Never New and Never Gets Old: Inside Llewyn Davis and the Folk Revival
When I take out an old record to play during bouts of nostalgia, I notice sometimes that the covers all have a blurred, muted quality to them. Even the occasional blues and greens and yellows that appear in these works are diminished by a thin gray film, while the figures are blurred by an unfocused camera. If you’ve ever seen the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, with its lovers disappearing into a gray street and sky, or The Sound of Silence, with its cold green pathway, you would know what I’m talking about. The world of 1960s folk music is both cool and wistful, seeming to exist on a perpetual winter day.
This is the environment in which the Cohen Brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis takes place. Every frame feels like the cover of a folk album you would find buried deep in your grandfather’s closet. The film is beautifully shot in blues and greens and grays, each character’s face lit in a melancholic haze. And it’s the particular lighting and atmosphere that support the melancholy of the plot.
The movie follows a folk singer named Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac). It begins in 1961, at Llewyn’s performance of “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” in the Gaslight Cafe. It is an aching, haunting performance, perhaps channeling the seeming failure of Llewyn’s life. When we first meet him, it is in the wake of his singing partner Mike’s suicide and the failure of their album. Llewyn is virtually homeless, alternating between the couches of a Columbia professor and his ex-girlfriend, Jean (Carey Mulligan). Hardened by his experiences, Llewyn is an abrasive figure. He is particularly unkind to the women in his life–upon hearing an older friend perform for the first time, he ridicules her and calls her a slut. Despite his abrasiveness, it is hard not to feel bad for Llewyn–he is almost pathetically unlucky. One feels a twinge of sympathy when Llewyn hides a cart of his unsold records in shame, or when a music manager tells him that he won’t work with Llewyn because “there’s just no money in folk music,” or when he wanders aimlessly around the streets of New York, unsure of where he will sleep for the night. Jean sees Llewyn as a sort of anti-Midas, as she tells him, “Everything you touch turns to shit!”
Music in this film occupies, not a secondary, but a central role. The movie clearly loves folk music. It carefully curates gems of the folk revival with renditions by Marcus Mumford and Isaac himself. Enthusiasts might note arrangements by Tom Paxton, Peter Paul and Mary, and especially Dave Van Ronk (whom the directors have cited as the main influence of the film). And yet, despite the love the directors give the movement, one must wonder if they really believe in it. Llewyn Davis, although a failure, is the only character who seems to be authentic. Jean is implied to have gotten her job singing at the Gaslight through sex. Her current partner Jim (Justin Timberlake) makes vapid, sellout pop songs as a way to get cash. No one in the film seems to take folk music seriously enough–except for Llewyn, who is insistent that it is his life, and Mike, folk music’s martyr.
Of course, zeal is not enough to lift Llewyn out of his condition. The world of this movie is ruled by cruel chance. The movie ends where it begins–with Llewyn singing “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” at the Gaslight. But this time, as he leaves the cafe, we see a curly-haired young man sit down on the stage and perform. In contrast to Llewyn, his voice is rough and unpolished, a little grating, even, to listen to. But it is an unmistakable, iconic voice–Bob Dylan’s. In a way, Dylan’s presence is there to signify everything Davis will not be. We know that Dylan will become a superstar, the Messiah of the folk revival, experiencing enormous success and changing the arc of popular music in the process. But at this point, it is unclear what exactly separates him from Llewyn. Llewyn’s talent certainly does not pale next to Dylan’s; in fact, his song seems full of more conviction than Dylan’s. Llewyn’s problem instead seems to be that it is always the wrong place at the wrong time, and the cyclical structure of the movie implies that this will always be so. The same man who told Llewyn that there is no money in folk music (a fictional Bud Grossman, based on the real Albert Grossman) would later go on to manage Dylan and guide his career in folk music and beyond. Fame, success, and wealth happen through luck–something Llewyn has none of.
It is a depressing message to hear. And yet, the movie itself never feels too depressing. Its melancholy is aestheticized, and its pain is filtered through a picturesque lens. The darkness of the film is somewhat lovely, like that of a rainy day or a bitter snowy sky. It is just like the cover of a folk album–or a folk song itself, which, for all its talk of hangings and farewells, is beautiful at its core.