Some notes about Inside Llewyn Davis

[Guest]

I rewatched Inside Llewyn today. It's one of those films I can just keep on rewatching because it's about the atmosphere. I'm noticing a few parallels with other Coen brothers films. Near the beginning, Llewyn says "I have the cat" and it gets misheard as "I am the cat". This establishes the cat as symbolising Llewyn, and they're similar in that Llewyn is wandering around aimlessly. After Llewyn returns the wrong cat to his friend, the owner shouts: "where is the cat's scrotum?!" Since the cat symbolizes Llewyn, this translates as him being threatened with castration, or that his masculinity is under threat. This is the main theme in The Big Lebowski, where the Dude even literally gets threatened with castration. Llewyn's masculinity is under threat because his work isn't commercially viable. He can't provide, even though women are attracted to men who can provide financial security. This point gets brought up when he sits at a cafe with the girl he slept with.

It also connects with A Serious Man. In that film, the main character goes through a tumultous period and gets overwhelmed to the point that he doesn't work on publishing papers anymore. His colleague remarks: "doing nothing isn't always a bad strategy." Actually, Llewyn Davis contrasts with that, but it's still a connection. There's also a lot of stuff happening in his life. He learns that a child was conceived during the one-night-stand and the girl has to get an abortion. It turns out that his ex-girlfriend had decided to keep their child (which she was supposed to abort), and simply kept this silent from Llewyn. So he's a father. Also he loses the cat he took care of. These are big events, but Llewyn doesn't seem too affected by it all. That's because his entire dedication is toward his passion for country music. He just keeps going at it. Once again, we see that he's more like the dude, "takin' her easy for all us sinners".

Have you watched any good films as of late? Got any observations you want to share?

[Guest]

I have to check that one out.

I recently saw Hell or high water. It tragically didn't go the way I hoped, but it did generally show an anti-bank attitude from normal folks just going about their business.