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Way to miss the point
May. 12th, 2016 11:05 am I was reading Jessica Kiang's essay on why Inside Llewyn Davis was a great subversive movie (quite correct) when I ran into this:
No. No, it isn't. The talent agent in Chicago is absolutely right -- Davis is wrapped up in the song, but he's not a performer. Part of the problem is that Llewyn Davis does the same thing over and over and over again, hoping that this time it will work. "It's never new, and it's never old; that's what makes it a folk song."
On that night that begins and ends the movie, Dylan started breaking folk music. Here's the review from the Times.
I love poor Llewyn a lot, but he is not original. If Llewyn had gotten that chance that Dylan got, there wouldn't have been the review, and there wouldn't have been the astonishing career. Llewyn was on the old path of folk music; Dylan blasted a new. Llewyn missed the performance, but he wasn't remotely capable of giving that performance, and that's his tragedy.
So is it just a conspiracy of dumb luck and bad timing and unfortunate, butter-side-down decision-making that prevents Llewyn from being the guy the New York Times discovers that night in the Gaslight? Or does Llewyn fail because, on some level too deep for him to acknowledge, he has stopped believing he will succeed?
No. No, it isn't. The talent agent in Chicago is absolutely right -- Davis is wrapped up in the song, but he's not a performer. Part of the problem is that Llewyn Davis does the same thing over and over and over again, hoping that this time it will work. "It's never new, and it's never old; that's what makes it a folk song."
On that night that begins and ends the movie, Dylan started breaking folk music. Here's the review from the Times.
But if not for every taste, his music-making has the mark of originality and inspiration, all the more noteworthy for his youth. Mr. Dylan is vague about his antecedents and birthplace, but it matters less where he has been than where he is going, and that would seem to be straight up.
I love poor Llewyn a lot, but he is not original. If Llewyn had gotten that chance that Dylan got, there wouldn't have been the review, and there wouldn't have been the astonishing career. Llewyn was on the old path of folk music; Dylan blasted a new. Llewyn missed the performance, but he wasn't remotely capable of giving that performance, and that's his tragedy.
