Cohen Brothers: Inside Llewyn Davis

[MrBern]

the Cohen Brothers are filming a 1961 period comedy in NYC

slideshow of the street sets, costumes & cars
http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/slideshow-coen-brothers-take-second-street-back-to-1961/

 

[Treetopflyer]

Can't wait to see it on the big screen. Thanks for posting.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Spambot alert!

Okay, regarding Inside Llewyln Davis... I am a major fan of the Coen Brothers, though a couple of their films over the years have left me cold. I read an alleged copy of the script for this film (which is loosely based on the life of ultimate Greenwich Village folkie Dave Van Ronk) a while back, and I was extremely underwhelmed. The observation of early sixties NYC and the emerging folk scene was good, but the plot - if you could even call it that - seemed nonexistent. Davis is a journeyman folk musician, sleeping on friends' couches, hustling gigs, alienating people, going on the road... but none of it adds up to much of anything.

Now maybe the film will turn out great, with more of a through-plot and well-observed characterizations that illuminate the human condition. I hope so: I always want the Coens to be brilliant. But if you look at the scripts for their films (*), most of them are obviously great just on the printed page, even before casting and filming. Some of their best films - for example, A Serious Man, which is nearly my favorite - are almost more impressive in the sense that they somehow just sat down and imagined it and wrote an outstanding script.

So anyway, I was unimpressed with the script and am therefore a bit more "worried" than usual on a Coen Brothers production... but I hope it turns out to be another great flick! No doubt it will be worth seeing just for the evocation of the period/scene, but I hope there's more to it than that...

(* Many of there are here, under the Scripts pulldown - http://www.youknow-forkids.com/index.htm )