Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) - The Main Character

The Coen Brothers are genius, and I'm interested in all their work. Also they'd be the first ones to tell you I can't love every film like I do Lebowski or No Country.

I saw this movie late, and a few people had given me mixed reviews. All that said, I ended up loving it.

The thing that grabs me most about this film is not even in the movie. It's the kind of thing that only someone like the Coen Brothers would have the guts or creative-awareness-depth to pull off.

If you watch the film knowing nothing about the period or scene in which it takes place, then you are watching a harsh, depressing, dying breath film. Even if you know some of the period and scene that my be the case, but there is more than meets the eye at first glance.

We have a story of a folk artist trying to get his career started. He's broke, cold, basically alone, often disliked, talented but not talented enough it seems--his album "Inside Llewyn Davis," is not connecting sustainably.

He is failing and at the end of the film, perhaps failed, finished, punched in the face on the ground, done.

Many people take this entire film as a pain piece, as watching a dying dog squirm. Art choked out by no one noticing.

It's not. Look into the history. Start with the album. This character is based on Dave Van Ronk. Blamo!

Dave Van Ronk was a badass, one of the players on the scene when Bob Dylan showed up. (Dylan stole Ronk's arrangement/version of "House of the Rising Sun" and recorded it without asking.)

One of Van Ronk's first albums was titled... "Inside Dave Van Ronk" (1964).

This is not a film of failure, of the final gut punch to a dying artist.

This is the story of how muddy, dark, how painful it might be in the early stages...

..the early stages of building a creative path that's worth something, worth living, strong enough to wake up a kid enough to look into your work fifty years later after he hears just a clip of just one of your songs in a documentary about another artist who stole your arrangement.

Like "20 something more albums" creative path.

Extremely encouraging. Llewyn Davis is not done. He will stand back up. He will play on.

Be well.