A SERIOUS MAN
/
2009
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins
BUDGET: $7 million
GROSS: $31.4 million
In 2007 the Coen brothers gave us No Country For Old Men which was a masterpiece. Then in 2008 they gave us Burn After Reading which was kind of fun and entertaining, but ultimately disappointing and unsuccessful as a complete film. In 2009 they gave us A Serious Man and wth it the Coen brothers were back on track.
A Serious Man is an incredible film. What's interesting is that, just like Burn After Reading, A Serious Man is a little random at times and can be confusing to anyone trying to make sense out of all the various symbols and ideas as well as the opening prologue and closing image. And yet, where Burn After Reading left me empty and unsatisfied, A Serious Man blew me away.
The funny thing is, I'm not sure that everything is supposed to make sense or connect to each other in some grand meaning beyond the general ideas. Maybe everything isn't supposed to "make sense" in that way?
There is a great scene in the film in which the main character is talking to a rabbi, trying to get some help with his life that’s falling apart. The rabbi tells him this story about a dentist who saw something on a patients teeth once and became obsessed with figuring out what it meant. When the story ends the man asks the rabbi what ended up happening and the rabbi basically responds, "nothing. he just went on with his life."
Using that story as a metaphor for a reading of the film, one could take away that not every symbol or moment is connected with everything else - and that there aren't always answers to the questions. Sometimes there are just more questions (like the last moment of the film which left me exhilarated, but also left me with - you guessed it - more questions).
However, as I say that, I almost want to take it back, because I just have a hard time thinking that the Coen brothers would do that. They are famous for their meticulousness in their film making and so a film without answers or a well though out meaning to every single image and scene seems almost silly to say. But, I said it.
I would tell you what the film was about, but that wouldn't do it justice. The basic plot outline is actually rather regular and uninteresting if whittled down to it’s elevator pitch. Where this film becomes the magnificent thing that it is is in the execution of it all and in the brilliant writing that takes the simple outline to places that one would ever imagine.
These are film makers at the top of their game. The camera work, the editing, the writing, the use of sound and music and imagery. It’s all excellent. And given their filmography, that shouldn’t surprise anybody.