Inside Llewyn Davis

2013
Coen Bros.

An Ode to the generation in between the conservative Post War and the rebellious hippies, this one is for all the losers out there that had a dream, a voice, a guitar, or just a cat, and that did not want to just “get a job”, but they ended up either doing so anyway because the dream didn’t work out, or they died.

Llewyn Davis was the real folk singer, the real thing.  He had the voice, the Guthrie sincerity, the traveled feet, the real life background of one who was truly a “beat” type, the stokes on the guitar, the ideal.  But he ran, like so many, heads-on into the industry man who didn’t “see any money in this” - Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham). “I don’t see any money in this” is that pivotal moment, the beginning of the third act wherein the protagonist’s journey takes its turn towards a conclusion, makes a decision, and either goes all out in flames, or goes home.

There is a slice of life here of the folk scene as it was winding down and making way for the more esoteric, the more nuanced beat scene come to life in Dylan and then rock.  There is a scene of Llewyn coming out of the Gaslight Poetry Cafe at night, and there is a line of people waiting to get in, witness to the popularity and tiredness of the scene.  Llewyn yells at the line of people that ,"It's a sham, the show's a sham."  There are also the small dinner get-togethers at the apartment of a pair of true folk believers, the Gorfein's, wherein visit the square and old-school musicians who play harpsicords and "the old stuffs".  Llewyn attends the dinner parties because he needs a place to sleep and something to eat, but he is obviously suffering through it.

This story does not deal sentimentally with the beat generation at all, as some have attempted to do.  Rather, it leaves it almost silent, smoking, driving in a car without any seeming real destination, mumbling almost incomprehensible poetry lines and dropping a name in the car that sounds like Corso, ripping apart new music compared with the superiority of jazz, stopping at every rest stop necessary to stagger into the bathroom and then finally collapse on the floor drooling with a needle stuck in its arm and a surgical tube around it, then shoveled none too gracefully back into the car.  That’s pretty accurate if you ask me.  And there is Llewyn, stuck driving for them, but he closes his door on the tag along friend, and that’s that.  He still takes a stab at the music, he makes it to Chicago.

Actress Carey Mulligan plays a very effective slut.  At first, the sweet looks and charm make for a great foil for Llewyn, emphasizing the depth of his impoverishment by establishing that they have a long-time loser relationship, and then in the end she becomes another brick in the wall of insider trade for the folk scene.  As a representation of women in that scene's politics, however, she does a fine job delivering a great performance, since she refused to deliver anything else, according to the story. :)

There's Llewyn chasing a cat through the streets that turns out to not be of a gender he was expecting, close to the real thing, but not; an impostor.  That was such a perfect metaphor for the whole story.  Great stuff by the Coens.  The cat, Ulysses as it turns out, follows him out of the Gorfein's apartment, as does his music, and he is forced to carry it around with him to care for it.  I mean, what?  Who's he going to leave it with, the elevator guy?  But as an attachment, much like his box of stuff at his sister's house, and his box of records at the record company that are going to get thrown out if he doesn't take them, the cat is so much baggage that he must take care of, and like him, is getting shoved from one place to another in an increasingly smaller world.  At one point, Llewyn is asked where he's staying for the night, and he answers, "Well, there must be somebody [in the area] that doesn't hate me."

I would go into the level of confidence and sympathy we have for the point of view of Llewyn during the most touching scene in the story (again, just at the cusp of the third act, after the main character has made a major decision and is heading towards it), but that would be a spoiler.

The reality that the music industry is just someone’s whore is never more clear than this.  Llewyn most likely represents that other 99.8% that did not make it, that ended up broke, ended up with a box full of vanity press vinyl.  He most likely represents that percentage that got its ass kicked in an alley, and took a back seat to those whose studios catered to only the 1.8% that they happened to like.  He also, I am sure, represents the other large percentage that the music "system" used to utilize as fodder from the streets by creating an archaic workaround that was very much like the old time "company store" for coal miners.  This was more like reality than most other stories I’ve seen representing a romanticized “generational movement”.  

This one is not for the audience of the popular generational ideal.  This one was for those who actually lived it, attempted to love it, and lost out in one way or another.

This is a must-see if you’re a 60’s buff, a 50’s sympathizer, or just simply a music fan.  Others hooked on pop culture, easy solutions, or with no sense of history (romanticism) please never mind.