whiteness ultimately being left behind and merged with Jewish identity through Dylan. In this way, the subversive nature of ILD is also metacommentary on the Coens\’s own careers in injecting tropes of Jewish identity into the White mainstream.
@Romeo I would argue that the references to the Old Testament as markers of Jewish identity is central to what the Coens are saying about Dylan and what folk music was before Dylan arrived. The Old Testament itself is only relevant in a peripheral sort of way to the subversiveness of ILD. The idea of Jewish identity as partially shaped by Old Testament passages infiltrating mainstream American values and folk music is key.
For example, if you\’re mining it for the disillusionment and alienation that gave rise to the hippy counterculture, Old Testament readings would only clot your analysis.
Sometimes the Old Testament lens distracts from other textual and discursive possibilities…
Don\’t trust the White man\’s praise for you Kiang. Enjoy it, benefit from it, but don\’t trust it.
It\’s actually kind of funny that Kiang would profile the Coen brothers film in her review, as they are woefully uncharitable in their depictions of Asian Americans in their films. It\’s very subtle, but it\’s all there- every time a person of Asian descent appears in their films, something about their place in the scene just doesn\’t fit right. As if their very existence, the very encounter of these beings with Western civilization is itself an absurdity.
@Brian whole bit there on how much critics liked it if you actually read it
Inside Llewyn Davis was named Best Picture by the National Society of Film Critics, and chosen by dozens — if not hundreds — of film critics as one of the best films of 2013. It is a wonderful movie; it is not unappreciated. Love the movie; hate the premise of the article.
Insightful and beautifully written. Exceptional work. Keep it coming.
@Jaime sounds like it could be about America\’s love for sucess stories that\’s a nice way to look at it.
Such a likable film about an unlikable dork! Audiences always prefer the Poe Damerons and that’s why \’Llewyn Davis\’ is a treasure. I wonder (don’t get me wrong) if the "failure" of this movie about a loser has anything to do with that American love for success stories.
This movie is not about failure
All of the Coen films are about failure and about unrelenting and unforgiving the world is to those who "fail" (especially at their own hand).
I always saw him as a success. He is doing what he loves and chooses to not get a regular job and just "exist." He is persistent.
Nice article. Especially timely as we all celebrate a festival made up of great successes who were selected by a political lobby process, nepotistic "labs," favors for producers and cast, and preferred alumni. Success is earned by hard work? FOH.
Jessica Kiang is probably the best writer on The Playlist and this is a terrific write-up on the film. But I\’m not sure what makes Inside Llewyn Davis their MOST subversive film. How is it more or less subversive than A Serious Man, a film in which the protagonist is a passive nebbish whose quest for a deeper understanding of his problems ultimately fails? My point is that I\’m not sure if Inside Llewyn Davis is the outlier that Kiang seems to think it is. With the rare exception of True Grit, the Coens have always subverted genres and played around with audience expectations. Whatever, maybe I\’m nitpicking. Anyway, I\’m still ambivalent about the film but I\’m probably gonna watch it again soon. I currently regard it as minor Coen but Kiang\’s copy has persuaded me to reconsider my thoughts. Nice job!
Superb , measured incrediibly intelligent discussion of one of my most admired films. Thank you.
Fantastic article!!!
Wow, what an incredible article this is.
Cool articular… but I still don\’t see any money in it.
I always saw the movie as a prediction for what it would be like for one of the Coens if he didn\’t have his brother. So much of the movie is about the loss of Llewyn\’s partner. I know it\’s a movie about failure, but so much of that is because he can\’t get his life together after his partner killed himself. That\’s my interpretation of it.
As someone who has self-published 3 books, has an M.A. in english this analysis of this classic movie is dead on. Terrific. Nicely done.
This movie is about what would\’ve happened if there were only one Coen Brother. If you see it as a story about failure that only means it doubles as a Rorschach test (and you maybe didn\’t watch the clip attached to the article).
(Also, Jerry Lundegaard isn\’t a loser so much as he\’s evil, and Fargo is about Marge anyway.)
"Any analysis"? Come on man, there are other things going on in their movies as well. –Personally, I think we should be careful at seeing Llewyn\’s not being discovered on that last night as just a random fluke. Bob Dylan did not get to be great just because some critic saw him one night at the Gaslight, and I don\’t think the movie is saying that, or should be read that way. I think the irony is somewhat historical: Llewyn sings folk music in the gorgeous \’50s crooner manner, or the way Joan Baez might sing it. He has talent, and he believes in his songs, but he can\’t give them that ineffable power and sense of history that Bob Dylan\’s scratchy, untrained voice can. Within a couple of years, the singalong folk music movement would be falling out of style as Dylan rose ascendent, went electric, and found the wild, visionary qualities in the folk tradition, rather than the newly pretty ones. So Llewyn isn\’t merely missing a chance at being discovered, his whole milieu and historical moment is about to change. He\’s stuck in a personal rut, and the whole world is about to move on without him.
And I usually enjoy Kiang\’s articles so much.
Any analysis of a Coen Bros film without interrogating Jewish identity or Old Testament references is half baked.
Great text. Hats off. The last paragraph is spot on.
Well the Coen always flirted with movies that push the boundary of absurdity in the "everyday life" events. I like them a lot when they get to a kind of alienation, like this film or A Serious Man.
Funny to think back now on the scene in it when Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren sing and strum guitars together. Ah, the good old days before the First Order.