@deanduncan63Saw the Coens’ #ASeriousMan. More misanthropy, I thought, though much better balanced than the execrable #BurnAfterReading …
… Then, I overhear talk about it being their very best film. Let us think about this. What have we got here?
#ASeriousMan. That shtetl prologue really sets an ambiguous tone, one that is quite superbly maintained throughout …
… A question is established. Is it God, the devil, or neither? Is the fault in the stars, or in ourselves? Is there anybody out there? …
… Plenty of strong evidence for each portentous position. Well then? Which is it?! Well, it’s as that younger Rabbi so maddeningly …
… so dauntingly, so bracingly suggests. Figure it out yourself!
#ASeriousMan. It’s Job, as has been observed, but secularly/ironically. It’s Job, then, passed through Saul Bellow & Philip Roth …
… Let’s throw in John Updike as well. All very effective. All pretty dire! Plenty of tribulation, & not much transcendence!
#ASeriousMan. But is that fair? I hear echoes of Bernard Malamud, too. And what of that lovingly, luminously rendered bar mitzvah …
… (marijuana notwithstanding)? What of the surprising & sincere echoes of Bergman’s agonizing, exalting Winter Light? …
… Misanthropy? Meaninglessness? Yes, sure, but only in part. (Buñuel’s Nazarin!) The film actually ends up …
… being a pretty tremendous disquisition on religion, to & for the middle/agéd! I must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
#ASeriousMan. Did you catch me there? I’m talking about a deeply Jewish text, & most of my intertexts …
… are egregiously Christian! They may still relate, but they’re not as apt as they might be. Gotta do some more reading up!
#ASeriousMan. Anyway, after all the flamboyant technique/intelligence, the o’er emphatic period detail, the stoner comedy …
… and antic misanthropy, the absurdism & Dostoievskian doubt, the ethnic/theological burlesque …
… that final interview w’ the agéd rabbi leaps out as being positively transcendental (a la P. Shrader, ‘72) …
… We strive, we question, we fail & we wonder. The answer? Simple, & positively searing: “be a good boy.”
#ASeriousMan. A huge accomplishment: all these influences, all these sensibilities, are thoroughly integrated …
… A cultural anthology! Not so smug or hermetic after all. Extremely vivid, extremely instructive.
#ASeriousMan. Oh. And the craft, as always, is utter, absolute
#ASeriousMan. At the end of all that? Okay, I’ll bite. It is their best film.