Three Coen brothers movies for lockdown

Moni and I watched A Serious Man (2009) the other weekend, ten years after first seeing it. The film complements our Covid-19 perfectly - it is about uncertainty and the place of God - and fate - in determining the outcome of our lives. The plot revolves around the tribulations of a 1960s Jewish lecturer, Larry Gopnik, trying to make sense of why his life is collapsing around him. Larry teaches physics at a Midwestern university; he is explaining quantum theory with the aid of Schrodinger's cat (which features regularly on this blog). "Is the cat dead or alive?" asks Larry of his physics class.

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:

On cue - the Ice Saints

[Same this year: Monday afternoon, 25C, Tuesday morning 2C.]

This time five years ago:
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