Will you catch Covid-19 or not? Have you already had it? Do you have the antibodies? Can you catch it a second time? Is that maskless, coughing person walking towards you along this narrow corridor infected? Will Covid-19 linger on, untreatable, in society for years or decades? Will it mutate into something nastier? Will there be a second and subsequent waves? Will there ever be an effective vaccine? Will you end up dying of it on a ventilator as some unspecified point in the future?
Uncertainty, Larry. "The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can't ever really know... what's going on."
Larry asks the question "what's going on?" seven times in the film before he finally makes that above quote - in a dream. But then it is almost immediately negated by his wife's dead lover forcibly explaining to Larry what's really going on - in the same dream.
Does Larry's doctor have news that Larry has terminal cancer? Will Larry's son Danny be killed by an approaching tornado? As the film ends, we are left with uncertainty. As the father of a South Korean student of Larry's says to him, "Please. Accept the mystery." This might make the film frustrating at a first viewing, but many subsequent re-watchings yield more and more substance as one begins to unravel the universal mysteries that underline our lives, that, like Larry's teeter on the edge of chaos.
The film is a masterpiece - one of my favourite films of all time ever, always a joy to return to, always something new to discover, which is one of the great things about most Coen brothers' movies - their multi-layeredness.
My second Coen brothers' lockdown movie tip is O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000). Set in the Great Depression, it centres on three chain-gang fugitives led by a silver-tongued Ulysses Everett McGill (played by George Clooney). Far more light-hearted than A Serious Man, the Depression plays a central role in the film - like Covid-19, it is something that has descended upon society 'from above', something perplexing, beyond anyone's control. If the recurring line in A Serious Man is "what's going on?", in O Brother, Where Art Thou, it's "everybody's looking for answers". Are they to be found in the Bible? "The Truth! Every blessed word of it, from Genesee on down to Revelations! That's right, the word of God, which let me add there is damn good money in during these days of woe and want!" Are the answers to be found in religion, in politics, in music?
O Brother has a great musical soundtrack, one that's difficult not to like. And the wise-cracking dialogue has plenty of memorable quotes for everyday usage. Our favourite: "it's a fool looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."
Finally - entirely unrelated to Covid-19, indeed an antidote to the gloom around us right now - The Big Lebowski (1998). An odd-couple buddy movie in the mould of Withnail and I and appealing much to the same sense of humour and quote-mongers. A Chandleresque detective mystery based on mistaken identity, this cult film gave rise to the religion of Dudism, about which I wrote a couple of months ago. Incidentally, I got an apologetic email from a Michael Dembinski the other day - a US serviceman for whom I have been receiving tons of official emails over the years whenever he gets posted to another overseas location. The entire machinery of the US Navy and its sundry contractors - logistics, realtors, client-satisfaction surveys - kicks in, and all of my protests about spamming fell on the deaf ears of bureaucracy - until now.
"Okay sir, you're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski, that's terrific, but I'm very busy, as I can imagine you are. What can I do for you sir?"
Life mirrors art.
This time last year:
Then and now: Trafalgar Square (recreating my father's photos)
This time seven years ago:
Reflection upon the City Car
This time nine years ago:
Biblical sky
This time ten years ago:
Travel broadens the spirit
This time 11 years ago:
Welcome the Ice Saints
This time 13 years ago:
On the farm next door
4 comments:
Hi Michael,
Have you seen "Fargo" ? Another recommended, strangely fine, Coen flick. Black comedy at its finest. And yes, people really talk like that in Minne-soh-ta. Regards,
@Tom - Denver
We've seen all the Coen brothers' films, with the exception of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which didn't have a cinema release here in Poland.
Yes, Fargo is certainly up there with the better Coen brothers' output; I'd place it alongside Burn After Reading and above Intolerable Cruelty
Hi Michael,
we met years ago once, at a Robinski birthday party, and every now and then I am reading bits of your blog. Thanks for your inspiring thoughts, great that you do this already for so many years!
I stumbled upon a website which I am sure you will like as well. On the site you can look for "the big lebowski" quotes (the whole script is more or less quoteable), or press the bowlingball and get random quotes...
https://www.thebiglebow.ski/
Hi Pim,
Thanks for that - it is indeed a glorified version of what I do to check quotes - go straight to source. I usually use this one:
http://web.mit.edu/putz/Public/big_lebowski.txt
Worth noting that there are usually two versions of any movie script out there on the web - the shooting script (the final version from which the film was directed) and a transcript of the actual lines as spoken in the film which may vary ever so slightly. I seek out the latter.
Post a Comment