A SERIOUS MAN - The Best Coen Bros. Movie Ever

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 10/25/09 at 4:25am

Yes.

Ever.

The Coens have often been accused of acting like the God from the Book of Job in the thorough torturing their give their characters. In A SERIOUS MAN that becomes literal and the result is their angriest, most powerful, funniest, and most disturbing film yet.

It's a surrealist dark comedy with a strongly Jewish point of view. As Judaism is a religion that denies the Messiah, it can be a relatively downbeat and pessimistic religion, breeding more neuroses-per-square-inch in its Chosen People than any other culture in humankind. Or perhaps that is what the movies have us believe. But what the Coens have done here is to pinpoint exactly what the Jewish American Complex is. The film is set in the late '60s, with Israel barely into its twenties, and the aftershocks of the Holocaust still lingering. Perhaps the tragedies that befall our hero and the other Jewish characters could be read as the byproducts of a simmering anger as the culture tries to recoup itself after the Shoah and create a good life for themselves.

Or maybe not. This is the Coens' most abstract film since Barton Fink, giving us subtle snapshots into the life of a '60s-era Job. His life is a despairing comedic abyss of pain and hurt leaving him utterly trapped by the emptiness of his faith and the incompetence of his government. But, because this is the Coens, nothing is taken that seriously at all which, in a way, makes it all the more tragic and sad. It is a haunting comic vision of a world of bleak nothingness, and one that I won't soon forget.

[AC126748]

Posted: 10/25/09 at 10:12am

It's their best film in well over a decade, but I don't think I'd say it was their best ever. Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing are pretty much insurmountable, in my opinion.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 10/25/09 at 2:50pm

Am I the only one who's never seen a Coen Bros movie I even REMOTELY enjoy?

"Remote" being the operative word... as in "I used the remote to turn the incoherent claptrap off as soon as humanly possible".

Glad you liked it (though weren't you predisposed to?), but I'll skip this one.

Still can't believe they took the big prize over THERE WILL BE BLOOD... a blight on the reputation of the academy if there ever was one. Judy/SIB is the only one worse.

When will it finally be revealed that the emperor(s) have no clothes? Not soon enough...

P

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/25/09 at 3:27pm

I don't dislike them as much as you do, Pgenre, but pretty close.

Their movies seem so stilted and self-aware, stopping way too frequently to admire their own "artistic brilliance" in the mirror/lens before moving on. Sometimes, they never move on.

And the more times I have seen "There Will Be Blood," which manages to improve with every viewing, I realize this is one of Oscar's biggest "Ooopses" in decades. They voted for an "okay" effort with a terrific supporting performance by Bardem, instead of a true cinematic masterpiece---one for the ages.

I initially hated Fargo and its hokey and derogatory send-up of Dakotan and Midwestern lives. The tone was way to insipid and fairly clueless. But when I saw it later again, I had at least grown to appreciate Frances McDormand's work. I still don't think the movie is all that good. But it's the only one of theirs that I can sit through more than once.

So I don't feel like trying to tolerate another one of their efforts now. I don't have it in me. Maybe I'll catch it one day on an airplane or late at night when there's nothing else to watch, but for the moment, I'll pass.

Updated On: 10/25/09 at 03:27 PM

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 10/25/09 at 5:07pm

Besty, I couldn't agree more with you. I actually haven't gotten around to seeing THERE WILL BE BLOOD (I know, I know), but I still can't believe that something as pretentious and irrelevant as NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN got away with winning the Oscar that year. Javier Bardem's Oscar was quite well-deserved, but those Best Picture and Best Screenplay awards were not so deserving, IMO. I'm with you in that their constant need to call attention to their "brilliance" gets annoying real fast. I, however, love FARGO simply because I think Frances McDormand gives an incredibly dignified and funny performance. BURN AFTER READING also had enough funny performances to make me enjoy it. Still, I am not rushing to see their movies, I don't feel like I need to. I still regret seeing NO COUNTRY at the movie theatre, I wanted to leave towards the end and after seeing the "ending," I wish I had.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 10/25/09 at 5:54pm

besty. FARGO actually takes place in Minnesota, specifically Brainderd. Only the opening scene is in Fargo, North Dakota.

[shira467]

Posted: 10/25/09 at 7:12pm

I found the movie boring and self-hating. As a teacher, I found this movie an ideal way to represent Judaic culture as boring and unnecessary in American secular life.

"As Judaism is a religion that denies the Messiah"


That would be a completely incorrect statement. Judaism does not DENY Jesus, it denies him as a Messiah. However, Orthodox and Conservative sects of Judaism firmly believe in *a* Messiah, it just ain't Jesus.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/26/09 at 11:03am

"besty. FARGO actually takes place in Minnesota, specifically Brainderd. Only the opening scene is in Fargo, North Dakota."

Well, I DID say "Dakotans and Midwesterners," didn't I? Not just "Dakotans."

Mr. Picky gets "picked" right back!

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/26/09 at 11:11am

It has been downhill for the Coens since RAISING ARIZONA, still the only film of theirs that I happily watch. Their derivative and over-cute output since then constitutes one of the most surrealistically over-rated bodies of work ever. Only Clint Eastwood surpasses them in this regard for sheer overpraised uselessness.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Ha. Bogus nonsense, beautifully produced and well acted, but bogus nonsense nonetheless.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/26/09 at 11:24am

I don't remotely like Raising Arizona. It's at the top of that "over-cute output" you're referring to.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/26/09 at 12:07pm

Yeah, I can see how it could be seen that way. It isn't a masterpiece, but I like a lot of it. I don't find the cuteness to be as cloying as it got later. And I'll trade the single glorious moment where Holly Hunter sadly mispronounces "fiance" for every moment of Frances McDormand ever captured on film, past present and future.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 10/27/09 at 12:33pm

My pick for best movie of the decade thus far. The script is the kind that makes me wet.

[AC126748]

Posted: 10/27/09 at 12:47pm

TMI.