The Coens Will Write and Direct 'A Serious Man'
Source: Cinematical
Looks like the Joel and Ethan Coen (ever wonder why Joel's name always comes first?) have decided to get serious for Focus Features and Working Title, the shingle that previously helped produce Coen flicks like Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy and The Big Lebowski, among others. Following news that Brad Pitt is set to star alongside George Clooney and Frances McDormand in Burn After Reading, comes word from Variety that the Coen's will follow up that pic with one called A Serious Man. Described as a "dark comedy in the vein of Fargo," both Ethan and Joel intend on being credited as writers, producers and directors on the two films.
Seeing as A Serious Man is slated to be a serious dark comedy, one has to assume that Burn After Reading will go a different route. That film is said to revolve around a CIA agent who loses the computer disk in which his (or her) tell-all book is stored. In the Variety article, they mention that Brad Pitt will play a trainer at a gym (did we know that already?), while rumors suggest Clooney will play a killer of some sorts, and not the strikingly-handsome protagonist. Hmm, do you think McDormand will play the CIA agent? Or have the Coen's not decided on a star (ahem, Billy Bob) yet? And, with nothing else lined up after Burn, me wonders whether McDormand will sign up for back-to-back Coen flicks; perhaps she'll take on another Fargo-like role and win a second Oscar. These are good times for all you Coen fanatics out there; aside from the aforementioned two films, their latest, No Country for Old Men, will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month, before arriving in theaters later this fall.
Coens ready for 'Man,' 'Burn'
Brothers pact with Focus, Working Title
Source: Variety
Joel and Ethan Coen have set "A Serious Man" -- a dark comedy in the vein of "Fargo" -- with Focus Features and Working Title.
Both brothers are slated to be credited as writers, producers and directors.
"Serious Man" is the second of a two-pic pact the brothers made with Focus and Working Title. It will follow "Burn After Reading," set to start shooting this summer. Brad Pitt recently joined George Clooney and Frances McDormand in that pic.
Plot details on both films are under wraps.
The Coens are wrapping post work on Cannes entry "No Country for Old Men" for Miramax and Paramount Vantage.
Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner will exec produce the two films. Past Coen pics at the company include "Fargo," "The Hudsucker Proxy," "The Big Lebowski," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "The Man Who Wasn't There."
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Coens, Focus, Working Title getting 'Serious'
Source: Hollywood Reporter
NEW YORK -- Indie mavericks Joel and Ethan Coen will write, produce and direct the dark comedy "A Serious Man," the second announced film in a two-picture pact with Focus Features and Working Title Films.
The first feature in the deal is the spy comedy "Burn After Reading," starring Brad Pitt and longtime Coen brothers collaborators George Clooney and Frances McDormand.
Production is set to begin in late summer, with "Serious" slated to be the Coens' next film for the companies, Focus CEO James Schamus and Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner said.
Bevan and Fellner will serve as executive producers on both projects.
McDormand, wife of Joel Coen, won an Oscar in 1996 for the brothers' quirky crime comedy "Fargo."
The Coens are completing postproduction on their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel "No Country for Old Men," which is slated to premiere next month at the Festival de Cannes.
Coen Brothers to get "Serious" in April
Source: FilmJerk
"A Serious Man," one of the pre-strike priorities for Focus Features, will begin lensing in Minneapolis in April.
Little news has come out about the next next next Coen Brothers film (the next being their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men," in theatres this November, and their next next being their currently filming "Burn After Reading" with Brad Pitt and George Clooney) since the film was first announced back in April.
"A Serious Man" will focus on Larry Gopnik, a Jewish college professor in the Midwest during the 1960s. Larry starts to question the value of life when he discovers his wife wants a divorce (she is also probably getting it on with one of the neighbors). He also has trouble with his children stealing money out of his wallet (his son is buying weed, while his daughter is saving for plastic surgery) and his deadbeat brother, who has moved in because he neither has the cash nor the maturity to live on his own. Add to that the hostile anonymous notes he keeps receiving which threaten his tenure at school, the grad student who will get a passing grade from Larry by any means necessary (who may or may not be the person leaving the threatening letters) and the hot neighbor who bedevils Larry with her nude sunbathing, and there is little wonder why Larry seeks to solve his existential issues from men of God whom he hopes will help him to become an austere and devoted man.
It is not known who may star as Larry or the members of his family, but there are places where we could see some familiar Coen Brother collaborators. John Goodman could be a good fit for the next door neighbor Gar Brandt, although with Gar's buzzcut, he might remind people too much of the much beloved Walter Sobchak. And why not Frances McDormand for Mimi, the friend of Larry's who helps her friend to visit the wise old men.
Focus Features is expected to release the film in the early months of 2009.
this sounds great. (note the different plot synopses in first and last posts, i'm basing my optimism on mac's latest update)
curse-lift pending.
edit: didn't notice the story described in the first post is actually Burn After Reading.
curse-lift looking good.
Home Again: Coens Filming in Minnesota
Will the Coen brothers ever return to their native Minnesota to film another movie? Yeah sure, you betcha! Joel and Ethan Coen haven't made a movie in Minnesota since their 1996 Oscar-winning "Fargo," but come March they plan to roll cameras for "A Serious Man," set in their home town of St. Louis Park, a Minneapolis suburb.
The brothers helped scout locations this summer, said Lucinda Winter, executive director of the Minnesota Film and TV Board.
"They looked in Richfield, Brooklyn Center, maybe Hopkins neighborhoods that would match the one they grew up in," she said.
The film is about a Jewish college professor during the 1960s. According to the online entertainment journal FilmJerk.com, the main character is bedeviled by children who lift his wallet, a wife who wants a divorce, an intense grad student and a hot neighbor who sunbathes in the nude. With all of that, "he starts to question the value of life."
It's not autobiographical but is based on the Coen brothers' experiences here, said Bob Graf, one of the film's executive producers and also a native Minnesotan.
Graf said it's important to capture the uniqueness of Twin Cities suburbs.
"It's just plain different," Graf said Friday from New York.
Coen brothers cast 'Serious' men
Stuhlbarg, Kind set for period black comedy
Source: Variety
The Coen brothers have tapped a pair of relative unknowns to star in their next pic, "A Serious Man."
Michael Stuhlbarg, a Tony-nominated actor with little experience in front of the cameras, and Richard Kind, a character actor best known for his role on ABC's "Spin City," will star as brothers in the period black comedy.
Set in 1967, story centers on Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg), a Midwestern professor whose life begins to unravel when his wife sets out to leave him and his socially inept brother (Kind) won't move out of the house.
Shooting is set to start at the beginning of next month in Minneapolis.
Working Title is producing, and Focus Features will distribute.
Joel and Ethan Coen, whose George Clooney-Brad Pitt starrer "Burn After Reading" will open next month, penned the screenplay for "A Serious Man" and are sharing producing duties. Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner exec produce.
Stuhlbarg, who has made guest appearances on "Law & Order" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," was nominated for a Tony for his role in "The Pillowman" and starred in the title role of this summer's Shakespeare in the Park production of "Hamlet."
He is repped by manager Lisa Loosemoore.
Kind's credits include "For Your Consideration," "The Station Agent" and "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and the TV series "Mad About You."
I have a draft of the script. PM me if you want it.
Production Begins on the Coens' A Serious Man
Source: Focus Features
Production began on Monday on location in Minnesota on A Serious Man, for Focus Features and Working Title Films. Joel and Ethan Coen, Academy Award winners for No Country for Old Men and Fargo, are writing, producing, and directing the film. Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are executive-producing the film with Robert Graf, who has worked on the Coens' last six features in various producing capacities.
The director of photography on A Serious Man is seven-time Academy Award nominee Roger Deakins, who is marking his tenth feature collaboration with the Coens. Mary Zophres is the film's costume designer, marking her ninth feature collaboration with the Coens. Jess Gonchor is the production designer, marking his third feature collaboration with the Coens.
A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman, who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?
Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg (whose films include The Grey Zone) stars as Larry; Fred Melamed (Suspect) plays Sy; Richard Kind (The Visitor) portrays Arthur; and Minnesota actors Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, and Jessica McManus are cast as Danny, Judith, and Sarah, respectively.
The Coens' comedy thriller Burn After Reading, also from Focus Features and Working Title Films, world-premiered last month as the opening-night film of the 2008 Venice International Film Festival; made its North American premiere last week at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival; and will be released by Focus nationwide on Friday, September 12th. The film stars George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, and Brad Pitt.
Quote from: MacGuffin on September 08, 2008, 10:02:21 PM
A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman, who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?
now that's a synopsis
Adam Arkin cast in 'Serious Man'
'Life' actor boards Coen bros' dark comedy
Source: Variety
Adam Arkin has joined "A Serious Man," the film that Joel and Ethan Coen are shooting in Minnesota for Focus Features and Working Title Films.
Arkin, who's a series regular on NBC's "Life," joins Michael Stuhlbarg and Richard Kind, who play brothers in the black comedy, which takes place in 1967.
Arkin's repped by ICM and Principal Entertainment.
The Coens wrote the script and produce. Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are exec producers.
Academy Award-winning writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry's unemployable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolf) is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man? Filmed on location in Minnesota for Focus and Working Title Films, A Serious Man will open in limited release on October 2nd.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/aseriousman/
looks great. don't fuck this up coens.
is that an elmore leonard lookalike or do a lot of people look like that?
Finally, I'm intrigued by a Coen brother film instead of feeling the need to see them to just keep tabs. Burn After Reading was a major development because the mishaps in the story had a thought process on their way to intelligibility. In most previous Coen comedies, I noticed their personality quirks being the biggest determiner to the mishaps. Burn After Reading wasn't funny, but was a good comedy. A Serious Man could be decent.
Neat trailer.
So, I'm pretty sure the guy slamming his face up against the chalk board is the same guy who is hugging him and say "Harry, you're gonna be fine." at any rate though, One thing about the coen brothers i am absolutely in love with is their maneuvering. They always seem to bust something out that i didn't expect. For better or worse, and most of my opinions lead toward the former. Anyhow, this looks interesting,
Wasn't Jefferson airplane played on the radio? Or am i just assuming they did, because they play it now nostalgically ?
the synopsis mentions jefferson airplane so i'm assuming it's a plot point of some kind. either that or whoever wrote the summary just watched the trailer and made assumptions.
loved how the trailer was put together, stands on it's own as an impressive piece of editing.
also, big laugh to the delivery of "he didn't look busy!!"
I LOVE JEFFERSON AIRPLANE.
http://www.coenbrothers.net/scripts/ (http://www.coenbrothers.net/scripts/)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi205.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb52%2FThe_Playlist%2Faseriousman-poster.jpg&hash=da9050af78a5ed0f94bd7e43d5f71bb2c85850ee)
...
That poster is the pwn. I'd read it.
I find it an interesting poster because it's not really symmetrical, which almost all movie posters are, it seems. Like Stefan suggests, it's more like a book cover than a movie poster.
Read the script. Sorry, I'm over the Coens.
how about a useful review instead?
Jesus, this place breeds cynicism.
guys, just read the synopsis. no good. rent it.
Variety review:
A Serious Man
By TODD MCCARTHY
"A Serious Man" is the kind of picture you get to make after you've won an Oscar. A small film about being Jewish in a Midwestern suburb in 1967, this will be seen as a particularly personal project from Joel and Ethan Coen, and their talent for putting their characters through the wringer in peculiarly funny ways flourishes here on their home turf. With scarcely a familiar name in the entire cast, this Focus release will have to fly on the brothers' names alone, which in this case will mean OK biz in limited playoff in urban areas.
The '60s as we think of them are just barely beginning to touch this insular world of ranch housing, scientific academia, Hebrew school and very square clothing choices, and then only through pubescent Danny Gopnik (Aaron Wolff), who gets high and listens to Jefferson Airplane when he's supposed to be preparing for his bar mitzvah.
But shouldering a weight of woes worthy of Job is Danny's father, Larry (Michael Stuhlbarg), and the trials he must suffer are relentless enough to -- in a buoyant, comical way -- call into question the meaning of life and the nature of God's intentions for his chosen ones. Physics professor Larry is afflicted by his pain-in-the-tuchus brother Arthur (Richard Kind), who's sleeping on the couch with no prospects of leaving; wife Judith (Sari Lennick), who abruptly announces she's leaving him for widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), an overbearing smooth talker and "serious man"; burgeoning pothead son Danny and nose-job-seeking daughter Sarah (Jessicca McManus); a gun-toting redneck next-door neighbor; a failing student who simultaneously bribes and threatens to sue him; and an anonymous letter-writing campaign that may derail his chances for tenure.
If this all sounds like enough material to last a situation comedy for a full season, that's not the way the Coens play it. One doesn't know how (auto)biographical any or all of this is, but there's a tartness to the telling of what amounts to a well-shaped series of anecdotes that bespeaks distant pain or, at least, wincing memory twisted into mordant comedy by time and sensibility. The prevailing strain of humor makes serious light of the characters' foibles in a way that could make some Jews uncomfortable, to the extent that, for certain people, the film might fall into the category of Jewish caricature, even self-hatred.
But to anyone accustomed to the Coens' dark humor through years of exposure, the tone here, on balance, is benign enough. A curious Yiddish-language prologue set in a Polish shtetl establishes a framework in which vigorous disputation and discernment of divine intent are among life's requisites, and so it remains, as Larry, the downtrodden schlemiel and once and future outcast, shuffles among multiple rabbis and lawyers in an attempt to make sense of what is happening to him. Larry, who deals with mathematical certainties in his work, otherwise confronts uncertainties at best and the unknowable at worst, and the most any of the rabbis can do is to say there are some things we're just not meant to know.
This, in a way, gets the Coens themselves off the hook for not attaching any concrete meaning to life or their movie. But strung along the narrative clothesline of debilitating events are moments that blur the boundaries between the irrational, the improbable and the merely intriguing: An elaborate tale of a Jewish dentist who finds Hebrew letters spelling out the words "Help Me" on the backside of a goy's teeth; a sultry neighbor (Amy Landecker) who sunbathes nude and offers to put Larry's moral standards to the test; a bar mitzvah convincingly staged through the eyes of a totally stoned 13-year-old; and fantasies of WASPs on a Jew-hunt.
More than anything, "A Serious Man" would seem to represent a moderately jaundiced memoir of a specific time and place, that being the Minnesota of the Coens' youth. Many such quasi-autobiographical works in literature and film take the form of an escape story by a gifted soul just too sensitive or different to cope any longer with a restrictive environment. To the contrary, the Coens have chosen to identify not with the son but with the father, a man who, as narrative circumstances play out, could have decided to bail out at a certain point. But such a thing never occurs to him for an instant.
Certainly, the Coens' filmmaking skills are sharply attentive to the occasion. Precision is the name of the game in the writing, camera placement, editing, music choices and pitch of the performances, which are poised just so between heightened naturalism and comic stylization.
ATTN: NYC (This Is Tomorrow)
Meet the Filmmakers: Joel and Ethan Coen, "A Serious Man"
Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen ("Fargo," "No Country for Old Men") discuss their latest film, "A Serious Man" with EW's Dave Karger. September 22, 6:00 p.m.
I hate how they always do these before the movie screens so the Q&A is useless.
I saw this last night at Fantastic Fest.
I can't stop thinking about it.
It felt like a real Coen movie, not like forced Coen (which is still better than a lot of movies out there). All the jokes hit right and the feel of it was just... exciting. I'll admit, a lot of the excitement was from being surprised with getting to see it.
And it stuck with me. Really. God is testing Larry, but the Coens are testing us (that's cheesy, but whatever). It plays like Lebowski, but resonates like Fink. Not to build it up too much.
This very well may divide audiences. I loved it and can't wait to see it again (and not in the first row).
GT will hate it.
Quote from: RegularKarate on September 30, 2009, 07:06:56 PM
It plays like Lebowski, but resonates like Fink.
Pull-quote of the century. I want them to put that on every poster.
Quote from: RegularKarate on September 30, 2009, 07:06:56 PM
GT Sleepless will hate love it.
but he'll only say, "Saw the movie. So, I'm back into the Coens."
and then picolas will say, "again, howsa bowsa useful review?"
and then SiliasRuby will say, "Jesus, you're a cynical dick."
and then Jesus poster will say, "Am not."
this place is so cliche.
I really liked this. I can't believe this is the first Coen Bros. movie since The Big Lebowski I haven't seen on opening weekend (or sooner). This washes the bad taste of Burn After Reading away but really isn't like any of their other films. The film shows how absurd and futile religious institutions are AND acts as a morality play. The time and place is so specific (and Jewish!) I wish I had known some of the more insider-y jokes, but I think the way the film ends made it jump up a whole grade for me. Stacking this and No Country For Old Men together gives me hope we still haven't seen everything the Coens are capable of.
SPOILER
The ending? Wow!
END SPOILER
loved this. i'm hard-pressed to think of another film that's as bizarre and bleak in equal measure, all while being hilarious. does this then earn the overused adjective "unique"? roger deakins (along with agnes godard) is the best cinematographer working today. performances are stellar. KOREANS!!! the coens continue their doomsday prescience from no country for old men and have made another great, essential american film. had burn after reading not blown, this would've been a most impressive three-film streak.
might be their best movie. funniest of year.
Quote from: JG on October 12, 2009, 07:01:48 PM
might be their best movie.
a claim i reserve for
barton fink. meer sir my sir.
its true, barton fink is one of my personal favorites, and probably the closest in tone to a serious man. they're at their best when straddling the line between farce and drama. also, fred melamed as sy ableman for best supporting actor!
you mean francis ford coppola, right?
*SPOILS!*
obviously there are a lot of messages and themes and illustrations.. some of them i'm grappling with.. i don't know whether the coens are suggesting one thing or another, but the way they suggest is so brilliant that i can't help but love the movie no matter what. the sum of the parts is the experience.. the odd hilarity and terribleness and warmth and frustration and randomness of it all.
i'm personally offended by the idea that large-scale accidents are based on anything but randomness. i hate when people attribute the idea of god to that sort of thing because they're basically saying that every person involved must have deserved their fate. it's a waste of the human spirit to try to find any kind of 'reasoning' or 'plan' behind disasters. they're unfortunate events, and we're frail beings. no one is being 'punished' by some kind of judicial universe.
'accepting the mystery' is a key part of handling existence, but to me there's no mystery as far as hurricanes and bad x-rays are concerned. i think the point of the x-ray is that we're dead no matter what. the staging of the changing of the grade right before to the phone call is begging for the idea of "judgement", but clearly all his actions had no effect on the results because they were measured beforehand, so i'm not sure. i think the nature of the philosophy behind this movie is much more revelatory to people coming from a religious background like the coens. i'm not coming from there. i also think that there are many more layers to this movie. i feel like i've just met it and every time i see it it's going to change. the image of the hurricane in the face of a loan is great. as is that whole motherfucking teeth sequence.. holy shit.
forgetting the philosophy, every single person in this movie is PERFECT. i want them all to be in more movies. i can't believe this is the wife's only credit on imdb (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3102689/). i know she's a stage actress, but come onnn! be in more things!! the cinematography is also flawless. as is the editing.. it's just a supremely well-crafted movie and a JOY to watch despite how uncomfortable it gets. that much is undeniable.
I mean, just look at that parking lot!
crimes and misdemeanors 2009
This movie made me very sad. Do not see it the day before your birthday.
After it says "No animals were harmed in the making of this film" in the credits, a few lines down it also says "No jews were harmed in the making of this film."
so apparently the coens discussed this on charlie rose last night and i missed it and can't find it anywhere. help meee!
edit: found in the most obvious place possible. http://charlierose.com . don't think it'll be on the front page for long.
Quote from: picolas on October 29, 2009, 04:31:17 AM
edit: found in the most obvious place possible. http://charlierose.com . don't think it'll be on the front page for long.
No, but it will always be available in search. His website is awesome because I can go back to the mid 90s and watch interviews he did.
have you figured out how to view the most recent ones? it seems like they don't become available until they're a year old.
Visual poetry at its finiest and its the best portrayal of the modern jewish people. Slightly surrealistic and yet grounded. I was one of the few people who really loved 'burn after reading' and it put that to shame. Honest and emotional performances across the board.
My favorites: Richard Kind and the dentist sequence...
This may be their coldest film to date. They always flirt, and sometimes flat-out nail, detachment and nihilism, but I feel they went all the way here. Incredibly accomplished, but aggressively joyless, which left me feeling somewhat ambivalent.
i wouldn't call this aggressively joyless at all. it's clearly a comedy, and just the decision to make it funny is really important to its meaning.. i was clearer on this when i had just seen it, but the fact remains that people enjoy this movie. my theatre had a joy-filled reaction.
Oh, it's certainly a comedy, it's just that the comedy is of such a relentlessly detached kind. They obviously do this a lot - the 'life is a ridiculous farce' angle - but they'll also often balance it with either a bit more warmth (Arizona, Hudsucker) or a commitment to slapstick (Burn After Reading, Ladykillers), or genuinely lovable characters (Lebowski, Fargo), that stops it from feeling quite so cold and misanthropic. I didn't feel like there was much of that kind of buffer here.
I dunno, misanthropy would suggest not just an emotional detachment from their characters, but a level of condemnation or pervasive sneer. In this case, Sthulbarg's Larry Gopnik. I don't see that. And, while in the minority, I rarely see that in an of Coen's films. There's a distance that came almost seem indifferent, but is really just objective. I have no doubt the Coen's relate to Gopnik, they just feel more comfortable as a viewer.
The humor that comes from the film is mostly at the expensive of those who don't bother listening to Gopnik, or wholly dismiss him, ("I mean, just look at that parking lot!")
There's a lot of warmth in this film, but there's also a finality to it that is very unforgiving.
I think the sequence regarding the goyams teeth is probably one of the sweetest, most bewildering seqments of any Coen film. It's humor completely underscoring exactly what I said earlier.
Joyless? No. But claustrophobic, yes. I felt a continual desire for this film to end because as this got worse, the more I cared about Gopnik, as lost as he may be. To establish that kind of care for a character requires a removal of misanthropy.
No Country was much colder because it was just as decisive to it's execution. Only it's intended execution didn't leave as much room for empathy as this film does.
A Serious Man is major Coens. An incredible accomplishment for them as filmmakers, and for modern cinema as a whole.
I may have gone a little far with misanthropic, but I certainly felt very little of the warmth you did. However, on the misanthropy front: I'm sure you'd agree that there's certainly a condemnatory and sneering tone taken to virtually every character other than Larry (and perhaps his brother) - whether because they're selfish (son, daughter, wife), stupid (2/3 rabbis), excessively intimate (Sy), or otherwise. That's a lot of sneering to go around to begin with.
So then it's a question of whether Larry is being sneered at too. I think he's treated somewhat like Barton Fink is: as someone with somewhat-admirable (or at least understandable), but unachievable desires. Fink at least, though, is allowed some brief joy through his brief dalliance with Judy Davis, and seems to get an ambiguous degree of escape at the end. Larry is just pummelled again and again by the universe in a way that (when the 'universe' - i.e. the film - is as calculating and cold as the Coens make it here) invites me to feel he's being treated almost sadistically. His pain is also treated as cause for our laughter, as when he breaks down crying, making those absurd sounds, in the scene with his lawyer.
The goyam's teeth sequence is wonderful, but it hints at a degree of transcendence only to yank it away with the hilarious lack of moral/meaning - it's made arbitrary, and in that sense plugs away again at the theme of life's absurdity. And not, I would argue, in a warm way.
Spoiler:
I've read people mentioning A Serious Man is a retelling of the book of Job as O' Brother was a retelling of the Odyssey. I'm not the best expert on the stories from the bible but I believe the book of Job begins with the man's family being killed by a strong wind. So could this be more of a prequel to the book of Job since Larry's family is seemingly wiped out at the end of the film?
But the book of Job allusions are reinforced by the many references to the Ten Commandments. Larry's children don't honor their mother and father. Sy Ableman covets his neighbor's, Larry's, wife. Larry isn't innocent when he changes the grade. Larry covets his neighbor's house, he covets his neighbor's wife, he bears false witness against the korean student. But I guess the changing of the grade is the more tangible sin leading to the tornado.
QuoteThe goyam's teeth sequence is wonderful, but it hints at a degree of transcendence only to yank it away with the hilarious lack of moral/meaning - it's made arbitrary, and in that sense plugs away again at the theme of life's absurdity.
One, especially Larry, usually believes a story like the teeth story are leading to a meaning but it's just a way to explain the unexplainable. For example, in the beginning when Larry is talking to the korean student. The korean student says he understood the story about the cat. The story about a cat being the way Larry explained a physics problem.
In response, Larry says "But... you... you can't really understand the physics
without understanding the math. The math tells how it
really works. That's the real thing; the stories I give you in
class are just illustrative; they're like, fables, say, to help
give you a picture. An imperfect model. I mean-even I
don't understand the dead cat. The math is how it really
works."
Larry is in very much the same situation as the korean student when he talks to the rabbis. Larry just wants a passing grade (an easy answer or pass) when he talks to the rabbis. How could there be any real or helpful answer for someone asking the questions that Larry is asking of the rabbis.
My first post, other than introducing myself in the Newb thread.
Fine post and good point about the connection between Larry and the korean student
well plotwise it is pretty close to the book of job, at least superficially.
to prove his faith in Him, God sends Job all sorts of disgraces. here, is kind of in reverse.
In any case, it was refreshing to see a Coen brothers film that really does not resemble any other Coen brothers film, with maybe the exception of Barton Fink. They really are all out there with the philosophical existential questions on this one. Also, is the first time in AGES probably ever, that they use almost unknown actors in every single part. They usually leave the lead for someone famous, but thankfully not here.
It's one of their very best films too, and it feels great to see them using their last decade earned mainstream recognition in offbeat projects like this. Bravo.
alex and freelancer:
I think the kinship to Job is in spirit only...a man questions the bad things that happen to him. the wind is quite a biblical device, and good catch on the connection, but it can't be a "prequel" since the character of job, at the beginning of the book of job, has the perfect life and has never questioned God's will.
the whole point of the book of job was that job was an innocent and pious man who'd done nothing wrong. none of the horrible things happened to him because of his or anyone's sins - it was God allowing the devil to do whatever he wants to see if he can flip the pious man. I don't think your reference of 10 commandments, then, is as relevant. if anything, all the temptations and the assholes in the movie were forms of punishment, for the hero who just wants to be pious.
the coens, in an interview with the onion a.v. club, talks about the ambiguity of the movie in terms of its structure: a man talks to three rabbis - this could be the beginning of a fable or the set up to a joke, depending on how you look at it. I hope that becomes useful in your reading of the film.
yes, it's kinda like what they did with the odyssey. thank god for the coens. really.
Before I attempt to say anything thoughtful about this film I must know:
Just after the 26 minute mark a fly flies on the top of camera lens inbetween larry and his brother, has anyone else witnessed this? I bought my blu-ray from Blockbuster for a few dollars, and wondered if this has anything to do with that or if this is actually in the film.
While looking on IMBD for the notice of the fly, I came across;
QuoteIn his argument with the Columbia House records employee over the phone, Larry Gopnik repeatedly rejects the album Abraxas by Santana. Abraxas is a Gnostic term for God, particularly a God who encompasses all things from Creator of the Universe to the Devil, and an etymological root for "abracadabra". It is thus implied that Larry Gopnik is vehemently rejecting God and magic.
this film is some top notch coens, that's for sure.
I watched this about 2 weeks ago. It's one of my favourite Coen films for sure.
SPOILS
I haven't read through this thread but anyway: I made up my own mind interpreting this movie but I read a theory which I didn't even consider. I definitely felt the Coens were lying they said that the intro sequence was only there to set the mood. The theory claimed that Larry's brother was a dybbuk. It may seem like a bit of a stretch, so I'll have to find the specific post but it was quite an interesting theory which seemed pretty reasonable.
Also, the intro sequence was actually really creepy despite being pretty Coenesque (reminded me of Fink). They should try a Jewish folk horror movie or something.