{"id":654,"date":"2010-11-07T22:39:29","date_gmt":"2010-11-07T16:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=654"},"modified":"2010-11-07T22:39:29","modified_gmt":"2010-11-07T16:39:29","slug":"on-the-coen-brothers-a-serious-man-a-guest-blogger-takes-on-the-critics-of-the-coen-brothers-misunderstood-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/11\/07\/on-the-coen-brothers-a-serious-man-a-guest-blogger-takes-on-the-critics-of-the-coen-brothers-misunderstood-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Coen Brothers' "A Serious Man": A Guest Blogger Takes on the Critics of the Coen Brothers' Little (Misunderstood) Masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

So it’s no secret I’m a serious fan of the Coen Brother’s latest film, A Serious Man<\/em>, which I’ll call a Little Masterpiece. (Why “little”? It doesn’t have the epic sweep of, say, Doctor Zhivago<\/em>, but then again, it’s not long and tedious, either. It does have some snowy scenes in Russia, just no Omar Sharif and Julie Christie canoodling in the snowy house.) Judging from the bad reviews it received, it’s also certainly misunderstood by many\u2014though I’ll note it was a finalist for Best Picture. Guest blogger Elizabeth May takes on the critics, and they lose:
\nCoen Brothers’\u00a0A Serious Man <\/em>Not Taken Seriously Enough<\/strong>
\nAfter analyzing The New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s and The New York Times\u2019 <\/em>reviews of A Serious Man<\/em>, for a unit I taught on film reviewing, I was disappointed and disheartened by David Denby\u2019s and A.O. Scott\u2019s analysis or should I say, lack of analysis. David Denby says the film is \u201cin their bleak, black, belittling mode, and it\u2019s hell to sit through\u201d while A.O. Scott reviews the film from a narrow, religious lens, missing universal themes of the human condition. He claims, \u201cWhen we first meet Larry, in the spring of 1967, his tenure case is pending, his son\u2019s bar mitzvah is approaching, and, a lot of bad stuff is about to happen, for no apparent reason.\u201d I quibble with his judgment that bad stuff happens in the film \u201cfor no apparent reason.\u201d The following kibitzes that just as\u00a0 \u201cactions have consequences\u201d in this film, details have reason.
\nThe puzzles the film poses haunt me like the bad mojo that follows Larry Gopnik around in the film, and among friends, colleagues, and students I have been unable to stop jabbering about the details, symbols, and significances in the underrated A Serious Man<\/em>. Exactly what details I\u2019m disappointed were left out of such high-brow reviews include, the relevancy of the Yiddish-folktale prologue and the metaphysical symbolism of the Mentaculus, the Uncertainty Principle, and Schrodinger\u2019s Paradox on the plot-line of the film.
\nIn comments about the allegorical prologue, both reviewers mention the uncertainty of an authentic dybbuk but don\u2019t offer any explanation of possible answers. And while I wouldn\u2019t dare draw absolute conclusions concerning director-intentions, my students discussed the prologue as a puzzle for the viewer to unravel through the details in the film. With such bad luck showered on Larry, we determined the husband in the prologue was correct in thinking Treitle Groshkover wasn\u2019t a dybbuk and they were in fact \u201ccursed.\u201d This point of view, we argued, isn\u2019t exclusive if you question who is cursed in the film and what is considered bad luck.\u00a0 After all, Sy Abelman is the character who died, and Oy, did he have it coming.
\nAfter first viewing A Serious Man<\/em>, I compared the film to Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s famous short story \u201cSigns and Symbols,\u201d in which literary critics have argued against the details being inconsequential to understanding the ending. By considering the tone of Nabokov\u2019s details, it is argued a reader should understand the relevance\u00a0 \u201czero\u201d and \u201ccrab apple\u201d have on the story\u2019s dark ending. Similarly, I concluded the Brothers Coen wanted their audience to \u201cdo the math\u201d; add up the signs and symbols to answer questions concerning the film\u2019s ambiguities, greater meanings and significances.
\nFurthermore, the mathematical theorems in the film were the clues by which my students deduced the meaning of certain character decisions. For example, when Larry explains the uncertainty principle to his students in a dream, he says even though nothing can be explained, they will be held accountable for it on their exam. The principle holds for Larry as well. Even though he can\u2019t explain the circumstances of his life or find answers to what it all means, the film articulates specific ways in which he is held accountable for his decisions and actions or inaction. The most glaring example being the moment when he changes Clive\u2019s grade to a passing grade and then suffers the consequences of an ill-fated phone call. Other examples include the ease with which he is taken advantage of by his kids, wife, brother, and Sy Abelman.
\nWhile some viewers were disappointed with the \u201copen ending,\u201d we argued there might be clues and metaphors to explain the possibilities. Firstly, we felt the philosophy of the Uncertainty Principle, was metaphorical of the question whether or not the tornado would hit and that the ending could be justified in this light. However, if you viewed the ending from a signs-and-symbols approach and considered that \u201cactions have consequences\u201d the editing of the film\u2019s conclusion, switching from Larry changing Clive\u2019s grade to David deciding whether or not to pay off his pot debt, seems to imply a correlation between their actions or inaction. Directly after Larry gives Clive a passing grade, he receives an unlucky phone call from his doctor delivering what is ambiguous but obviously, bad news. If we are supposed to parallel this action and consequence with David hesitating to give the twenty bucks to Mike Fagle, we might conclude if he doesn\u2019t pay the money he\u2019ll suffer the consequences of the tornado.
\nOne student argued the film was about kharma and I enjoyed this term being applied to a film dealing with Jewish culture. Students understood a certain give and take, yen and yang, good and evil struggle for balance running through the film. Uncle Arthur\u2019s Mentaculus\u00a0 symbolized this balance when considering it\u2019s relationship to Schrodinger\u2019s Paradox and the Uncertainty Principle. The Mentaculus extrapolates probability theorems while Schrodinger\u2019s Paradox and the Uncertainty Principle are ambiguous. Furthermore this represents a paradox of characterization between Larry and his brother Arthur. While Larry is focused on uncertainty; Larry is focused on probable answers. As if one holds the answer for the other and if only they could combine their brains, they might solve the riddles of their lives.
\nFurthermore, themes and refrains in the dialogue such as, \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything\u201d correlate with specific moments in the film. When Larry Gopnik declares to Clive, \u201cIn this office, actions have consequences,\u201d the lesson applies to Larry as well. Interpreting the ways in which Larry\u2019s character is taken advantage of throughout the rest of the film suggests that even inaction\u2014not doing anything\u2014results in \u201cconsequences,\u201d such as being taken advantage of by characters like Sy Abelman.
\nIn the end, I believe Rabbi Scott embodies the right perspective in this bit of wisdom he offers to Larry,\u00a0 \u201cLook at the parking lot, Larry.”\u00a0 I’ve adopted these words as my new mantra and the possibility lurking in that gray concrete expanse conveys worlds to me. “Just look at that parking lot.”
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So it’s no secret I’m a serious fan of the Coen Brother’s latest film, A Serious Man, which I’ll call a Little Masterpiece. (Why “little”? It doesn’t have the epic sweep of, say, Doctor Zhivago, but then again, it’s not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}