Llewyn Davis’ Odyssey

Desert island tracks; Pick five tracks you cannot live without.

Why is that such an important question? I mean, it is. It’s incredibly important. Do you have five tracks, or even five artists, which you’d be lost without?

I don’t know about tracks but I’ve always said my top five artists are The Rolling Stones, Queen, David Bowie, The Who and Bob Dylan. Music I cannot make do without. They’re the soundtrack to my life so far.

And... as cheesy as that sounds, and frankly feels, it’s true. Sound tracking parts of our lives is an old tradition that dates back way before we could even record music. In some parts of Britain there would be Celtic Folk music, people singing about valleys or mountains that they long to see. In Middle America and the Deep South there would be Country Folk songs about heartache and loss. In the same place, toiling in the hot sun, the black slaves where singing what would one day become soul and blues. These songs are passed down from generation to generation and represent the raw emotions of the people who sing them.

They’re Folk songs.

Inside Llewyn Davis is about a singer of these folk songs, around the time that Bob Dylan was about to be discovered. Fortunately for many of us the film isn’t just about Folk songs. It’s not a Folkumentary... not that that’s real thing of course!

Inside Llewyn Davis is about the artist. It’s about Llewyn Davis and his relationship with music. As Davis says music is his “lifeblood”, it’s his profession. But it’s not just that. His music is also the thing that can break him. It’s his dream and his tragedy and he’ll alienate everybody around him before he gives it up. Like so many good Folk songs it’s about loneliness and about begging for help without a hope of getting it.

It’s not all sad, I promise, it’s filled with stifled laughter and silent chuckles. But it’s a realistic story. The Coen Brothers, who wrote and directed it, have made a film that’s got pain, humour and above all gritty realism. It’s about real people, despite being largely fictional.

But despite the great story which comes from its BAFTA award winning screenplay the thing that really got me was, unsurprisingly, the music. Firstly because I know that none of the songs where pre-recorded and dubbed over, like with most songs in film. They where sung by the actors at the time of the filming. There’s something incredible about that, something earnest and true which you don't get with most films. Grant it, as an audience we may not notice it especially but that doesn’t matter. It’s one of those things that just make it more organic.

Secondly because the film is about music as a person’s blood and voice. Llewyn Davis is trying to sell his music, yes, but he’s chosen Folk because it says what he wants to say. It’s his voice speaking through the voices of so many other musicians before him. 

On top of that it makes for a great soundtrack!

The soundtrack is totally unique and speaks with the films voice perfectly, in a way that only a soundtrack from a film that’s about a musician can really do.

In fact the only other film soundtrack that I’ve considered this good was for the Jeff Bridges Country film Crazy Heart. About a whiskey drinking, washed up country star whose protégé is now a sensation whilst he plays a bowling alleys for a few drinks. The soundtrack was a mix of original songs and incredibly old country classics (and one Mexican country song). It feels like it was put together by someone who understands what it’s like to grow old waiting for a Heart of Gold.

And Inside Llewyn Davis is to beatnik Folk music what Crazy Heart was to Country; a heartfelt but honest ballad to the people who made the music we now consider a staple part of who we are.

Folk is about how the oldest things- love, loneliness and loss- will never really get old. Lines like "Life 'ain't worth living without the one you love" just seem to stick with us. We’ll always know them and they’ll always feel new to someone.

Bob Dylan Changed the world with Folk Music, he made it a part of popular culture. 

The Rolling Stones, Queen, David Bowie, The Who and, of course, Bob Dylan all have Folk in their blood. Some of it is Soul and Blues Folk some is Country Folk and some is Celtic Folk... But it’s all Folk.

For those of you who don’t know, “If it was never new and it never gets old it’s a Folk song”. At least that’s what Llewyn Davis says.

So It’s Fare Thee Well, My Darlings True.

At least for now.

P.S. The above song is the first in the soundtrack to Inside Llewyn Davis, "Hang me, Oh Hang Me", a traditional Folk song sung by Oscar Isaac (Llewyn Davis)... Enjoy!

Reviewlett #2

“Oh dear... Oh no... Well, that’s awful” is what the woman who sat next to me during the film 12 Years a Slave kept saying. Now, obviously I could go on and on about those special people who just have to let the whole cinema know how they feel... and I really want to... but that’s not what this is about.

Truth be told this woman pretty much summed up the film. I don’t mean that it’s a bad film, it was spectacular, but the things that happened in it where simply... awful.

And that’s what makes the film so great; it’s a “hold no punches” look on the reality of slavery. Obviously none of us feel like we need a reality check on slavery, we know it was and still is a terrible thing but as it turns out there are a few realities that many of us did not know. Such as the fact that even before the American Civil War there were a few free black men, women and families living happy lives in New York City. This is important because if there were no free black men at this time then there would be no kidnapping of free black men and subsequently no enslavement of said free black men and even subsequently-er no plot line for 12 Years a Slave.

So reality check; the few free black men were only as free as the white men said they were.

Second reality check; there was no holding back on beatings.

That’s what makes this film so great, the director, Steve McQueen, knew that the man holding the whip wouldn't pull his punches so why should he? It’s about honesty, brutal honesty.

So, if you can stomach the brutal and bloody violence that comes with an honest slave film like this then I recommend seeing it whenever you can, but if not then... Well, I say still see it (but maybe close your eyes when the whipping starts).

Journey to the Center of Tiffany's

What kind of film is Breakfast at Tiffany’s?

On IMDb it says "romance, drama and comedy"... On Wikipedia it says "Romantic Comedy"... Well that’s just ridiculous. I mean a romance? Really?

Holly Golightly is possibly the least romantic woman in Cinema!

Okay so that’s a bit of a stretch, I’m sure there are plenty of less romantic women... I mean the Witch and from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe wasn’t exactly waiting for her price charming to rescue her from the nasty Aslan. 

But regardless Miss Golightly is not romantic; in fact she’s not a whole lot more than a flirt, a gold digger and a user. In fact, if she was famous in our time then Okay Magazine would have readers drooling over the beautiful scandals that she creates!

In the original novella, which is extremely different to the film, Holly is actually little more than a prostitute and really, although she is also a New York Socialite, she’s pretty much given the same arrangements in the film too. She’s often given "a fifty for the powder room” and the men she brings back to her house are always expecting a little more than she gives them. If she doesn’t see herself as a prostitute then it’s probably fair to say that the men she “dates” do.

The film doesn’t even have a lot of romance to it, there are of course the final scenes, but for the majority of the film Hepburn’s character is totally uninterested in love, in fact it barely comes up as a topic. What does come up is the need for money, duty towards family and being given money for “dates”. Other than the family bit there’s not a lot which suggests ideas of love.

So it’s surprising that this film has been categorised as a romance so often. You could say that the romance is between Holly and her man friend Paul (called Fred by Holly) and that would make sense, what with them sharing a few kisses and ending up together, but right from the beginning Holly wants him to be her friend, in a very childlike way. Her exact words were, “We’re friends that’s all... We are friends aren’t we?” which to me is reminiscent of a self-conscious little school girl trying to make friends with someone she really doubts will like her.

Actually she’s very childlike in the way she acts, despite all the sexy outfits and flirting with rich men. For example she often says things like “It can’t be four thirty, it just can’t,”  showing a childish disbelief in the time or the day or just disagreeing for the sake of it in a very whimsical and light hearted way. She’s erratic, moving from one thing to the next without much thought, and has a need to have as little possessions as possible, so that she can take her leave whenever she needs to. She’s a confusing, exciting and altogether quite crazy woman who has a hidden past and, in her words, doesn’t like snoops.

To me Breakfast at Tiffany’s isn’t a romance, though it has romantic moments, or a comedy, though it can be quite funny, but is more a mystery.

Not a murder mystery, of course, or anything of that sort, but more a personal mystery. It’s much like Hitchcock’s film Marnie, which Hitchcock himself labelled as a “Sexual Mystery”. Marnie is about a young woman whose past has caused her to want to steal from men and avoid relationships at all costs. There is a mystery in her past as to how she got this way and the audience, and Sean Connery’s Mark, are left to piece together what that mystery may be.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, although much less brazen about sex, works in a very similar way. There is something wrong with Holly Golightly, she’s too carefree, she’s too money obsessed and she needs people to like her so she flirts with everyone regardless of how it will affect them, or her. The mystery lies in the question of how she got this way.

It’s something many of us ask ourselves from time to time I’m sure. We do something monumentally stupid or selfish and we think, “I’d never have done that a year or two or ten, or however many, years ago.” At that leads us onto the question of, “What happened that made me like this?”... And if you haven’t ever thought about that then maybe you’ve seen a character say it on TV, probably over a whiskey or something.

Now normally it’s a stupid self-pitying question which really doesn’t have to be asked because there’s nothing wrong with you, I mean it’s just a stupid mistake, right? We’re just beating ourselves up.

But Holly doesn’t ask herself that question. She knows its there but she’s hiding from it. You can see it when Paul leaves her after the famous line, “It should take you exactly four seconds to cross from here to the door. I give you two”. She’s pushed him away and she doesn’t really know why, but she can’t ask herself why either.

Maybe she can’t ask herself that question because it’s too painful, or maybe because it’s our jobs as the audience to make that judgement, or maybe because that’s what Paul is there for. Either way it makes Holly seem even sadder and the mystery even more important.

The important thing to remember when watching, or thinking about or talking about, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is that it is not simply another Rom-com, or a Romance, or a romantic drama (although that’s closer than the other two). It’s not a “girly film” or a “chick flick” (not that I have anything against chick flicks). What Breakfast is more complicated than that. It’s about character, it’s about mystery and more than anything it’s about those people who need to be liked but never want to be loved and about why someone might be like that.

It’s complicated... It’s incredibly complicated!

I mean, it's a "Romantic-Mystery Drama-Comedy with psychological thriller-like parts and a philosophical take on the morality of gold digging"!

Or to put it in a simpler way... it’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.