Inside Llewyn Davis [Blu-ray]

I love the Coen Brothers. They are, for my money the best contemporary filmmakers out there. So it was an odd feeling for when last year they put out Inside Llewyn Davis, a movie that explores a singer who is part of the Greenwich Village scene of the early 60s, a music scene that produced Bob Dylan and many others, but the titular character is not the subject of a fictional rags to riches, A Star is Born treatment. Davis is part of the flotsam of that scene, the almost-could-have-beens. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. But it just came out for home viewing and yesterday I finally brought myself to view it.Inside-Llewyn-Davis-catWhy was it so hard for me to watch it you might be wondering? Mostly because I was afraid that I’d watch it and see myself in Llewyn Davis, all the possibility, all the flaws, the debilitating overconfidence and self-aggrandizing zealotry, the weakness and neediness. And I was right. As I watched the film I saw a representation of my 10 years in New York City as a hopeful songwriter and performer unfold in my mind. No one else would see it, but that’s the beauty of art. You bring yourself to it. It brings you out of it, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It was probably one of the most difficult films for me to watch, but I watched it. And I enjoyed it. And it brought me back to the place where I was the most weak and–just a little bit–reminded me I could be strong. Maybe.I read an article in the New Yorker that discussed how the trip to Chicago was really part of Davis’s “quest” he saw in that journey the choices he would have to make to be what he wanted to be and couldn’t make them. When the Grossman character listened to his (really beautiful) song and said “I don’t hear any money in it” I was crushed. But in a good way, I guess (not really).That whole thing rang very true to me. I seemed and artistic representation of choices we all have to make. It reminded me specifically of choices I definitely made that resulted in my eventual downfall as a musician. I could have tried to take the talents I had and mold them to something that was more commercially viable, but I wanted to write my own stuff. I could have done many things differently. I worked as hard as I possible could for about 8 or 10 years in NYC.One thing I came to know is that at a certain point talent is a given and luck, or placement, or even looks, become what separates. It feels maddeningly arbitrary. But maybe that’s just a story I tell myself to get through the night. Maybe I quit too soon. I spent more time than I wish I would have envying the success of a few others. Some of you know who they are. Maybe they envy as well. I try to be OK with it. I try not to second guess my choices, but it’s hard not to.Should I have taken the record deal we were offered in 2000 even though the terms weren’t the best. After I turned it down I heard that our lawyer was shocked I didn’t take it. He told a friend that he’d never seen an artist turn down a first deal like that, or something. And he was one of the people who advised me not to take it.Should I have asked the 2 dudes who quit the band in ’96 to stay for the SXSW gig where we had several major label folks coming with potential deals on the table instead of curling up in a ball? The Old 97s had occupied the same spot on the bill we filled that year. I don’t know. I don’t think I would have been able to do that at 24. Curling up in a shock-induced ball was probably the only possible reaction for me at the time.375499_10150425602802717_42759962_nFor about 10 years I felt like things were possible. Good things continued to happen along with the not so good. People seemed to think that I was building something, that the next step would come, that I was building a resume. And then it just felt like it was over. Or maybe I was just done with it. Or did I lose my nerve? Errol was there for most of it. Steve was there for some. David and Nancy for a goodly part as well. At any rate, sometime in my 33rd year I just felt like I had deflated and it was over. Was that when the drinking really started? Or had the drinking been going on all along and that’s part of why it never happened? I could kill myself with questions if I let myself go on.That’s what Inside Llewyn Davis brought out in me, and I kind of knew it would. That’s part of the success of the film. It shows the grinding of an artistic life, no matter how small, pointless or ill-advised. it shows the choices people make even when they don’t understand they’re making choices and the audience can feel how those choices will ripple out and resonate in the mind of the chooser for the rest of their lives.There are plenty of excuses I could make. Star City put out our last record right before 9/11. We were enjoying a lot of critical “buzz” at the time. After 9/11 we had to cancel tour dates and we never regained our momentum after that. The record deal stuff I mentioned above. We happened to be gaining momentum just as the music industry was dying. Etc. Etc.I’m still extremely proud of the work we did. I would put it up against other stuff that had more “success” and feel like it stands up, if not outshines, much of that stuff. But in my darkest moments that’s cold comfort. I had a dream. I’m not even sure these days what specifically that dream entailed, other than “Get a record deal, make records, do that forever.” It seems painfully naive now. It’s incredibly hard not to be bitter and sad about it. Sometimes I succeed in that. Sometimes I don’t.Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually insane. They say that the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. A couple years after I receded from my music career I ended up coming to Iowa to become a writer. And of course I had early signs that maybe I could build something from that. And then the publishing industry fell apart as well. The only difference is this time I knew to expect it. I still get up and write, even though I know not many people in the larger scheme of things will probably ever read or hear my work. I try every day to be thankful for those who have and hopeful that I was able to add something to their lives with that work. And I know I have to just let it all go. But I keep doing it. Does that mean I’m insane? I like to think no.It’s hard. We’re conditioned as a culture to define success in a certain way–public, spectacular, mythical. And because of that I’ll always feel like a failure. Next month I’m playing a show with Jason Isbell (a songwriter very similar to me but much more successful). I worked really hard to get that gig. And now I wonder why. Every time I think about it I try to see myself through his eyes, which is pointless but I can’t stop myself. And I see him seeing me as a sad, failed hobbyist. It breaks my heart to think like that. But that’s what it is.And that’s OK, right? Or it’ll have to be OK. I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter. So thanks, Coen Brothers and Inside Llewyn Davis, for helping me dredge all this back up and explore it in the most narcissistic way possible. I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that while I’m typing this I’m secretly hoping one of the Coen Brothers reads it and wonders, “Who is this heart-wrenching forgotten artist? We must know him and bring his work to the world!”Sad. What a sad, needy bastard I am.

This film missed the mark for me, since the publicity promised much more than the film actually delivered. I hadn't caught it in the theaters, but I finally got the DVD. I approached the film as someone who had personal experience with the people and scenes of the "Urban Folk Era" in the 60's. I had worked as a singer-songwriter in the late 60's and early 70's. I was prepared for a film that looked into the essence of what drove Llewyn Davis as an individual artist within his microcosm, even as the macrocosm of the folk revival in Greenwich Village and the entire country was building all around him. I heard in interviews that I'd see a little of the Chicago scene (a room said to be The Gaslight, as it turned out), and maybe even Boston-Cambridge (where I was), and other key places -- possibly a major folk festival. I found little of the Village, let alone the other scenes.Instead, the Coen Brothers, able as they are, gave us a small story about a dysfunctional young working class male, who happened to be a folk singer. There was very little about his music or his performances. We don't get a good look "inside" Llewyn Davis. We never find out what drove him to be a folk musician in the first place. As I recall of that time, discovering or writing compelling music was "the grail" for those in the folk music scene. Something essential to our culture was propelling people into it. For Llewyn Davis, however, the music only seemed to get him out of working as a merchant marine sailor like his dad, and it made him interesting to a number of women who took him to their beds -- one of whom he casually impregnated. That was likely accurate about life in the Village, but getting laid and getting abortions (illegal at the time) were coincidental, albeit, as with the "Counter Culture" to come after the "Folk Era," a wide variety of mistakes and rip-offs were common enough among the players, and, as within any Bohemian subculture, morality is always a constant experiment.Around Llewyn Davis's urban folk "nightmare," there was a growing generation of self-styled folk singers, mentored by folk icons like Pete Seeger, who had not only ridden freight trains with Woody Guthrie, he had earned his degree from Harvard (and he wasn't the only university grad on the scene). Something more than freeloading off rich fans or bilking prosperous supporters or taking loans from club owners overshadowed Llewyn Davis's small life, leaving it irrelevant to most in the end. Davis, as depicted, was clueless about his path to success or significance. In those days, you had to do more than just carry a guitar to be in the folk scene at all. It wasn't about making moves on admirers, it was about taking out your guitar, stepping up to the mike, and letting something bigger than you come through you to move people. Often the performer was as surprised as the audience, when it finally happened. There were the perks afterward, but you still had to step up again and again and again to be relevant (or paid).I had read that "Llewyn Davis" (Welsh roots, like mine) was an amalgamation of several performers, including Dave Van Ronk. Van Ronk may have been many things in his time, but he was at least respected as a voracious collector and interpreter of urban blues, jug band tunes, and a whole lot of other tunes. We younger players were in awe of that, if nothing else. A look at his discography will easily show why. His guitar-playing was his own amalgamation and a competent one -- very respectful of and always fitting his material. He was fiercely conscientious as a performer and knew many other performers, as well as some foundational figures of The Blues whose music that had been collected from the South over the previous three decades. Van Ronk's tenure as the "Mayor of Bleecker Street" suddenly trailed off when a younger singer-songwriter rival, Bob Dylan, literally changed his tune and left Van Ronk and many others irreversibly in the past, including the fictional Llewyn Davis. Dylan's ascendency and its impact might have inspired a character-driven film, but the Coens chose to follow Llewyn Davis down (to coin an Eric Von Schmidt line).Was Davis just another variety of Coen sociopath? If so, why spend precious budget on this one? Llewyn Davis appeared to be unaware of civil rights or anti-war efforts or the Beat Generation, to say nothing of the folk music lineage that was flowing like a tidal surge into the Village. As depicted, Davis was also very casual about performing his own music, even though some of it clearly came from mining the same sources of English and Irish ballads that Joan Baez and others mined at the same time. It was the early ascendancy of the singer-songwriter, but Davis was not ascending. He appeared throughout the film as a loner and a user to no good end but mere survival. Many others who failed to "make it" as folk singers left the scene to find more productive paths. (Others moved to Florida or California, etc., for less stress.)Young white urban folk singer-songwriters be could be heard singing studied laments about trains leaving stations without them, a common Delta Blues theme. So we watched Davis's personal train leave without him, in the scene where a rapidly evolving Bob Dylan took the stage as Davis was leaving the club (The Bitter End?) feeling sorry for himself. Dylan was performing his newest, soon-to-shake-the-world music, vs. earlier material he had learned from the work of Woody Guthrie, other senior folk singers, and various musicologists. As we learned later, Dylan had met, loved, and was deeply moved by Suze Rotolo, who became his musical catalyst, but there was no woman around Davis who inspired him anywhere above the waist.How could the Coen brothers fall so short? They are, after all, celebrated authors and directors of fascinating character-driven films. Ideally, "Inside Llewyn Davis" could have been one of those. They might have portrayed a singularly-driven white urban folk musician, possessed by a passion to achieve something of genuine worth with his music, such that it ruled his life and set all his priorities in relationships, finances/business deals, living arrangements, etc. I don't see the Coens making a film like that, but one can hope...Instead, we see a weary Davis in Chicago during his pivotal encounter with "folk music godfather" Albert Grossman (whom I knew much later), having been referred to Albert by his club-owner friend (Fred Weintraub?). Albert brusquely shatters Llewyn's rainbow. He assures Llewyn that he doesn't have it. Albert has no use for him as a headliner -- no money there -- find a partner or maybe not. It is brutal feedback. This is when Albert was building up the careers of Peter, Paul, and Mary, Bob Dylan, and others. In the film, Davis had endured a hellish journey from New York to Chicago in the ice and snow, so one might infer that this shot was important to him. Yet there is no fire in Davis when he meets his possible destiny. There is no vow from Davis afterwards to fight on after, with or without the Grossman touch. As Davis returns, defeated, to New York, there can be no tragedy, because Davis had no critical mission, no holy grail to find, nothing greater than his own appetites and self-deception to fight for. He will not be a vessel or conduit for greatness. He will not make a difference. He will continue to be his own victim. If he doesn't care, why do we?That kind of scenario no doubt occurred for various others -- perhaps the Coens knew about someone who lived it. Even in my own story, however, the music and the scene were everything, but the music business was not, and so I turned to other ways to make a living -- I'm glad for that now. A happier outcome occurred more often than what was depicted in the film, but not for this kind of character. Besides, there was the Vietnam War just heating up, and soon a single male outside a college would easily draw a "1A" Draft classification and be bound for Southeast Asia, far away from the Newport Folk Festival. Llewyn was likely headed that way, and not with the Merchant Marine. There were many challenges that prevented most of us from taking up a folksinger's life, attractive though that may have seemed. I'm sorry the Coen Brothers chose to tell such a small story set in the Village of that era -- a story that ended not with a bang nor a whimper (to coin Eliot), but just a sigh.Though the film was about a character, not the "folk scene," I recall so many more memorable characters from that time -- some of my favorites involving couples, like Ian and Sylvia (down from Canada) or Richard and Mimi Farina. Not all had happy endings. There is a whole book-full of them -- "Baby Let Me Follow You Down," by Eric Von Schmidt, a key player in the Boston-Cambridge scene. I recall the subtly significant contribution of "Mr. Tambourine Man," the young Bruce Langhorne, whose electrified, bell-like Martin guitar arpeggio's graced a number of key albums of the era, including Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home" (with Albert Grossman's wife Sarah on the album cover). And what about Dylan's muse, Suze Rotolo, who is shown walking with him arm-in-arm in the West Village on the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"? Suze Rotolo's largely untold story would seem worthy of a film, if not a Coen Brothers film (she was not flawed or wounded enough, perhaps). She was an historical-stature muse and we know the 20th Century had them -- lots of prime material for a character-driven film. Of course, none of these characters were obvious sociopaths, or the victims of sociopaths, and so they may never drive a Coen Brothers film.Perhaps the Coens will embark on another project addressing a more compelling character in the Folk Music Era in New York and elsewhere. (Does the character have to be a sociopath?) "Inside Llewyn Davis" only used the Village of the 60's as a set, not the character it deserved to be. I am glad this movie allows me a small taste of those times and those people. Anyone out there working on a next attempt?

Like all Coen Bros films you never can go that far wrong and they are true understated masters of their trade and like Fellini in some ways at least, never just go on repeating themselves. I sort of began hating parts of this film yet found myself thinking about it for days afterwards and finally the compulsion grew on me to watch part of it again and then the whole kit and caboodle... which is sort of appropriate as part of the film centres around the kit.. er cat. I think it is quite a remarkable film in all. He doesn't rely too much on cute actors and then put them in cute situations. And when he gets some of these; Clooney or Pitt for instance.. he gets them to leave the stereotype behind and reveal what they saw in that actor to begin with. Or so it seems at least? Long may they persist!

I was surprised to learn this was a comedy. Apart from one hilarious moment with the cat and something missing, it was a sorry tale of missed opportunities and misfortunes. Great music and cast. Many of the characters were not very likeable which made it less comic. I bought it for my interest in Dave van Ronk. I think I need to watch it again and will probably enjoy it more the second time. A very good period piece capturing the atmosphere of the Village in the 60's. Coen Brothers great directors. The extras showing you how it was made were particularly enjoyable.

We have a dvd player in our campervan so glad to have found this - great to watch before you take a trip to NYC

Arrived before stated date/time. Competitively priced. Film great.

A must-see for all folkie fans of the early sixties. However, there are weaknesses in a few of the performances and the storyline, but the atmosphere created by all concerned makes up for all of that. Recommended.