guest post by MARLEY
A Serious Man
Fargo and No Country for Old Men are two of the best films ever made. The only resemblance the Coen brothers' latest Oscar-nominated film, A Serious Man, bears to those films is a studious attention to detail and the potential evocation of outrage from a distinct group (following Fargo, Minnesotans took umbrage at their farcical portrayal; here, it will be Minnesotan Jews circa 1967).
A Serious Man beats up on its protaganist, a Jewish professor with cretins for children, a disloyal shrew for a wife, cartoonishly unhelpful religious guidance, and various other unpleasant people who vex him, including a gruesome uncle with a cebacious cyst that must be drained on a regular basis. Apparently, the protagonist is cursed, a curse handed down from his Polish ancestors, but the curse appears to be the fact that he's Jewish. The moment it appears he can get out from under, the curse strikes again, and the film ends abruptly.
This is an unpleasant, frustratingly tedious film that may have served as some sort of the therapy for the Coen brothers (they grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, in the 60s). It has few other attributes and from any other artists, it would raise questions of anti-semitism.
3 comments:
like a bad dream you can't wake up from, the recurrent cebacious cyst theme is wearying. a handy word combo comes to mind. I'd rather chew on a roof/shingle affliction.
a catchier title would have been 'The Bayonnic Man'.
I can see Joel to Ethan: "We need more from the cyst. That image of a man with a hose to his neck as cyst-bits suck through . . . Hitchcockian!"
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