So, that's a cool story, right? Sorry, I don't want to think about it either. It's just who I am.
The good thing about movies is that there's a movie for every feeling, and one day while I was angry at how cold and dreary and threatening the world around me was I started to think about a movie where the lead character feels the same way. It's one of my favorite movies of the last decade, and I was inspired to stop being stuck in my own head and to talk about it here. It took me a while to make sense of everything, and I can't promise what follows will make sense or be fun to read, but I hope you'll take a trip into this film's world with me and see where this double feature ends up. It might not be a fun trip, but life isn't always a fun trip either.
Inside Llewyn Davis
2013, Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen
We meet Llewyn Davis, played by Oscar Isaac, on a night where he's playing folk music in a dark New York City club. The year is 1961, the song is "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me" - a pretty depressing tune that asks just what the title implies - and the singer's body language is enough to make us assume he's either half asleep or entirely defeated. The venue is dark enough that we can't see the faces of the small crowd gathered around him, and if you weren't looking closely you might assume he's playing to a bunch of mannequins. Llewyn is doing the best he can, he just doesn't seem to be connecting to his audience. The night ends on a worse note for Llewyn, with a man he doesn't know confronting him in the alley behind the bar and, for reasons we don't yet understand, handing the emotionally distraught singer a physical beating.
It would be nice to think that this is just a bad night in the life of the man, who we can already tell is very good at what he does, but the rest of Joel & Ethan Coen's film confirms a simple truth - life is not going very well for Llewyn Davis. He's homeless, the woman he's closest to (Carey Mulligan) has moved on and become vicious toward him, and the winter that fills the world around him seems cruel and unyielding. We learn early in the week we spend with Llewyn that he was once part of a successful folk duo and that his partner has died, with Llewyn later revealing in a moment of frustration that this partner committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. We don't meet his band mate, only hearing others talk about "Mikey" in the past tense to Llewyn, and as we watch Llewyn stumble through a series of failures at times we lose focus on this part of his story.
Llewyn gets a chance to meet with club owner & potential manager Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham), and is dejected to find that the man he's interviewing with did not receive the copy of his album, which shares its title with the film, that his agent sent ahead of him. Grossman decides that he will still give Llewyn a chance to perform for him - finally, the film gives Llewyn a break! - directly instructing him to "play something from Inside Llewyn Davis."
We know where Llewyn is mentally at this point. He's been insulted, beaten, and defeated for several days, and we can tell by his relationships with others that this is not a new trend. We've seen him lash out, we've seen him assume other people aren't as good as him, and we've seen him make mistakes - like turning down the chance at royalties on a comedy tune ("Please Mr. Kennedy," on which Isaac teams with co-stars Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver for the film's most humorous scene) because he needed cash in the moment. It's clear that Llewyn is committed to what he's doing, and it's obvious that he's really good at what he does. The issue, again, is that he's not connecting with anyone right now.
Finally, the listener speaks.
"I don't see a lot of money here."
Anyone who's had a job interview knows that macabre tales about death aren't usually the best first impression, and it might be easy for viewers to wonder why the heck Llewyn would make that choice. But for Llewyn, this song is personal. He feels like he can't get help, he feels like the world is closing in on him, and he knows that if something doesn't change soon he's going to be gone and the music is going to be all he leaves behind. He's too proud for any of that. Llewyn and Grossman have a brief conversation, in which Llewyn is given a series of suggestions about doing more to connect with people including "stay out of the sun" and, most crushingly, getting back together with his partner. Llewyn is too far gone to tell Mr. Grossman why that's not an option at this point, he simply thanks him for his time and moves on. He's just given a beautiful performance that he put all of his energy into, he doesn't have the strength to talk about it anymore.
Despite everything that has gone wrong in his life and career, Llewyn continues to walk toward his next opportunity. The viewer might wonder if Llewyn still believes life has any value after a series of misfortunes and that's where his costar - the cat - comes back into play. No matter what is going on and how distant he seems from everyone else in his world, he keeps looking out for the cat that continues to get away from him. This simple act - trying to get the cat home safely - tells us a lot about where Llewyn is at. He wants to make things right and to be accepted, he just keeps getting knocked down as he tries.
Llewyn's first musical performance in the film makes him appear to be already worn out, and his performance for Bud Grossman pushes him closer to defeat. But when we get to his final performance of the film, an expanded version of the opening scene, we know more about the man.
After a full week of defeat and failure, we understand how little he has to show for his effort. The Coens frame the performance differently this time around and offer us a close up of the singer's face after the final note, so we see him wipe his nose and can see that his eyes are holding back tears. We've known for a while that the music is all he has, but here we can really see how much it means to him. He gets the same muted applause we saw in the opening scene as he jokes "You've probably heard that one before; 'cause it was never new and it never gets old and it's a folk song."
Then we see the part of his performance that was omitted from the opening scene. Llewyn turns back to the microphone and adds "Alright, one more before I go."
The song that follows, "Fare Thee Well," is one we partially heard earlier in the film; one that was abruptly cut short by another of his frustrated outbursts. His cat owning friends, the Gorfeins, ask him to play for them at dinner - Mrs. Gorfein even rebukes Llewyn's initial refusal by saying "I thought singing was a joyous expression of the soul?" - and the dejected singer does his best to belt out the tune before Mrs. Gorfein chimes in singing Mike's part, sending Llewyn over the edge. It's the angriest we see Llewyn throughout the film, and it's the moment we most understand how frustrated he is.
Now, safe from interruption on stage, Llewyn hurls himself into another performance of the song. While most of his performances in the film have been beautiful, this is the one that soars. What he's doing is far from being a joyous expression of the soul, what he's doing is a release of all the depression and loss that have been trapped inside. In this moment, Llewyn is done letting the troubles of the world, including the grief he feels after losing his partner, affect him. He is lost in the song, and his voice soars. I get goosebumps every time I watch Isaac perform this scene - which includes at least a dozen viewings of the scene in the last week - because it's a beautiful picture of a man who knows life is not going to take it easy on him; a man who is expressing himself and escaping the world in the only way he can.
Llewyn's moment might be short-lived - the performer that begins to sing after he leaves the stage appears to be a young Bob Dylan, singing a similarly themed song entitled "Fare The Well" - but it's impossible to miss how much being able to perform this song meant to Llewyn as a form of release. What follows is the second half of the opening scene, including the beating in the alley, but even in that moment we see Lllewyn differently than we did the first time around.
Llewyn isn't directly confronting his feelings about the world, but he's dealing with things the way he can. The people in Llewyn's life often think he's lost, and we can understand their reactions to seeing part of his life and part of his career. But we've spent the whole week with Llewyn Davis, and we can see things more clearly than we could during his first performance. We see that he's fighting to live through whatever the world throws at him, and that it's his music that's helping him deal with all the grief and loss in his life.
In short, we see that the heart of a survivor lives inside Llewyn Davis.
(One last note - I freakin' love this cat. Isaac gives one of my favorite performances ever here. And the cat, in true cat fashion, just looks at him like "Fuck you, I'm stealing all these scenes." And he does. You go, cat.)
I obviously wanted to say a lot about Inside Llewyn Davis (if you've read this far you must be sick of it by now), and when it became time to pick a double feature partner my mood changed quite a bit. Like Llewyn choosing "The Death of Queen Jane," the first impression I'm offering for this double feature might come off as a little morbid for some people.
A Mighty Wind is another film about folk music that's set in New York City in the wake of a death in the folk music world, and if that makes it sound like an ideal companion for Inside Llewyn Davis to you....you should know that that's where the similarities basically end.
The third mockumentary from star/writer/director/all-around genius Christopher Guest follows three folk music groups as they reunite for a concert to honor the promoter that brought them all to fame. If you were to consider this the same folk music universe that Llewyn lived in, it has been more than forty years since his attempts to make it big and, considering these three bands, you'd probably assume he didn't make it. If you took the film seriously you might also probably think that's a good thing for Llewyn. But that's ok - because you really shouldn't take this film seriously.
So, I'm telling you not to think about A Mighty Wind the same way as Inside Llewyn Davis. Why, then, in the name of common sense, am I telling you to double feature this with that film? I'll allow two better men than me to describe my reasoning.
Frankenstein's monster once said:
Despite everything that has gone wrong in his life and career, Llewyn continues to walk toward his next opportunity. The viewer might wonder if Llewyn still believes life has any value after a series of misfortunes and that's where his costar - the cat - comes back into play. No matter what is going on and how distant he seems from everyone else in his world, he keeps looking out for the cat that continues to get away from him. This simple act - trying to get the cat home safely - tells us a lot about where Llewyn is at. He wants to make things right and to be accepted, he just keeps getting knocked down as he tries.
Llewyn's first musical performance in the film makes him appear to be already worn out, and his performance for Bud Grossman pushes him closer to defeat. But when we get to his final performance of the film, an expanded version of the opening scene, we know more about the man.
After a full week of defeat and failure, we understand how little he has to show for his effort. The Coens frame the performance differently this time around and offer us a close up of the singer's face after the final note, so we see him wipe his nose and can see that his eyes are holding back tears. We've known for a while that the music is all he has, but here we can really see how much it means to him. He gets the same muted applause we saw in the opening scene as he jokes "You've probably heard that one before; 'cause it was never new and it never gets old and it's a folk song."
The song that follows, "Fare Thee Well," is one we partially heard earlier in the film; one that was abruptly cut short by another of his frustrated outbursts. His cat owning friends, the Gorfeins, ask him to play for them at dinner - Mrs. Gorfein even rebukes Llewyn's initial refusal by saying "I thought singing was a joyous expression of the soul?" - and the dejected singer does his best to belt out the tune before Mrs. Gorfein chimes in singing Mike's part, sending Llewyn over the edge. It's the angriest we see Llewyn throughout the film, and it's the moment we most understand how frustrated he is.
Now, safe from interruption on stage, Llewyn hurls himself into another performance of the song. While most of his performances in the film have been beautiful, this is the one that soars. What he's doing is far from being a joyous expression of the soul, what he's doing is a release of all the depression and loss that have been trapped inside. In this moment, Llewyn is done letting the troubles of the world, including the grief he feels after losing his partner, affect him. He is lost in the song, and his voice soars. I get goosebumps every time I watch Isaac perform this scene - which includes at least a dozen viewings of the scene in the last week - because it's a beautiful picture of a man who knows life is not going to take it easy on him; a man who is expressing himself and escaping the world in the only way he can.
Llewyn's moment might be short-lived - the performer that begins to sing after he leaves the stage appears to be a young Bob Dylan, singing a similarly themed song entitled "Fare The Well" - but it's impossible to miss how much being able to perform this song meant to Llewyn as a form of release. What follows is the second half of the opening scene, including the beating in the alley, but even in that moment we see Lllewyn differently than we did the first time around.
Llewyn isn't directly confronting his feelings about the world, but he's dealing with things the way he can. The people in Llewyn's life often think he's lost, and we can understand their reactions to seeing part of his life and part of his career. But we've spent the whole week with Llewyn Davis, and we can see things more clearly than we could during his first performance. We see that he's fighting to live through whatever the world throws at him, and that it's his music that's helping him deal with all the grief and loss in his life.
In short, we see that the heart of a survivor lives inside Llewyn Davis.
(One last note - I freakin' love this cat. Isaac gives one of my favorite performances ever here. And the cat, in true cat fashion, just looks at him like "Fuck you, I'm stealing all these scenes." And he does. You go, cat.)
- We'll start with the obvious here - music is the heart of this movie.
- Considering the mood I've been in, the first instinct I had was to make this double feature about grief and loss. I thought about discussing a lot of my favorite dramatic films that make me feel the same emotions that Inside Llewyn Davis does.
- But then I stopped and thought about how I felt while writing about Inside Llewyn Davis. And that's when I started to realize that while I was already feeling down about life - I was also working myself into a deeper emotional frenzy by focusing entirely on the topic of grief and loss. And that's when I started to realize that I couldn't keep going in that direction and create a double feature that I - let alone anyone else - would really enjoy watching if I didn't shake things up a little.
A Mighty Wind
2003, Directed by Christopher Guest
A Mighty Wind is another film about folk music that's set in New York City in the wake of a death in the folk music world, and if that makes it sound like an ideal companion for Inside Llewyn Davis to you....you should know that that's where the similarities basically end.
The third mockumentary from star/writer/director/all-around genius Christopher Guest follows three folk music groups as they reunite for a concert to honor the promoter that brought them all to fame. If you were to consider this the same folk music universe that Llewyn lived in, it has been more than forty years since his attempts to make it big and, considering these three bands, you'd probably assume he didn't make it. If you took the film seriously you might also probably think that's a good thing for Llewyn. But that's ok - because you really shouldn't take this film seriously.
So, I'm telling you not to think about A Mighty Wind the same way as Inside Llewyn Davis. Why, then, in the name of common sense, am I telling you to double feature this with that film? I'll allow two better men than me to describe my reasoning.
Frankenstein's monster once said:
"Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it."
I think Llewyn would agree with the big green monster on this point, though I doubt he would be willing to say it. (Again, he's too proud.) Llewyn is a man who is lost, but he doesn't give up. I've already made this point, but I need to repeat it, because it's the thing that keeps his film from being a total downer. That's good. But it might not be enough.
"Life is pain...and we've got to scrape the joy out of it every chance we get."
Like Llewyn, the characters in A Mighty Wind have been down and out. All three groups reached fame and lost it, and are now only back in the spotlight for a one-night only tribute concert. The Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer - reuniting in a band that's not quite Spinal Tap) were best known for one catchy song - "Eat at Joe's" - about a restaurant, and haven't made much of an impact on the folk scene since. They were replaced in the folk spotlight by The Main Street Singers, now reunited as The "New" Main Street Singers, whose aggressive cheerfulness makes them feel like a musical edition of The Brady Bunch. These two bands are informal rivals - they're not bitter against each other, they just don't exist on the same wavelength - and the difference between them is one of the film's most subtle jokes until it comes to a head during the concert.
The third group we meet is a duo, Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara), whose hit single "There's a Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" took over the music world as a symbol of true love. It's a sincerely great song (it even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song that year), but unfortunately the performers had a severe falling out in the years that followed their success. Now, back together for one night, we get the treat of O'Hara's Mickey trying to pretend everything's fine while Levy presents Mitch as a man who's been through consistent emotional turmoil since the break up. His performance is one of my favorite in comedy cinema, and the story arc that follows Mitch and Mickey is what pushes A Mighty Wind over the top as my favorite of Guest's comedies. (To be fair, it's a close race. Tomorrow I might say Waiting for Guffman is my favorite. The man is too good at what he does.)
Mickey is the closest comparison to Llewyn Davis that we find in this film, because he too is completely defeated by the world and seems to have lost connection with everyone around him. But again - that's where the comparisons stop. Because A Mighty Wind is not a film about the anguish of life, A Mighty Wind is a film that provides the joy we need to scrape out of life. It's a comedic tale about a lot of people that are down on their luck, presented primarily as a whimsical comedy with a few heartfelt moments where love and humanity triumph over pain.
I was caught up in my own grief and sadness when I started writing this double feature, and that really helped me to appreciate Inside Llewyn Davis more. I watched it three times preparing this double feature and though it's always been a favorite it became almost medicinal this month. It means the world to me, and I love the reminders about life it provides. But it's also good to remember that life can make us laugh, that life can make us happy, and that life can provide us with love. And that's what A Mighty Wind, the second tale of defeated folk musicians we're talking about today, has to offer.
I haven't said enough about A Mighty Wind, other than that I love it dearly for its heart and it's humor, but I also feel like saying how much heart and humor it has is enough to explain why it belongs in this double feature. It's important to understand loss and sadness, but it can't be the only thing we're focused on. That's no way to get through the day. We need people that make us smile and make us feel joy too.
Maybe this double feature won't work for you, but it's the double feature I needed this month. Spending time with Llewyn Davis and Mitch & Mickey did a lot to remind me what I need to do to face the world. It got some good tunes stuck in my head, made me think about some great performances, and - like Frankenstein's monster and Rod Kimble - reminded me that life has some good in it. Sometimes that's exactly what we need.
