A Folk Song Put to Film

Hang me, oh hang me, I’ll be dead and gone;

Hang me, oh hang me, I’ll be dead and gone.

I wouldn’t mind the hangin’,

It’s just the layin’ in the grave so long.

Poor boy… I’ve been all around this world.

Inside Llewyn Davis opens with this melancholy ballad which sets the tone for the rest of the film, about a soul wandering in a sea of loss and loneliness.

Llewyn Davis is a struggling folk singer in pre-Dylan Greenwich Village who doesn’t have enough money for a winter coat, much less an apartment to live in.  Played with subtlety and sympathy by Oscar Isaac, he is frequently a jerk and a boor, even to those who help him.  But he can also care for a displaced cat, sing a sea shanty for his neglected father, and manage to keep enough friends from whom to bum food and cigarettes, borrow money, and secure a couch to sleep on.  What is inside Llewyn Davis is a broken soul, an unwell spirit haunted by the suicide of his former singing partner.  His spirit is infused with and sometimes overcome by desperation to the point that we are given to wonder if he will take the advice of a would-be promoter and reunite with his (dead) partner.  As with all artists, the condition of his soul overflows into his work, in this case a repertoire of depressive folk songs and ballads.

As with writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen’s earlier O Brother, Where Art Thou? the music – under the supervision of T Bone Burnett – is as much a part of the story as any character.  It is beautifully sung by Isaac himself – occasionally backed by Marcus Mumford (of Mumford and Sons) – and a supporting cast headed by Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake.  Like O Brother, Where Art Thou? the soundtrack stands alone as a quality album.  

The songs also reveal the tension in the music scene between the brooding minor key themes of the Village folk music scene and the breezy novelty songs that characterized the commercial folk market (illustrated in the film by the bouncy “Please Mr. Kennedy”).  But this also reflects the film’s subtext of social criticism.  Inside Llewyn Davis takes place a month after the inauguration of John Kennedy and his “New Frontier,” and offers a counterpoint to the myth of innocence and optimism it produced.  The late 50s and early 60s are often remembered nostalgically, but in reality it was a time of economic stagnation and high unemployment, an era when “retirement” meant “poverty”, and when women in trouble had to hunt for back-room abortionists.

But despite their attention to period detail and social context, the Coens are not making political statements as much as they are making statements about the human condition.  Indeed, a repeated line in the film tells us that a folk song "was never new and never gets old."  Inside Llewyn Davis is a folk song put to film.  

The central symbol of the film is the ginger cat which accompanies Llewyn on his journeys and serves as a projection of his inner self – what one critic called his “horcrux.”  The cat is accidentally set loose in the world and Llewyn is determined to bring him home.  The cat’s journey is also Llewyn’s, and the musical themes of voyage and homecoming are reiterated in Llewyn’s own backstory as a merchant marine and the son of a merchant marine (whose nursing home is named “Landfall”). 

The themes of birth and death are also prevalent, and are given their most poignant voice in the classic song, “The Death of Queen Jane,” which recounts the death in childbirth of Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII, who in the song pleads for a cesarean section to deliver her child, even though it would take her life.  Llewyn must confront demons of life and death at both ends of the life-journey, from abortion to suicide.  In their early film Raising Arizona the Coens portrayed family as an idealized community of wholeness and healing.  Llewyn Davis is conflicted over family:  he criticizes his friend Jean’s desire for a suburban life as a sell-out; he neglects his dying father; and he arranges abortions for the women he has impregnated.  Like Odysseus – another Coen meme – Llewyn Davis has been away from home too long, and is lost at sea trying to find his way back.

As with many Coen brothers films, the journey is filled with strange characters, not the least of whom is John Goodman’s relatively brief turn as a jaded heroin-addicted jazz musician, which provides some comic relief, believe it or not, even if it does seem thrown into the narrative as a contrivance.  Nevertheless the strangeness of the journey makes homecoming all the sweeter.

Inside Llewyn Davis is a well-crafted film.  It has received Oscar nominations for cinematography and sound mixing, both of which are deserved.  It is another very good film in a season of great films, which is probably why it was left on the honorable mention list of Best Picture nominees.  Nevertheless it is a film very much worth viewing, if for no other reason than the music and the cat.  3.5 stars/4.0