QUITE.
(sorry, haven’t seen this, but I always like to post on new threads)
I too enjoyed A Serious Man immensely.
The ending, as you mentioned is beautiful and dark. But what strikes me the most about it is that Fagel, in the face of a tornado, no longer cares about his $20 that much. The Coens seem to stand by ideas of fate, mystery, and character determining destiny. Are those things nihilistic? Some have accused the Coens of embracing such a dark philosophy, but I’ve never seen them as finding an absence of meaning in the universe.
The tornado is the least understood of all storms, the most unavoidable, unpredictable, and most deadly. Like the dream at the end of No Country it’s a good representation of the theme of the film.
I just ran across this comment on the New York Times review page and find it very useful:
“The sin of certainty????
“Maybe the wife stabbing the old man because she was sure he was an evil “dybuk” at the beginning of the movie represents the arrogance and perhaps the sin of certainty. Because the whole movie seems to center around the uncertainty of knowing why. In some ways this captures the essense of Judaism which worships the question as much if not more than the answer. Its the unknowable that is divine. I agree that its a modern day story of “Job” with God showing whose boss at the very end. I dunno! Maybe that’s the theme. We just dunno! And anyone who tells you that they do know – is arrogantly evil"
– hindy , Toronto, Ontario Canada
Since I’m just talking to myself here, I thought I might as well continue the conversation.
I just realized that the ending is even more perfect as it parallels God speaking to Job from out of the whirlwind that He will not explain why these bad things have happened to him.
Brilliant.
Since I don’t want you in a room, talking to yourself, I’ll join in again.
The bit about the prologue is interesting. I happened to commit a cardinal sin by stepping into the theatre a minute or two late (It was a friends fault, I swear!). For this reason, I’ve tried not to read too much into the prologue under the assumption that I may have missed some integral detail.
A Serious Man is a funny movie. But, it didn’t make me laugh out loud often. I smiled plenty. “Somebody to Love” will never be the same song again, I can tell you that.
Agreed about the song. Like California Dreaming/Chungking Express and Cria Cuervos/um, whatever that song was it will be forever intertwined with the film.
Did you notice the prologue was shot with a narrower frame? Quaint touch, that.
Yes, I did notice that. My first thought was, ‘Oh, man, this movie theatre fucked up the framing on this thing’. And then I realized that they’d never crop a film to look like an old TV. I’m not sure exactly why they chose a different aspect ratio for the prologue – at least in terms of narrative content. It may have been simply to distinguish the prologue from the rest of the film, or to emphasize the parabolic nature of that sequence, or to emphasize the ancientness of the traditions and superstitions found in Judaic thought.
I think those are spot-on.
As an aside, this movie makes me want to watch The Big Lebowski again more than any other Coen film, and I just rewatched the fucking short version on youtube again.
It struck me that you could almost do a similar version with this film from the kid’s dialog. It was some of the funniest stuff in the film, the way these suburbanite Jewish kids were “fucking” this and “fucker” that all over the place. Great stuff.
I just think all this endless speculating is funny. They are moviemakers. They have money to realize their vision, but why are we being speculative of their body of work when they are still alive and making movies? And if it sounds like I have a bone to pick with them, I sort of do, but the same kind of immediate canonization and mystification goes for people who talk up PTA, who I love.
Honestly, I was stumped by the film. That last shot and then going to black was the biggest WTF of the year!? I applaud it’s confidence in ambiguity and look forward to many more viewings where I can peel the intricate layers off one at a time.
Retinch: Read through my posts above. Should make everything pretty clear.
Perhaps the Coens made the ending deliberately uncertain to create a buzz for a sequel that would explain all? :-)
Frank – A Dead Serious Man.
Nathan M.: That could easily be the title for the sequel. Of course, the sequel to that one would have to be A SERIOUS MAN III: THE AFTERLIFE … (IF THERE IS ONE).
In it, our hero, now deceased, could meet the alleged “dybuk” from Part I and develop a bond. Or maybe our physics professor would end up being knifed to death by someone who thinks that HE is a dybuk?
I’m not trying to flame, I just don’t understand why the Coens are already academic. Their films are more reverential than stylistic and I think they had some flukes in the 90s and are now positioned to ride the coattails of the past, forever and ever.
Best film of the year so far!! And while i made the obvious connection to the Book of Job, the bit about God speaking from a whirlwind really brings a lot of the film together. But is isn’t God speaking from the tornado at the film’s end. It is the Coen’s. And they aren’t offering any easy explanations either.
Frank P..
If you are a Jew, there is no afterlife.
The only thing left is how you are remembered.
Mel, you’ve been misinformed. Judaism does include belief in an afterlife. It just doesn’t get too into the specifics so that the greater emphasis is on our time here.
Oh, man, A Serious Man is freaking awesome, and one of the best films I’ve seen all year.
Savvy
Mel: Following up on Brad’s statement about the afterlife in Jewish thought, here is a snippet I copied and pasted from the Internet:
“Traditional Judaism firmly believes that death is not the end of human existence. However, because Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than on the afterlife, Judaism does not have much dogma about the afterlife, and leaves a great deal of room for personal opinion. It is possible for an Orthodox Jew to believe that the souls of the righteous dead go to a place similar to the Christian heaven, or that they are reincarnated through many lifetimes, or that they simply wait until the coming of the messiah, when they will be resurrected. Likewise, Orthodox Jews can believe that the souls of the wicked are tormented by demons of their own creation, or that wicked souls are simply destroyed at death, ceasing to exist.”
That’s why my attempt at humor, the title of the Coen Bros.’ hypothetical sequel to A Serious Man being A Dead Serious Man: The Afterlife … (If There Is One), contained that parenthetical phrase.
BTW, in New York City, where I was born and raised, I’m considered an “honorary Jew.” I speak a little Yiddish, know about Jewish holidays and rituals, and have a beard. :-)
The beard is the critical bit. Thanks for chiming in, Frank.
Reposting this from another thread, regarding the ending of the film, there was an actual historical cluster of tornadoes on April 30, 1967 in south central and southeast Minnesota
HA! Very interesting. Everything ties together.
I’ll be seeing this again shortly. It has grown fondly in my memory.
I’ve also taken to standing on my roof in quasi-heroic poses.
I missed this one in the theaters, so I’m way late to the discussion.
I’ve also taken to standing on my roof in quasi-heroic poses—-
Not because your neighbors are sunbathing, I hope.
Ahem, no—I uh…
[looks at navel]
Actually, if MY neighbors were sunbathing, I wouldn’t go anywhere near the roof.
Glad to see this thread get bumped—there seems to be a lot of discussion going on about this film but it’s all over the place.
x 2
x 3
There is an inordinate number of dead members in this thread.
Coincidence?
House of Leaves
About Barton Fink, Ethan Coen once said, “What isn’t crystal clear isn’t intended to become crystal clear, and it’s fine to leave it at that,” to which Joel followed up, “The question is: Where would it get you if something that’s a little bit ambiguous in the movie is made clear? It doesn’t get you anywhere.”
I’ve always been fine with this, especially as it pertains to the ending of No Country for Old Men (which I actually found to be fairly easy to decipher), and I’m reminded of it because A Serious Man has such an ending. It’s beautiful and dark and a little funny, just like the best of all their work.
This pretty much sums up how I feel about the film (thanks, Notebook section):
“*A Serious Man* is the Coens’ true follow-up to their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men – a Jewish take on the question of cosmic injustice,” argues David Edelstein. “As in No Country, no one sees the entire picture – except, perhaps, the Almighty, who is, if He exists, a crueler jokester than even the makers of Blood Simple and Burn After Reading. The vision is mordant and absurdist – but not nihilistic.
“The Coens open with a quote from Rashi: ‘Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.’ The lesson of Larry Gopnik is how to lose gracefully.”