Why A Serious Man Is the Rosetta Stone Of Coen Brothers Films

[robin_d_laws]

Comments

[robin_d_laws]

The coin thing is not toying with his victims?

I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.

[cheetahmaster]

...wow. Well done.

[nobloghere]

So according to your thesis, Hudsucker Proxy isn't actually a Coen Brothers' movie at all? I know I'm in the minority, but I quite liked it. :)

[robin_d_laws]

Obviously the chart is not telling us that it was secretly directed by Arthur Hiller.

But the film does play as a bid for popular success in which the Coens' hallmark tone and themes are jollied up. No doubt this is why Hudsucker defenders comprise a beleaguered lot.

[reverancepavane]

Well as one of the beleaguered lot, I'd argue that the Devil was actually present in the Hudsucker Proxy as Moses' opposition in the clock room.

[agrumer]

Yeah, I was about to say.

[kent_allard_jr]

Miller's Crossing is my favorite in the list (unsurprisingly), and I wouldn't say it flouts dramatic justice. It ends with the good-natured lug getting both the power and the girl, the ostensible hero succeeding in his efforts, and the true sociopaths (the Dane, Casper, Bernie) all coming to unpleasant ends. (Unless my understanding of dramatic justice is off.)

[robin_d_laws]

Your reading of Leo, and thus of the film's ending, is unusually sunny. As in The Glass Key (of which Miller's is an uncredited reimagining) the hero's ethos of absolute loyalty is shown to be admirable in the abstract but essentially misplaced. Leo's taking of Verna from Tom cynically flips the ending of the original, where the girl chooses love for the hero over an alliance with the more powerful older man.

[kent_allard_jr]

I'm not sure the loyalty was misplaced. While Leo is a mobster, he's part of a corrupt system that Tom has no ability to reform or replace (bringing to mind the end of The Thin Man, book version). Given the choices, Leo is better than the unstable Casper, and Tom's loyalty isn't misplaced at all (Leo's happy to forgive and forget Tom's betrayal, which Tom, in a last act of loyalty, refuses). I understand it's not the only reading, but I think it's a valid one.

[leemoyer]

You're a man of nice judgment. Clearly you and Tom both know what evils lurk in the heart...

[armadillo_king]

Interesting analysis.

On a related issue, how does the prologue relate to the rest of A Serious Man?

[robin_d_laws]

You can't have a Job story without the devil -- even if he only shows up looking for a bowl of soup.

[armadillo_king]

And to appear in the guise of a serious man as he seduces your wife and slanders you before the tenure committee.

[agrumer]

The central dramatic issue in the prologue: Is Fyvush Finkel's character (whose name escapes me) alive or dead?

What Larry Gopnik is doing the first time we see him: Expounding upon the story of Schrödinger's Cat.