The Dude Abides

. . .and now he's Clooney?

Before I left for MN, I finally saw Up in the Air.

Was it just me, or did anybody else find it significant that Sam Elliot was cast as the pilot who hands Ryan the card and has the serious meaning of life type conversation with him on the plane toward the end of the movie?

Follow my train: Sam Elliot played the omniscient narrator/God figure in The Big Lebowski, who also encounters the main character in a significant, somewhat mysterious, conversational way at the end. In that movie, he has a line about some folks being the encapsulating embodiment of their time, and for his day and age, the Dude was such a one. Up in the Air is about corporate downsizing in the late Aughts in America, and as such, Ryan Bingham is a representative figure of our time (our era's Dude, if you will). And Sam Elliot shows up toward the end of the movie, again playing a psuedo-God role, awarding Ryan with what he thought he wanted.

Subtle (or perhaps not-so-subtle) nod to the Coen brothers?

I'm just sayin. . .

Accept the Mystery

I love it when the Coen Brothers play in the wisdom end of the pool.

I finally got to see A Serious Man when I was on vacation in MN. I went to see it with Dad and Brenda, who were kind of disappointed any scenes with their Chevelle were left on the cutting room floor (according to Dad, the car was "just to the right of the frame" in the final shot of the whirlwind).

They also found it a little confusing (especially the beginning and ending), as did I - but I think that was the point. The movie is inspired by the book of Job, it's a study on suffering, and just like the book of Job, the movie offers no clear cut resolution or answers to any of the questions it raises. Readers/viewers can only live the question and accept the mystery.

So, in that spirit, I'm not going to try to unpack a lot of it either. . .but I did find it interesting the way "I haven't done anything" becomes a kind of refrain for Larry Gopnik. It's true - he hasn't done anything to deserve any of the troubles that keep coming his way, and that's consistent with Job's story. But that's kind of a radical departure for Coen Bros leads - often their films contain a rather Lutheran understanding of the bondage of the will, often they document how one poor choice leads to another, and to another, until you are trapped by your choices (or are in bondage to sin, as we like to say) and can now only choose between the lesser of two evils.

Gopnik is a stark contrast to this - he hasn't done anything, he hasn't chosen anything, good or bad. Yet all this bad keeps happening to him, forcing him into impossible choices between the lesser of two evils anyway.

And then, at the very end, when he finally does do something ethically questionable, when he chooses, perhaps, the greater evil - then the phone call from the doctor comes, and the whirlwind shows up.

So - is he now being punished for finally doing something because what he did was wrong? Is he about to get his comeuppance from God?

The movie doesn't tell us.


Live the question. Accept the mystery.

Burn After Reading

An old college friend on Facebook thought this latest from the Coen Bros was fun but "couldn't decide what it was supposed to be."

I have to disagree. I think the fact that it's kinda hard to tell what the point of the movie is, is exactly the movie's point. In that sense, it's a cinematic exegesis of Quoheleth (aka Ecclesiastes).

To a world full of folks looking for their 15 minutes of fame and/or their big jackpot moment, the movie says "All is vanity." To a world fixated on a certain standard of superficial beauty, the movie says "this too is a chasing after wind." To a world overrun with both excessively revealing navel gazers and obsessively voyeuristic surveilance, the movie says "there is nothing new under the sun" - for as much hoopla as we make of them, really, our lives are not that fascinating, and all that we consume ourselves worrying about is ultimately in vain.

Once again, the brothers Coen masterfully portray how the effects of sin continue to ripple out through our lives and the lives of others, how one bad choice can suddenly trap you into a series of even more bad choices. Truly, Joel and Ethan are theologians trapped in filmmakers bodies! :)

So, I liked it. Thumbs up.

Coen Bros Trifecta

Guess where my dad is today? On the set of the new Coen brothers movie.

I'm not jealous, really I'm not.

Ok, maybe I am a little. He and my stepmom are into classic cars, and have a '68 Chevelle. Since the new movie is set in the late '60s, they need lots of stuff from that era to create the appropriate atmosphere. Hence, my dad gets to hang out on the set while the car serves as a set piece. There is a chance he may get suited up in period dress and serve as an extra as well, lucky bugger.

He says it's fascinating to see everything that goes into making the magic happen onscreen, and that's the part I'm envious of - the chance to see how a movie is actually made, in general, and in particular, to watch how these two geniuses work.

Now I really can't wait for this next one to come out!

Good Country for Film-making Men

As if it wasn't cool enough that parts of Fargo were filmed in my hometown, the Coen brothers will shoot part of their next film at my alma mater. Oh, to be a student again and be on campus while they're filming!