Inside Llewyn Davis [DVD] [2014]

To the extent this film is subversive, it’s an existential deconstruction of the American Dream. It questions ideas about art and talent, showing the lengths to which some will go to suffer for them.It’s the winter of 1960-61 and we’re in New York’s Greenwich Village. It’s cold, grey and blustery, snow piled high along the pavement, people hunched and huddled in overcoats as they walk. Among them is Llewyn Davis, a folk singer of about 30. He looks ragged because he is, homeless because poor, and poor because gigs in the local clubs (dingy cellar bars) barely pay. At present he’s living on the charity and kindness of friends. They feed him, lend him floor or couch space for a night or two. It’s tough and requires patience, self-belief, determination and a sense of humour, qualities Llewyn appears to lack. Instead he’s short tempered, sullen, stubborn. What charm he possesses emerges when he loses himself in song. There with his acoustic guitar he becomes sensitive, calm, soulful, his voice pure, even sweet. The small audiences he plays for seem to acknowledge this. They listen thoughtfully. He is not hooted and booed. The basket gets passed round and he earns a few bucks. But the folkie crowd is bohemian, not rich. Tourists don’t come to the Village. Not yet at any rate. Instead: artists, poets, actors, fellow musicians, all of whom are far off the capitalist mainline. They come to smoke, drink, chat, relax, not redistribute wealth. These places are their spiritual homes, places such as the Gaslight, Gerdes Folk City and others.Llewyn’s problems are many. First, as noted, he’s poor and homeless. In addition, he’s a solo act now because of tragedy. His partner Mike (half the duo of Timlin and Davis) committed suicide, jumping to his death from the George Washington Bridge. Half an act and half a man now. No harmony vocals anymore without Mike. No fiddle, mandolin or banjo accompaniment. No camaraderie and the solidarity of shared experiences, high and low. No partner in crime any longer, if it’s criminal to smoke, drink and sing folk songs. That’s the problem with suicide, or one of them. It destroys many, not just one. We see Llewyn struggle in the wake of this one, bereft and abandoned.However, some minor redemption: into his life a cat wanders. He’s gentle and seldom meows. He’s also observant and patient with a kind of stoic dignity that seems to take the world as it comes. He looks calm and peaceful, the mirror opposite of Llewyn, agitated as he is by all the worrying problems he’s caught up in.One of these is aesthetic. The starving artist in his garret, pure and unsullied in sensitive contemplation, is a romantic residue of the 19th century. But Llewyn doesn’t see it as a conceit and thus is limited by it. The musicians around him who succeed commercially are careerists and sell-outs, he says, which raises the question, implied but unspoken in the film, “What exactly is it that Llewyn is trying to do?” Art for art’s sake is a reasonable ideal if one can afford it. But if one can’t, as Llewyn clearly can’t, we’re entitled to ask: “What’s the point?”The film is a road film in a sense, and the second half of it literally becomes one. But largely it’s a journey of the spirit, a quest for meaning and purpose. In the ancient Homeric sagas the heroes were led by signs, portents, omens, animals. The world was symbolic and full of signifiers. Odysseus, who journeyed to find the Golden Fleece, was led by these. Llewyn in his way is led by the cat, whose name we later learn is Ulysses. Toward the end of the film Llewyn pauses outside a movie theatre. The poster there is for the Disney film The Incredible Journey and shows three animals, one of whom is a cat.The cat belongs to good friends of Llewyn’s called the Gorfeins (Mitch and Lillian). They live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, not in the Village. They are well off, Mitch a university professor. Liberal, open minded, bohemian in spirit, they are fans of Llewyn and most likely saw him perform at the Gaslight or elsewhere. They won’t allow him to suffer, so when he needs to crash on their sofa their door is wide open to him. But of course he has pride and only reluctantly and sporadically accepts. Earlier on in the film he is staying with the Gorfeins. He sleeps on their sofa. In the morning, waking up, Llewyn finds he is not alone. The cat sits Buddha-like on his chest, calm and composed. The camera angle is low and looks up from Llewyn’s point of view. From there Ulysses looks grand like a beautiful statue. He’s fluffy and pudgy, tawny coloured with green eyes. Llewyn looks at him with amusement, since he’s used to sleeping with women, not cats.Llewyn rises, eats a bowl of cereal, strums his guitar and sings. The Gorfeins are out, so he and the cat are alone. Llewyn must go out too and does. But just as he opens the door to leave, Ulysses darts from the flat as he’s closing the door. It locks and he hasn’t got a key, so he runs down the corridor after him, catching him.What to do? He can’t spend his entire day walking around New York City and the Village with a cat. So he calls on friend Jean in her tiny flat. Jean is a folk singer too, one half of a duo called Jim and Jean, Jim being her husband. Jean is not happy to see Llewyn. There are problems and complications between them. Llewyn leaves the cat with her and goes out. When he returns another folk singer named Troy Nelson is crashing with Jim and Jean. Llewyn needs to stay over tonight too and will return the cat to the Gorfeins tomorrow. Jean is furious and says there is no space for the two of them. But the reason for her fury is not accommodation. She’s angry because she’s pregnant, which she informs Llewyn of by silently handing a note to him in Troy’s presence. It is no love note. It’s accusatory and condemning.The next day they walk alone in a nearby park. Is the baby forming in Jean’s womb Llewyn’s? Naturally, he wants to know. She’s angry, indignant, and curses him. He’s no gentleman. He’s nothing but a randy homeless bum. Her words hurt but Llewyn does his best to deflect them. How can she know it’s his? Because she and Jim are always careful, she says. Llewyn is the reckless, irresponsible one. Who else’s could it be?Jean needs an abortion and Llewyn must pay for it. He’s broke but agrees. It will cost him $200. He knows the fee already because it’s not the first time he has had to pay for one. Diane, another woman, was impregnated by him. She too, it seems, did not want his child. But later he discovers this wasn’t the case. When he visits his private doctor to tell her about Jean, the doctor reveals that he never performed the operation on Diane, abortion aborted. She moved back to her hometown of Akron, Ohio and had the baby there. That was two years ago. The doctor never found out where Llewyn was living and thus didn’t return the money to him. But he’s honest enough now to tell Llewyn all this and say there’ll be no charge for Jean’s operation.Meanwhile Ulysses is gone. He jumped from the window and ran down the fire escape of Jean’s flat. Llewyn was frantic when it happened. He had just risen that morning and the window was barely open. But Ulysses didn’t like it there and dashed. So did Llewyn — in barefeet and T-shirt on a cold February morning. But to no avail. Ulysses has disappeared.The Gorfeins were understandably upset and worried when they returned home and found both Llewyn and the cat gone. “Where is he?” they want to know. They ask by phone. Llewyn stands outside, shivering at a pay phone. “Don’t worry,” he lies, the cat’s at Jean’s. He’ll return it to them tomorrow.By the miracle and magic of cinema Llewyn finds the cat the next day. Llewyn is in a dingy restaurant with Jean near Jean’s flat. She’s bad mouthing him, repeating a profanity as if she’s got Tourette Syndrome, her normally beautiful face contorted and ugly. Llewyn winces at the sound of the epithet. He looks out the window then suddenly jumps from his seat, dashing from the restaurant. He runs down the pavement, grabs Ulysses by the tail, pulls him back into his loving arms. Jean won’t love him. The world won’t love his music. But Ulysses is warm, furry and fat. He purrs when Llewyn holds him. The odyssey of Ulysses is over, it seems. Except it isn’t. Ulysses is still missing. This is the wrong cat. Llewyn doesn’t know it until he returns it to the Gorfeins. They are horrified. He is mortified.Stuck with the stray cat, he flees New York for a spell. A fellow musician named Al Cody has a car that two buddies of his are driving to Chicago. Llewyn, his guitar and cat hitch a ride with them. Johnny Five is at the wheel, a shifty-looking character who says nothing for miles on end along the frozen, foggy highway. In the back is dissipated Roland Turner, a loud-mouthed, cynical, condescending braggart who thinks he’s a brilliant jazz musician. Folk singers are circus performers to be laughed at.The ride from New York to Chicago is long. Llewyn makes it; Johnny Five, Roland Turner and the cat do not. Johnny is arrested and taken into custody by the Highway Patrol. Roland and the cat are abandoned in the car by Llewyn. He hitch-hikes the rest of the way to Chicago, a place just as cold and bleak as New York. There he goes to the Gate of Horn, a folkie theatre run by Bud Grossman, publisher and distributor of Troy Nelson’s records. In fact Llewyn is only here because Troy recommended Grossman. A month ago Llewyn sent Grossman his new solo record, Inside Llewyn Davis, which Grossman hasn’t listened to. Thus the title of the album which will fail to sell becomes the ironic title of the film.Grossman says he doesn’t need to listen to the album. Llewyn has his guitar, so play it. Llewyn does. Grossman sits and listens, his face impassive. Llewyn sings his heart out for him, sings an old traditional ballad from the record called The Death of Queen Jane. Later Dylan will borrow from it and call his own song Queen Jane Approximately.Llewyn is beautiful, his voice and phrasing sublime, his strumming low key but perfect. It is a perfect song. You hear it and know it. But Grossman doesn’t hear it, isn’t interested in its beauty. Llewyn finishes. Grossman says:“I don’t see a lot of money here.”No, he doesn’t. That’s what he doesn’t see — a lot of money. He suggests Llewyn join a folk group he’s forming (probably Peter, Paul and Mary, because Bud Grossman is Albert Grossman in reality, the folk titan who managed them and many other acts, including, most famously later on, Bob Dylan himself). No, thanks, says Llewyn. He doesn’t do harmonies for others. You should be in a duo, then, says Grossman. You need another voice. Ever think about that? Llewyn wanders away into the snow, no direction home.But he does return. He hitches a ride and does all the driving. He passes a highway sign that says Akron but doesn’t take the turn-off. He hits a tawny cat on the highway, or thinks he does. It might have been the stray he left behind with Roland Turner a day or two ago. It’s all foggy — both the highway and his head. Nothing makes sense anymore.Many other incidents and characters occur in the film: Llewyn’s single-mom sister Joy (chronically unhappy), his silent and resigned father who’s in a nursing home, the office of the Merchant Marines which Llewyn visits in desperation with the thought of going to sea again.But what matters most is the music, which brilliantly flows through this film. That is, if you like folk music. Jean tells Llewyn when they meet again that he’s on the bill tonight at the Gaslight if he wants to play. She went to the owner and told him Llewyn needs the money. Llewyn says there won’t be much in the basket. She says it’ll only be half a basket, as there’s another act on the bill tonight. She also says the Times will be present in the audience, an idea that Llewyn sniffs at.The Times did show, as in The New York Times, but it wasn’t at the Gaslight that night but at Gerde’s Folk City where the Times reporter Robert Shelton sat and listened to Dylan some months later. His piece appeared in the Times on 29 September 1961. Headline: 20-Year-Old is Bright New Face at Gerde’s Club. Shelton was widely respected and had connections. One was John Hammond at Columbia Records. There the eponymous album Bob Dylan was recorded in a day or two in 1962. Thus did the revolution begin and nothing in the Village, at Newport, or in the wider world beyond would be the same again.The last we see of Llewyn is outside the Gaslight in an alley. It’s February, it’s cold, and some hick from Hibbing (Minnesota) is crooning on stage, yet another wannabe on the folkie trail of tears. But Llewyn doesn’t hear what the others hear that night. He’s part of the old guard, the world of Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Woody Guthrie and Dave Van Ronk. In fact, his character is vaguely patterned after that of Van Ronk, affectionately known in the Village as he was as the Mayor of MacDougal Street.Llewyn’s face is hurting, partly stinging from the biting cold, but also from a punch he has just taken to the face, beaten up by an angry and vengeful man. Who? The husband of a country gal from Arkansas who played the washboard at the Gaslight the other night. Llewyn stupidly stood up and ridiculed her as a hayseed, thinking himself superior to her.The camera holds on Llewyn’s face. His eyes are blank as they gaze at the dark, empty night sky. And in those eyes we see the truth, one which tells us this man is going nowhere.

Despite a journey into the 'surreal', courtesy of their most recent efforts, I remain a big fan of most Coen brothers films; excepting the rather pointless/ineffective 'The Ladykillers' and 'Gambit', they have many good points with some ('Fargo', 'No Country for Old Men') bordering on brilliance.Following the good (but very weird) 'A Serious Man', a return to something approaching Coen 'normality' courtesy of the very good 'True Grit' (and then skipping 'Gambit') has proven to be somewhat short-lived with this most recent disc release - I think it is often as enigmatic as 'A Serious Man' and, due in no small part to an emphasis on musicality, is potentially as 'inaccessible' for many; but especially as it is particularly slow-paced.....A bonus is that on Blu-ray the presentation of 'Inside Llewyn Davis' is very good, with a sumptuous and well-defined picture to depict the mostly very dark scenes and/or 'spotlit' interiors.I am able to state with certainty how good the almost pastel palette and dark surroundings of this film are portrayed to us in HD as I also own the DVD, which shows things to be positively 'murky' and blurred - watch this film in SD and you are missing a massive element of it's production 'intentions'....However, despite there being a lot of musicality in the soundtrack, as it is rarely very involved or spatial I don't think the Blu-ray DTS-HD Master Audio variant offers much more than the DD5.1 of the DVD.The overall plot is not that complicated and the Amazon synopsis does a good job without any spoilers; however, the detail is where the weirdness of this film is revealed, and there are more than the usual number of occurrences to provoke thought and differences in understanding amongst us....The best way to start my limited analysis of this movie is by stating that the title is IMHO misleading, as it should really be 'Outside Llewyn Davis', since we rarely gain any true insight into the thoughts of the strangely likeable, yet fairly unpleasant, lead character. What we DO get is an opportunity to witness his usually selfish behaviour and reactive expressions/comments to the frequent series of 'incidents' and situations which befall him - most of which are either well-deserved or a direct consequence of his thoughtless/rude actions; an important contrast to the lead character in 'A Serious Man', who is largely a blameless victim....So, the strange 'likeability' of Llewyn Davis and the continual series of 'weirdness' is what captured my interest and complete the journey of watching this film; the other important factor being the performance of Oscar Isaac in the lead role, who has once again proved himself to me to be a most accomplished artist. He not only looks different, but acts differently in this and the previous films I've seen him in (viewing order: 'Ex Machina', 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' and 'A Most Violent Year') - 4 wildly different personas in 4 VERY different films....-----------*** Small Potential Spoilersand then there is the cat.....Well, two cats actually - and I feel the presence of both is significant to the meaning of the plot but cannot fathom it out. I have read many synopsis analysing the plot and cat roles/'importance' to it, BUT feel they have all missed whatever the point is; acknowledge the fact that they are not only different sexes, and feature independently in certain key scenes, and the results of all those attempts at analysing are IMHO scotched....Like 'A Serious Man', what we again get is an enigmatic ending - except on this occasion I don't feel that I understood it, if there was a point to it that is ! One thing I did feel was the potential for a 'parallel universe' ingredient to the plot, since the ending has similar elements to the opening scene, but is different in some important respects*** End of Potential Spoilers-----------Other enjoyable attributes of this movie are the usual Coen 'quirks' (eg most things cat-related and the colourful characters, both long-standing or in the guise of cameo appearances), wacky occurrences and the cinematography (despite the absence of Roger Deakins) - plus the usual period delights, a common Coen trait since they rarely do 'modern'....As hinted at earlier, on Blu-ray everything is presented very well - a lovely rich, if (again) slightly washed-out picture and a clear DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Occasionally I felt I was watching a black and white movie, such is the dominance of dark scenes and the prevalence of such a neutral/pastel palette; remembering the period-settings which also instil a feeling of days gone by. Only once I glanced at the DVD offering of this film did I appreciate how good the HD presentation is, with so much more detail and luminance - showing what exists in the background in otherwise murky patches when viewed in SD....A shortfall with the Blu-ray and DVD is with the extras, which are once again VERY skimpy for such a deserving case. This point is proven by the fact that the US (Region A locked unfortunately) release by Criterion adds several worthwhile-looking featurettes. I've yet to see if the one extra we get (same on Blu-ray and DVD), a featurette entitled 'Inside Inside Llewyn Davis', is in any way enlightening - it had better be, otherwise it's running time of over 40mins is gong to be a bit tiresome !I've attached a photo of the back of the disc box to show all the disc info, as it's not already on the main Amazon page.I really liked 'Inside Llewyn Davis', but am glad that I watched it first on Blu-ray as the DVD presentation is somewhat deficient - a crucial factor when the visuals of this film are such an important element.