comment #1

Phreaker says ...

He's not really a name. That's his biggest problem. But yeah, the character is a tool for the Coens' story and so he comes off as a perfectly cast chess piece.

comment #2

Bilge says ...

Interesting point, Jeff, and I think you're on to something with it. The Academy's nomnations for Best Actor seem to reflect a certain romanticism on the part of the acting branch. Look at the nominations from the last two years:

2008:
Milk -Sean Penn
Frost/Nixon - Frank Langella
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Brad Pitt
The Visitor - Richard Jenkins
The Wrestler - Mickey Rourke

2007:
There Will Be Blood - Daniel Day-Lewis
Eastern Promises - Viggo Mortensen
In the Valley of Elah - Tommy Lee Jones
Michael Clayton - George Clooney
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Johnny Depp

With the one exception of Richard Jenkins (a Coen regular, wouldn't you know it) these are mostly badasses, powerful men, and/or romantic losers. The saddest sacks here are probably Rourke and Tommy Lee Jones, but they're also, in their own ways, tough guys. Nothing like Larry Gopnik.

comment #3

Bilge says ...

Sorry, I meant to add "martyrs" as well to that list of types the Academy goes for. Btw, check out other years, too. The model holds up.

comment #4

Chase Kahn says ...

You're right, Jeff - it's also a shame that "A Serious Man", at this point, isn't an absolute lock for Best Picture nomination at this point, with 10 freaking nominees!

It's such a misanthropic, black-comedy masterpiece and it spoke to me like no other film this year in terms of what is was selling.

I love that it's a film about truth, destiny, faith, etc. and ultimately has no answer for it with one of the best closing shots I've ever seen in a film. It's also given Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" a second wind.

comment #5

Discman says ...

Jeffrey: Read Ecclesiastes lately?

comment #6

cinefan says ...

"But the reality is that most people (including film industry professionals) don't respond all that strongly to talent and craft. They respond emotionally to the character being portrayed."

This definitely applies to Wells, who doesn't think that Monique deserves a nomination for a brilliant, searing performance for the simple reason that she plays a monster who lacks "flair" and "personality".

comment #7

QualityGibberish says ...

suffering and misfortune are random and pointless things that happen to good and bad people for no apparent reason

Is this really true, though? I think there is insufficient evidence to support the conclusion. How can anything possibly happen without a cause? If we admit there is a cause for even one thing, then causation exists, and there must be a cause for everything, even though we are not sufficiently subtle and perceptive to trace it.

It strikes me as a failing of western religion in general and Judaism in particular, as exemplified in the film, to resort to meaningless platitudes (aka, distractions) in the face of what, to them, are mysteries, like suffering and its causes. This is not the case for every religion, and Buddhism, for example, explored this and founded itself on a theme that contradicts the western tradition of "why me?" pathos with regard to suffering -- i.e., suffering is universal, it has a cause, the cause can be eliminated, and therefore suffering can end.

If we can be serious about our misery, it would help to consider this and not brush it aside and deny it as we usually do.

comment #8

Chicago48 says ...

a serious man? A single man....who can tell the difference? Titles make the movie....just like the Hurt Locker....what the heck does that mean?

comment #9

EricGilde says ...

QualityGibberish: Yes, Jeff said "apparent" reason, which I think factors in reasons that we are not subtle and perceptive enough to trace. You basically just rephrased what he said.

If we're not sufficiently subtle or perceptive enough to trace it, how exactly is suffering going to end? If causation exists everyhwere, then it also is significant on a subatomic level, setting into effect reactions that we will never have any way of controlling. Quantum mechanics at work! It's naive and hubristic to assume that we can control the fate of every particle in the universe.

Which stresses, I think, the fact that causation does not imply agency. If Michael Stuhlbarg's character goes through hell because of a butterfly in the Amazon flapped its wings, what the hell can he do about it?

comment #10

EricGilde says ...

i think the hurt locker refers literally to the box that Jeremy Renner's character has which contains his trophies from various bombs that he's defused.

But I think that a lot of the characters themselves (specifically but not limited to Renner) are themselves "hurt lockers" with the trauma that they've endured in their work, and how it's impacted their ability to lead anything resembling what most people would call normal lives.

Plus, I think that actually movies make the movies, not titles.

comment #11

royalonemn says ...

Or could it be that the Academy and critics just feel like they are getting the same tricks from the Coens (quarky characters/ characterizations, existenstial plots and ambiguous endings) and they are not going for it this year?

Like the Coens, I'm from Minneapolis--grew up less than 5 miles from St. Louis Park--but "A Serious Man" does not seem to be one of their daring achievements in cinema. Fine film, but no wow factor. Especially when you have movies like "The Hurt Locker", "Precious", "Inglorious Basterds", hell, even "Avatar", who seem to be trying to push the cinema content debate forward. "A Serious Man" just came off as another middle-aged, suburban white man having a midlife crisis. That film won Best Pic in 1999 and was called "American Beauty" then.

P.S. Agree with cinefan's pointing out of Jeff's hypocrisy concerning Mo'Nique's performance vs. Michael Stuhlbarg's. The same logic Jeff wants to debunk about Stuhlbarg's portrayal is the same that Jeff is using to degrade Mo'Nique's, i.e. "I don't like the character, so therefore, the performance is undeserving."

comment #12

Chase Kahn says ...

" 'A Serious Man' just came off as another middle-aged, suburban white man having a midlife crisis"

Sorry, I don't think you can reduce the film to that - it's so much more. "American Beauty"??

And have you seen "Avatar", yet? How does that help your case that there are more deserving films? For all you know, it's a piece of shit.

comment #13

Jason says ...

The first time I saw A SERIOUS MAN, this guy sitting behind me would occasionally mutter, usually when Larry was dealing with the latest indignity life had handed him, "What an idiot."

When Larry was complaining to his lawyer about paying for Sy's funeral, I think the guy behind me upgraded to "What a fucking idiot!"

comment #14

bluefugue says ...

>Is this really true, though? I think there is insufficient evidence to support the conclusion. How can anything possibly happen without a cause? If we admit there is a cause for even one thing, then causation exists, and there must be a cause for everything, even though we are not sufficiently subtle and perceptive to trace it.

There is a reason why the Holocaust happened, but it has nothing to do with whether or not the victims lived virtuous lives. I think that is the point. Not that things happen without reason, but that those reasons have to do with forces vastly beyond our control & which are indifferent to our own private attempts to live well, do the right thing, etc.

If an asteroid hit the earth tomorrow and wiped out all life, it would have happened for a reason that (in terms of the physics involved) could probably be traced all the way back to the Big Bang, but it would be little consolation to us, and I'm not sure religion (Western or Eastern) would have much of value to say about it.

comment #15

bluefugue says ...

>" 'A Serious Man' just came off as another middle-aged, suburban white man having a midlife crisis" Sorry, I don't think you can reduce the film to that - it's so much more.

Yeah, that's a peculiar reduction. ASM is obviously a theological film among other things.

comment #16

Matthew Starr says ...

I thought Stuhlbarg gave a better performance this year than both Jeremy Renner and George Clooney.

comment #17

THE MovieBob says ...

It's a naturalistic character turn in a lead role by a relative unknown, NOBODY wins for that.

Stuhlbarg should be nominated and I'd love to see him win, but face it: Since NO ONE knows who he is, they have nothing to compare the role to to see how good he is in it. If this was, say, Paul Giamatti doing the same performance in the same role, he'd be a lock because people "know" Giamatti, know he isn't "this guy" and thus can see the work. With Stuhlbarg, for all they know he "IS" Gopnik and thus isn't doing much "acting."

The only way to avoid this pitfall for a non-star is for the performance itself to be so show-offy or "big" that they can't ignore it even if they DO suspect you might just be "playing yourself." (see: Gabourey Sidibe.)

comment #18

royalonemn says ...

Chase Khan: Have not seen "Avatar" yet, but, from a narrative perspective, seems more interesting.

Both Chase Khan and/or bluefugue: Please sum up "A Serious Man" for me, if my observation is peculiar. It may not get the nuance of the story, but that's the basic story. His family's falling apart, his kids aren't behaving, he might not get tenure at his job. Middle-aged, (and from a historical film perspective) white male issues. When was the last time you've seen a story about a woman or a minority going through the same set of circumstances? And whether the main character chooses to rage against God or rage against the suburban machine (ala "American Beauty"), it's still about him having a midlife crisis. No matter how many interesting shots and quarky situations you place into it.

comment #19

QualityGibberish says ...

EricGilde: Jeff said "apparent" reason, which I think factors in reasons that we are not subtle and perceptive enough to trace. You basically just rephrased what he said.

He also said "random and pointless." If events are random, they contradict causation, which means they are not at all random. They are specific and exact.

EricGilde: If we're not sufficiently subtle or perceptive enough to trace it, how exactly is suffering going to end? If causation exists everyhwere, then it also is significant on a subatomic level, setting into effect reactions that we will never have any way of controlling. Quantum mechanics at work! It's naive and hubristic to assume that we can control the fate of every particle in the universe.

As a refutation to what I wrote, this is absurd. If one is not sufficiently subtle or perceptive, does that mean he may not become so? Obviously, he must. What is naive and hubristic is to think the end of suffering, as I broached it, requires controlling "every particle in the universe." I'm pretty sure that is not suggested. But you brush it aside as is the habit of which I wrote, and I'm not going further into it on this blog, that's for sure.

bluefugue: First, it is not possible to discuss on the basis of "if such and such happens," or some other cinematic imagination. It has to be dealt with actually. As to what has happened in the past, like the Holocaust, that again is not your actual suffering now, is it? The topic is not an abstraction.

I also do not think the end of suffering implies everybody gets to live like a happy rich man, like say a Bruckheimer or Tiger Woods. Ha ha ha ha.

comment #20

Gordon27 says ...

"Middle-aged, (and from a historical film perspective) white male issues."

Royal: you could also add "being cuckolded", "dreams of an affair with attractive neighbor", "feuding with other neighbor over land ownership", and "strange Asian people making trouble for him at work" to the list before exhausting the "mid-life crisis" aspect.

comment #21

EricGilde says ...

Ummm, Gibberish, you're right, the Holocaust isn't our suffering. Because those people are dead. People who led virtuous lives and people who didn't. It happened, and it did not discriminate in that particular way. And they died.

Someone getting mugged on the street suffers, and can't control their getting mugged. A kid getting diagnosed with leukemia suffers, and there's no rhyme or reason to it as far as he or she is concerned. These things are not part of a "cinematic imagination," they and much worse things happen quite frequently to people who HAVEN'T DONE A SINGLE BAD THING IN THEIR LIVES. That's the point.

You're saying that suffering is the effect of something, and that at some point we will be able to somehow gain the ability to prevent the cause of those things, thus eliminating suffering.

What I'm saying is that, unless you're saying that we will somehow learn how to anticipate and cure new diseases before they even appear, prevent volcanos from erupting and asteroids from colliding, find out what happened to Schrodinger's cat and refute the HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE, you're being NAIVE and HUBRISTIC.

You joke that not everyone will live like a happy rich man, but do you realize you're brushing aside the amount of suffering and crime that comes from penury, or even basic socioeconomic differences?

Do you think that basic animal instincts of territorialism, jealousy, lust, etc, can just be taken out of the equation? Simple ignorance? Cultural gaps? Generational gaps? The way that an environment or climate impacts people's perspectives and worldviews?

Wake up!

comment #22

MechanicalShark says ...

It's not true that NOBODY knows who Stuhlbarg is. Before A Serious Man he was best known for and received wide critical acclaim for portraying the addled brother in a production of The Pillowman. So he's known to the New York art scene, which is part of why he could surprise at the NYFCC.

comment #23

mtgilchrist says ...

i agree with jeff that there are cases where audiences don't want to see characters like themselves - at least in the sense that those characters don't learn something from their experiences or change in some way (any way). notwithstanding the fact that he is essentially having a midlife crisis (at least from a narrative standpoint, if not also a theological one), the reason i never warned to the movie was because the movie devotes itself so fully to saying that "stuff happens and there's nothing that we can do about it," that the character never does anything at all. i kept waiting for him to get exasperated by his wife or his kids or anyone enough to "do" something, but he never does, even when his wife tells him that it was cy who was writing those incendiary letters about him to the tenure board. the problem for me was that he never learns that even if things will happen regardless of what we try, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try something, and he never learns or does that. there's also something just fucking depressing about the throughline of a film being "we're all fucked" and not trying to find some real reason to go on, other than, well, because we just do.

comment #24

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