Inside Llewyn Davis (***1/2)

The Greenwich Village folk music in the early 1960s scene serves as the backdrop for this Coen Brothers movie. In some ways, it functions as a citified quasi-sequel to O Brother Where Art Thou, the musical travelgogue that was inspired by Homer’s Odyssey. We follow Llewyn Davis on his own odyssey (a certain character name, revealed late in the movie, seems also to allude to Homer). As played by Oscar Isaac, Davis is a none-too-successful singer-songwriter whose gentle songs and soulful eyes are at odds with a somewhat prickly personality. Asked to play something at a dinner party held by university professor and his wife (they like having a bohemian friend), he protests, “I’m not a fucking trained monkey.”

 

Davis can’t help saying what he thinks, even when he can’t afford to. Some people will not want to follow him around for two hours, either, but it’s such idiosyncrasies that make him interesting. Alongside that, the film provides a look into the folk subculture just before folks like Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary became breakout stars. Davis himself would have fit in with Dylan, although he is less acerbic and is said to be based in part on Dave van Ronk, a semi-well known figure called the Mayor of MacDougal Street. Representing the sweeter side of that sound (something like Peter, Paul, and Mary) are a duo called Jean and Jim, played by Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake. Jean also may have been impregnated by Davis. And one of the funniest segments is provided when Davis has a recording session recording a novelty song called “Please Mr. Kennedy.”

This movie didn’t immediately impress me as much as some other Coen Brothers films. It doesn’t have the offbeat humor of Fargo or The Big Lebowski, save for a couple of scenes in which John Goodman plays Davis’s loud-mouthed road-trip companion. It doesn’t have the stark suspense of True Grit or No Country for Old Men. But, a couple of months after seeing this, the character sticks with me. As for the music, most it may be on the austere side for most modern audiences. But it’s well-performed and well chosen by T-Bone Burnett (who served a similar function on O Brother). Isaac, who has sung in his own band, has an excellent voice and gives a breakout performance.

 

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viewed 11/6/13 7:00 pm at Ritz 5 [PFS screening], posted 12/20/13; review added 1/8/14

I'm Not There (**1/4)

I'm Not There is Todd Haynes’s self-consciously clever attempt to tackle the life, or many lives, as he puts it, of Bob Dylan. No one actor, or cinematic style, can properly capture this arguably most influential American musician of the 20th century. There is young hobo Bob, tramping it in the midwest and calling himself—this is Haynes’s conceit—Woody Guthrie, after his then-dying folk idol. That Woody is played by Marcus Carl Franklin, an eleven-year-old black boy, may strike you as a heavy-handed attempt to depict both Dylan’s identification with the downtrodden and his formative musical state. Still, the scenes are not without some rustic charm. Hobo Bob/Woody will soon become folk-hero Bob (Christian Bale), troubadour of Greenwich Village and protegé of Joan Baez, who is played by Julianne Moore and called Alice Fabian here. Bob is called Jack Rollins. Haynes does these segments like a documentary, partly in black and white, complete with ersatz re-creations of famous album covers. (The Times They Are A Changin’ becomes Time Will Tell, which, like certain other parts of the movie, is funny if you know something about Dylan, and otherwise isn’t.)

Then there is Cate Blanchett's mod Bob, alienating his folk base, swinging through a Fellini-esque vision of London, and sparring with a “square” BBC reporter played by Bruce Greenwood. This segment, or segments, since the film isn't strictly chronological, is most representative of the overall theme. Bob, now called Jude Quinn, fends off the reporter's attempts to understand him. “You want me to say what you want me to say,” he says, which might be the message for the film—Dylan is whoever the audience wants him to be. Later, he is family-man Bob (Heath Ledger), unsuccessfully married to a French artist (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and born-again Bob (Bale, again), recruited for Jesus by a girlfriend. There are two other Bobs, one appearing only in ersatz interview segments, and one in which Bob appears only in the guise of the drifter he played in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Call him Billy Bob.

Don’t know any of these Bobs? This is probably not the right starting point. There's already the documentaries Don't Look Back and No Direction Home, or Dylan’s own recent memoirs. This is both too fictionalized and too scattershot to serve as biography. Granting that that wasn’t the aim, I still didn’t think the movie spoke to me. There are some good performances, notably Blanchett, but also the young Franklin, who really sings, too, and Gainsbourg, who brings the only true emotional notes to the film. The part where Blanchett’s Bob/Jude asks a coterie of acolytes and assorted hangers on, “Am I the only one with any balls around here” may be a sly nod to the unusual casting, which works surprisingly well. And the songs are very good, of course. Some are the original recordings, while others are faithful cover versions. Some are familiar, others obscure. (A few hits, like “Tangled Up in Blue,” are missing.) But interesting songs and casting may not be enough for the average moviegoer, who may find Hayne’s film, as I did, on the dull side. Obviously a lot of craft has gone into it, but the result is more admirable than enlightening.

IMDB link

reviewed 12/22/07 to 1/15/08