Friday, 14 February 2014
Let's Talk About 'Inside Llewyn Davis'
Inside Llewyn Davis centres around a folk musician navigating Greenwich Village in the early 60s, and his struggle between staying what he believes to be authentic and selling out. Down on his luck, the film tracks Llewyn Davis' life for a week as he scrounges together enough money for cigarettes, bounces from sofa to sofa and deals with the loss of his previous duet partner. Personally, I thought the film was profound. The criticism is understandable but undeserved: there is no cheesy storyline, no tie-it-all-together conclusions, and I think the Coen brothers did a perfect job of - quite literally - reflecting the week-in-week-out life of a normal musician at the time.
But let's talk more about the soundtrack; this is a music blog after all. I wasn't the biggest fan of folk music, or hadn't given it much thought or attention, before I saw Inside Llewyn Davis a little under two weeks ago. Oscar Isaac, who leads the very musically talented cast (that does include Justin Timberlake: anything you had against the guy will be redeemed after this), is an undoubtedly very good musician. Some argue that the songs in the film aren't strictly folk, but rather a re-imagining of it, but the film truly peaks when he sits with his guitar and unleashes a plethora of immaculate and emotion-inducing classics such as "Fare Thee Well" and "Green, Green Rocky Road". To get an impression of how good he is, check out the youtube link - "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me" - it frames the film and displays Isaac at his very best. In the context of the film, however, the beauty of his songs can often be undermined by the unpleasant nature of his character. The characterisation of Llewyn Davis presents few redeeming qualities for this: he is, for the most part, angry, cynical and wholly resentful. In turn, this can lead to disliking his songs as it reveals a certain falsity and insincerity within the beauty of his music. In terms of the soundtrack, though, we have to put this behind us - we're talking about Oscar Isaac here, not Llewyn Davis. And in this respect, he really is a very talented musician. I look forward to hearing more work from him in the future, if he decides to take his career down the musical route.
The Coen Brothers have scripted the film very well. Aside from Oscar Isaac, who could use this as his audition tape and just about convince anyone, the other folk singers in the film are also musically talented in real life, reflecting itself in the movie. Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake act as a boy-girl duet who are slowly climbing the ladder of popularity within the music industry - unlike Llewyn Davis, who they clearly have a history with, they are known by many within the Greenwich Village scene. We hear them much less often than Llewyn Davis, but their rendition of "Five Hundred Miles" is harmonically beautiful and another example of how the Coen's have perfectly balanced music and storytelling. The humorous "Please Mr Kennedy", a ridiculous protest song where Timberlake's character pleads with JFK not to forcibly send him to space, is also a joy to listen to, and hell, is it catchy.
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