This was one of the best films I've seen so far this year. It has been critically praised, lauded for it's cinematography and writing and directing. As a former resident of New York City, a reader of beat literature in my adolescence, and an enthusiastic, perhaps a bit unquestioning, fan of anything from Greenwich Village, I found the movie a journey back to a time that I wished I had experienced first-hand. I am in total agreement with the reviewer from the New Yorker.com that for those that lived through those years it is an endless track back to those times and a constant re-telling of stories from that period; and for those, like myself, it is an endless interest in what it was like back then. And on those terms; re-living a time, going back in time, a period piece, an emotional experience of things gone, this film did not disappoint.
Perhaps I'm alreay saying what is obvious. It's a Coen Brothers film so of course it's one of the best films of the year. Sadly, I don't have an adequate knowledge to make a comparison of Coen Brothers films. Yet, I think this film should be one of their best. The story told is part legend, part de-mystificiation, part depiction of the life of a muscian, a folk singer. The lead actor is especially good. He makes you feel his desolation, his desperation of trying to find somewhere to live, someway to make a living without sacrificing his art. These are the pre-Dylan days of Folk music, so a purist orthodoxy reigns in Folk Music. I felt this idea was adequately portrayed in the scene where the fok trio sings. They look very conservative, they all sing perfectly in unison. It reminded me of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Juxtapose that against Oscar Davis' Llewyn and it really shows the ferment in the Folk Scene. It also shows Llewyn's struggle to reach stardom as well as keeping his integrity as a singer-songwriter.
Aside from great performances by the actors, I was particularly taken with Cary Mulligan's performance as the ascerbic, scorned woman. The rest of the characters are all peripheral to Davis' journey which, we are led to believe, ends in, what could be worse, obscurity.
The New York Film Critics Circle awarded Inside... for best cinematography which was well deserved. I noticed it a little during the film and upon deeper reflection, the cinematography was very well shot. It really made you feel like it was Winter. You felt the cold on the streets. And those shots of the doors of the apartments which were so close together were great.
The ending was the subject of a discussion in a New Yorker blog post. It talks about the meaning of the end. It's circular structure revealing that the journey Llewyn was on was in whole or in part a flashback and, furthermore, is a meditation on Llewyn's career as a Folk muscian. When he is punched, knocked, down, and can't get up while Bob Dylan plays on stage, means that Llewyn's career is over. He has been knocked down for the last time. Dylan would revolutionize Folk music in such a way as to wipe out Llewyn's career and many like him. I suppose that is true. Perhaps it is his last performance, his last heckle.
To me the movie brought the music industry into perspective. I suppose there was Pop back then. Some form of uncritical, superficially expressive musical form which is so popular and antisceptic today. Which is dominated by white, religious, and optimistic singers and narratives. Inside Llewyn Davis goes back to a time when music was becoming an important venue to criticize society at large, to use it as a forum for open criticism of social injustices like racism, sexism, poverty, global conflict, and corruption. The music of Bob Dylan is, perhaps the clearest result of the tumult of the Folk scene at the time when Inside Llewyn is set. I feel like it's meaning is nostalgic as well as a message. Nostalgic for the Greenwich Village of the 1950's and early 60's. A message about how music can influence society. Perhaps I' interpreting too much about the politics of the film. Yet with most of the music that is produced today a testament about how it was previously produced should remind us of the serious song writers that were a voice to many people.
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