INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

Don’t Ask Him to Sing for His Supper

By Le Anne Lindsay, Editor

This is the winter of Llewyn Davis’ (Oscar Isaac) discontent. He’s got no money, no coat, no place to live and no one really likes him much. He’s got some charm and sex appeal, he can sing and play guitar, but he’s one of these people who speaks first and thinks later and has little regard for the consequences of his actions, until after his words and/or actions make trouble for him. Still, he’s not nearly as bad as Jean (Carey Mulligan) the self-righteous, singing girlfriend of a friend (Justin Timberlake) tells him he is.   With Inside Llewyn Davis, Oscar winning Writers/Directors/Brothers Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit) have created an Indie musical set in the wintry-gray-Village(NY)- 60’s-folk music era, about a guy trying to make it in the music business after his singing partner commits suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge – which as Roland Turner, John Goodman’s crippled, obnoxious, drug induced, blues singer character tactlessly points out  – “You throw yourself off the Brooklyn Bridge traditionally, George Washington Bridge, who does that?”

I Came Out of the Theater Thinking: I’m not quite certain what the cat represents in the film, perhaps because cats tend to be strays and Llewyn can’t seem to find his place in the world?  Also about Roland awaking to a WTF moment, which we don’t get to see, after he’s abandoned in a car part way between Chicago and NY.  And don’t expect to see much of Justin Timberlake, his part is miniscule in the movie.

Film in Food Moment: Although Llewyn is at the mercy of those who take him in, feed him and provide a couch for the night, he still has the audacity to be prickly about being asked to sing a tune after dinner at the home of a college professor and his wife – hence my title – Don’ Ask Him to Sing for His Supper 🙂

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Q: Your films are always very anchored in a specific time and specific scenes with specific faces. This is the early 60’s folkie scene. Do you have a list of stories tied to specific places and subjects you want to do?

J Cohen : It’s hard for us to imagine stories abstract or divorced from a very specific locale. I couldn’t imagine us doing a story that could happen anywhere or in a generic city. It’s hard for us to get traction that way.

Why we were thinking specifically, here, let’s do a New York 1961 club scene, I don’t know. We listened to a lot of music and we were interested. We got a number of books, including a memoir that was written by Dave Von Ronk about that period. I was thinking about it.

E Cohen: It seemed like the scene itself knew it would get us going, but then there was this character in that scene, and as much as his concerns are his tortured relationship to success and the whole idea-making new crap out of the old crap-those are both things that were concerns of the character in that scene. READ MORE Karen Benardello, Yahoo Movies

T &T’s LAMB Score: 3.5 out of 5