The world changes with every degree it turns.

Relationships, principles, and life itself are nothing but grains of sand carried by the wind. Sometimes, they soar away from us without warning -- without reason -- and leave us with nothing but the chill of the passing gust. Other times, we chase and grasp at them as they take flight. Being such fickle things, they still manage to slip through our fingers.

We all are cursed with hands that know nothing of letting go.

Yet, to live means to relinquish. As we grow, it is inevitable that our surroundings will fall victim to natural processes of decomposition and decay. Eventually, as we lose the people and the things that we once defined ourselves by, the world ceases to be our home, and we seek solace in the familiar. We retreat into stability and the days begin to blend together. Life loses its definition and melts into a vague contour.

The warmth of stability is something we all yearn for as we navigate lives for which there is no set course. I believe it is this yearning that has bound us together and given us culture. Culture is composed of trans-generational constants among the flux: traditions, beliefs, value systems. We pass these constants down via a variety of means, hoping that they will connect us with both our pasts and futures. Consider the recital of a prayer that has been echoed throughout centuries. Or, perhaps, the painting of a scene envisioned by a legion of artists across time. Consider a ceremony that bestows manhood and consider the architectural styles that proliferate a city.

Consider the gentle plucking of a guitar string as one delivers a story that has been told countless times yet is still uniquely theirs.

That’s folk music -- the music of culture. It’s the music of stories. Despite having been conceived by a generation long since perished, folksongs are kept alive and reinstiled with relevance by new voices and instruments. Folksinger Dave Van Ronk, in his memoir, summarised this process succinctly: “The cumulative effect is a sort of Darwinian evolution that first produces different versions of the same song and eventually leads to entirely new songs.” Van Ronk’s book, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, would go on to inspire a film that I maintain to be essential viewing for anyone that considers themselves a creative or is considered by others to be an asshole (often, there’s overlap). The film in question is a treatise on stagnation in a changing world. The film is Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 2013).

More than anything else, the film is a folksong.

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Inside Llewyn Davis follows its titular character (Oscar Isaac) in his odyssey to make it as a folksinger in 1960s Greenwich Village following the suicide of his best friend (Marcus Mumford). However, the Greenwich Village that Llewyn inhabits is not akin to the one that many will be familiar with from the tales of grandeur. In fact, when the film was released, folkies such as Suzanne Vega and Christine Lavin expressed discontentment with the Coen Brothers’ portrayal of the neighbourhood, calling it depressing and even “haunting” (Ryzik, “A Folkie”; Ryzik, “Suzanne Vega”). The popular conception of the Village can be surmised from Laura Archibald’s documentary, Greenwich Village: Music that Defined a Generation (2012), wherein folk legends like Pete Seeger and Judy Collins provide firsthand accounts of the bygone era. They tell of a vibrant, supportive community bolstered by a rebellious and loving generation of young adults. It was a land beyond the reaches of greed and capitalist machinations. However, this is an image painted by revered artisans-- the people you’ve heard of.

You haven’t heard of Llewyn Davis.

And you haven’t heard of his Greenwich Village either. In discussing this unique setting, the dimension of time is just as important as the dimension of place. As Elijah Wald aptly puts it in the film’s “making-of” documentary, Inside ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ (David Prior, 2014), the film “takes place in-between the glory days” (Prior 2:50). These are the days just before the aforementioned folk legends would propel the scene to universal renown and, as a result, this setting feels solitary -- lonely -- like everyone is simmering amongst one another in anticipation of a big break. In addition to the temporal dimension, this depiction of the Village is visually unique as well. It’s doused in a cool, desaturated, and drab colour palette that the Coens revealed was derived from the cover of Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (Bonner 3). It is as if the air outside carries with it a perpetual chill that ices one’s breath, and one will only find temporary reprieve in the Gaslight Cafe if they’re willing to endure its cramped discomforts. This visual design casts a depression over the film’s characters; the entire film embodies the spirit of Pablo Picasso’s The Old Guitarist. There is a clear discrepancy between the Greenwich Village remembered by folkies and the one crafted by the Coens, but it’s an intentional and irrefutably necessary one. The discrepancy serves the film because the unique dimensions of its setting coalesce to form a singular dimension of our protagonist, Llewyn Davis.

The Coens have discussed, at length, how Inside Llewyn Davis began as a stray, wandering thought. “What would happen if Dave Van Ronk got beat up in a back alley?” they asked. From there, this hypothetical rendition of Van Ronk evolved into the character of Llewyn Davis (Fresh Air 2:40). Still, Van Ronk serves as inspiration beyond simply being the star of the Coens’ darkly-amusing daydreams. Many elements of the film are pulled straight from his memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street. Llewyn’s road trip to Chicago, his stint in the merchant marines, and his regular patronage of the Gaslight Cafe are examples of this. Yet, the Coens have been adamant that, with Inside Llewyn Davis, they didn’t set out to create a biopic -- that Llewyn is an original character (Fresh Air 3:48).

And it’s true. Llewyn Davis is no Dave Van Ronk.

Davis is a real piece of work. He constantly falls back on the kind-heartedness of others but leaves them with nothing in return, save for some snide comments and a share in his burdens. He talks down to his sister (Jeanine Serralles), antagonises the Gorfeins (Ethan Phillips and Robin Bartlett), and has an affair with Jean (Carey Mulligan). He’s dysfunctional and broken. This is in stark contrast to Dave Van Ronk, whose memoir paints a clear picture of a man that was snarky and apathetic at times but, at his core, represented the best of what the Greenwich Village scene had to offer. He was a proponent of hootenannies in Washington Square Park, he took an active role in local politics, and he was dedicated to supporting the various acts he mingled with. His descriptions of the time mark a sharp distinction from what we see in the Coen Brothers’ film. He says, “...we were having the time of our lives. We were hanging out with our friends, playing music, and sitting around at all-night poker sessions in the room upstairs from the Gaslight. Win, lose, or draw, there was always something absolutely ridiculous happening, and we were laughing all the time” (Van Ronk 213). He does not deny that the time had its share of wasted talent or that it has been subject to grandiose myth-making but, nonetheless, his Greenwich Village inspires because he helped instil it with that power.

Similarly, Llewyn Davis builds a Village of his own, but it’s nothing more than a miserable purgatory.

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Inside Llewyn Davis bleakly subverts its setting, offering a parallel to the Greenwich Village we are familiar with. In this case, the Village is used as a reflection of our protagonist’s depressive state. The film also further manifests Llewyn’s emotions in its very structure, subverting the entire genre of the “music-drama” and specifically fighting against the conventions of music biopics despite the heavy inspiration it draws from real-world figures, events, and settings. While it’s no Walk Hard, it plays with our expectations just the same and, in doing so, it further characterises our protagonist.

Llewyn’s situation is an unfortunate but typical one. He’s an artist that has tipped over the cliffs of struggling and plummeted into the ravines of starvation. His best friend jumped off the George Washington Bridge (not the Brooklyn Bridge), he’s failed to make any headway as a solo act, and he’s homeless. Here, the film presents us with a character in the world as he knows it and demonstrates that he is longing for change. Everything is on the table for a standard hero’s journey. It’s as if the fundamentals of storytelling leave Davis pre-destined to launch into superstardom. At the very least, we expect him to go somewhere.

And, yet, this is a movie that never goes anywhere.

In an article by Lee Marshall and Isabel Kongsgaard for Celebrity Studies, they break down the conventions adhered to by the traditional music biopic, which they accuse of appealing more to an individual’s stardom than the individual themself. Examples of these conventions include “originality and authenticity” -- generally represented as an artist deriving songs out of personal experience and finding success by remaining true to themselves -- and “rallying against the industry” -- represented as having the capitalistic music industry place a significant pressure on an artist’s life (Marshall and Kongsgaard 351). Marshall and Kongsgaard insist that, when biopics adhere to these conventions and rely on them to craft a satisfying narrative, the films stray from the truth of individual complexity.

Francesco Sticchi, writing for the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, encapsulates the ways in which Inside Llewyn Davis combats these tropes. Notably, the film abandons a linear time-space narrative for a circular one, wherein every plot beat inches the audience closer to nowhere (Sticchi 138). There is no analysis of stardom -- no room for Llewyn to play out biopic conventions -- because he is destined to end exactly where he began: self-imposed destitution.

Perhaps no sequence in the film better demonstrates this unconventional narrative structure than the road trip to Chicago. Llewyn hitches a ride with a jazz musician (John Goodman) and a beat poet (Garrett Hedlund), hoping to get to Chicago and see what talent manager Bud Grossman thought of his record. Suddenly, the film shifts gears and becomes a pastiche of a road trip film. Here also, it flouts convention. Our eclectic cast grows irritated with each other, sharing no moments of bonding or kinship. The journey to their destination is lifeless -- devoid of any significant landmarks or the spectacle that typically characterises a road trip across the American landscape. When Llewyn finally arrives at his destination and is invited to play a song for Grossman, the film seems to be serving up the perfect triumphant moment -- a turning point. Llewyn softly espouses an intimate arrangement of The Death of Queen Jane, singing, “There was fiddling and dancing / On the day the babe was born / But for Queen Jane, beloved / She laid cold as a stone / Laid cold as a stone.” Grossman gazes at him just as coldly. He says he doesn’t see any money in it, sending Llewyn back to the Village just as he left it and thereby completing a circular narrative within the overarching one.

This isn’t a film about stardom, it’s about a character. Llewyn’s response to the industry is less “Fuck you, pay me” and more “For the love of God, cut me a break”. He remains authentic to himself, but it hinders him more than anything. He remains the same person in the same place for the entirety of the film, practically dismissing the concept of narrative altogether, not even allowing for a negative arc much less a positive one.

The Coen’s initial idea -- Dave Van Ronk getting beat up in a back alley -- is the beginning and the end of Llewyn’s story. Oh, and somewhere along the way, there’s a cat.

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An emphasis on originality and self-expression is identified by Marshall and Kongsgaard as a principle convention of the music biopic, but it’s a theme that carries over to Inside Llewyn Davis as well. The difference is that self-expression is traditionally represented as a pure ideal; an adherence to one’s authentic self ensures that they will never go wrong. The notion that an artist’s work is a mirror of that authentic self has been beaten deeper into the ground than a dead horse. However, this film diverges from convention once again by demonstrating that Llewyn’s unwavering dedication to his values is ultimately the cause of his mental and physical immobility.

Llewyn reacts to inauthenticity, on various occasions, with disgust and superiority -- a cock of the eyebrow and a crinkle of the nose. We see it explicitly in how he belittles Jim’s novelty song, which he only participates in to raise funds for an abortion. He keeps himself composed, never leaning into the goofiness that a song like Please, Mr. Kennedy demands. Meanwhile, he shoots sly looks at Al Cody (Adam Driver), for doing exactly that. Further, inauthenticity is implicitly explored in the film’s production design. Inside Llewyn Davis takes place before the fashion divide between classes really grew. The film’s costume designer, Mary Zophres, speaking in the “making of” documentary, makes note of how uptown dresses like downtown; there’s no drastic difference in the fashion of the folklorists and the upper-middle class besides the fact that the former is “stripping away the formality” (Prior 36:00). In its costume design, the film seems to suggest that these two polarities may not be so different after all, both living their lives in accordance with what best satisfies them. Yet, Llewyn is hostile toward the Gorfeins and their guests, whose very presence he feels belittles him in the same way he belittles others.

Llewyn is practically masochistic in the way he distances himself from the things that could course-correct his life. He interferes in Jim and Jean’s relationship, even though his couch-surfing regularly leaves him washed up at their doorstep. He outright rejects a shot at a different life when he drives past an exit to Akron -- an opportunity to raise his estranged child. Clearly, authenticity is of great importance to our protagonist. This necessarily raises the question: who is Llewyn Davis?

Certainly no one to aspire to.

Throughout the film, Llewyn grapples with the death of his music partner and best friend. He wallows in it and he sings about it and his eyes carry sorrow like he’s living it over and over. When he sings Van Ronk’s Hang Me, Oh Hang Me or Dink’s Song, he puts his broken self on display and into every note and into every crackle of his voice.

“Early one morning, drizzling rain  / And, in my heart, I felt an aching pain.”

Grief is Llewyn’s art, and he embodies it fully.

He believes it’s his tragedy that makes him authentic. He is a tragic figure, crafting a mythology akin to but predating those of Phil Ochs and Nick Drake. He allows it to consume him and he allows it because he lacks the strength to overcome it. Because it takes a hell of a lot of strength and no one person has it, which means he’d need to ask for help and that’s hard. It’s embarrassing. It’s humbling. To succeed in overcoming grief would mean escaping the world you were once happy in, even though it has long since been decayed by the relentless winds of a cool, drab winter. It means you have to reconstruct your world without the person who made it worth living in to begin with. So, Llewyn clutches that grief deep within him. He lets it flow through his words and his picking finger. He gives in to it because it’s all he knows. Because it’s all he is.

While Llewyn struggles, the world leaves him behind. People come and go and some make it big and some take life for what it’s worth. The film ends with Bob Dylan playing a rendition of Farewell as Llewyn exits the Gaslight after heckling a performer. We’re thrust into the beginning of the film, but some elements differ in subtle ways. The story beats are dissimilar. The shots and composition vary, too. We shift from diegetic sound in the beginning to Dylan’s vocals at the end. It’s not a perfect circle. It’s the same story at a different place in time.

It’s a folksong.

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Llewyn Davis is an unusual protagonist. He’s stubborn, ignorant, and -- frankly -- a dick. Yet, he’s all this in a very human way. We are fully immersed into the mood of an individual, rather than the biography of a superstar. Like the Coens said: “Who wants to make a movie about Elvis?” (Shoard).

Inside Llewyn Davis challenges the notion of authenticity in the art of life and insists that such an idea stagnates us. Often, “staying true” to ourselves means entrenching the parts of us that we should cut out as if they were malignant tumours, metastasising hatred and self-loathing. In these cases, evolution becomes necessary and overrules authenticity. The film uses folk music as a vehicle to drive this narrative. It’s something that constantly changes but manages to stay rooted in a tradition -- the important, defining things. Folksongs have enjoyed the kind of longevity that so many of us strive for: the perfect synthesis of evolution and authenticity.

This is a world that turns and stops for nobody, especially not for those that refuse to turn with it. There’s only so much we can hang onto as we keep spinning. It’s important that we choose the right things.

Acceptance over grief.

Love over hate.

Living over laying in the grave.

Bibliography

Bonner, Michael. “An Interview with the Coen Brothers: ‘We Sold Out Long Ago…’.” Uncut, 12 Feb. 2016, https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/an-interview-with-the-coen-brothers-we-sold-out-long-ago-72768/.

“The Coen Bros. On Writing, ‘Lebowski’ And Literally Herding Cats.” Fresh Air from NPR, 17 Dec. 2013, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/251638952.

Furness, Hannah. “The New Superstar at Cannes: a Ginger Tom Cat.” The Telegraph, 19 May 2013. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/cannes-film-festival/10067075/The-new-superstar-at-Cannes-a-ginger-tom-cat.html.

Greenwich Village: Music that Defined a Generation. Directed by Laura Archibald, 2013.

Inside ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’. Directed by David Prior, 2016.

Inside Llewyn Davis. Directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, StudioCanal, 2013. 

Marshall, Lee and Isabel Kongsgaard. “Representing Popular Music Stardom on Screen: the Popular Music Biopic.” Celebrity Studies, vol. 3, no. 3, 2012, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392397.2012.679455?needAccess=true.

Ryzik, Melena. “A Folkie Takes Issue With ‘Llewyn Davis’.” The New York Times, 6 Jan. 2014a, https://archive.nytimes.com/carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/a-folkie-takes-issue-with-llewyn-davis/.

---. “Suzanne Vega Has Her Own Issues With ‘Llewyn Davis’.” The New York Times, 10 Jan. 2014b, https://archive.nytimes.com/carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/suzanne-vega-has-her-own-issues-with-llewyn-davis/.

Shoard, Catherine. “The Coen Brothers on Losers, Likability, and Inside Llewyn Davis.” The Guardian, 16 Jan. 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/16/coen-brothers-inside-llewyn-davis-interview.

Sticchi, Francesco. “Inside the “Mind” of Llewyn Davis: Embodying a Melancholic Vision of the World.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, vol. 35, no. 2, 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320606267_Inside_the_Mind_of_Llewyn_Davis_Embodying_a_Melancholic_Vision_of_the_World.

Van Ronk, Dave. Mayor of McDougall Street. Da Capo Press, 2013.

Volume 29, Issue 3-5 / May 2025 Film Reviews   biopic   bob dylan   coen brothers   dave van ronk   folk music