Comments on: Why ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ Might Be The Most Subversive Film The Coen Brothers Have Ever Made https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/ Sat, 28 Oct 2017 18:50:13 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.4 By: Christopher Reardon https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32891 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32891 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.

]]> By: Curtis https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32883 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32883 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.

]]> By: Bogg https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32884 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32884 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.

]]> By: Noah https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32885 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32885 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!

]]> By: Rose dr Novo https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32886 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32886 Superb , measured incrediibly intelligent discussion of one of my most admired films. Thank you.

]]> By: Kirby https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32887 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32887 Fantastic article!!!

]]> By: Hernán https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32888 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32888 Wow, what an incredible article this is.

]]> By: Sasha https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32889 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32889 Cool articular… but I still don\’t see any money in it.

]]> By: Charles https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32890 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32890 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.

]]> By: Dawn https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32882 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32882 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).

]]> By: Jimmy https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32892 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32892 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.)

]]> By: StephenM https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32893 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32893 "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.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32894 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32894 And I usually enjoy Kiang\’s articles so much.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32895 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32895 Any analysis of a Coen Bros film without interrogating Jewish identity or Old Testament references is half baked.

]]> By: brou https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32896 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32896 Great text. Hats off. The last paragraph is spot on.

]]> By: Oli https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32897 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32897 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.

]]> By: Jimbo https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32898 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:31 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32898 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.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32874 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32874 Don\’t trust the White man\’s praise for you Kiang. Enjoy it, benefit from it, but don\’t trust it.

]]> By: Hitfan https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32866 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32866 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.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32867 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32867 @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.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32868 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32868 @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.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32869 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32869 @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.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32870 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32870 @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.

]]> By: Dave https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32871 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32871 @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.

]]> By: Romeo https://staging2.theplaylist.net/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-20160126/#comment-32872 Fri, 13 May 2016 07:33:30 +0000 http://www.indiewire.com/2016/more/uncategorized/why-inside-llewyn-davis-might-be-the-most-subversive-film-the-coen-brothers-have-ever-made-86156/#comment-32872 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.

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