If....

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!

If …. (1968), directed by Lindsey Anderson, has as its primary theme that abuse by those in power can initiate a violent reaction against such extreme authority and, ironically, produce the type of chaos the ruling class wants to suppress. The title comes from the Rudyard Kipling poem and its upper-class superior tone of reining in freedom is what the film takes aim at.

The story is set at an English boarding school, and Anderson said he likes stories that are a microcosm of society. A note at the beginning urges the need for knowledge, but the result of what these students learn is the opposite of what the educational establishment desired. The somber words of the school song are sung, and they brim with loyalty and duty. As the credits roll, the music is replaced with disruptive sounds of boys in contrast to the lyrics, showing that there is a desire to fight rigidity and just enjoy their youth. The film breaks the story into chapters with different headings and some begin with religious readings and singing which then contrasts with the actions of those in charge and those that revolt against them.

The seniors, or “Whips,” rule as prefects over others. This oppressive hierarchy is entrenched in British custom. At the beginning of the school year, those returning to the school call the first-year students “scum,” and remind them they have no right to address the older students. One Whip tells a new student to carry the senior’s belongs to his room, and in a very derogatory command tells the youth to warm up his toilet seat. Basically, they treat the first-year students as slaves.

When the rulers are not present, the young boys are loud and fight with each other, showing that attempting to overly contain natural impulses only leads to an equal and opposite reaction. New student Jute (Sean Bury) is taken to the “sweat room,” where he finds his circumscribed cubicle that must contain his belongings. The students must not keep food that does not subscribe to ridiculous rules. The new students must not move slowly. Rowntree (Robert Swann), the Head Whip, tells them to “run in the corridors,” to meet the time restraints of their tasks. Also, haircuts must meet certain requirements. The film was made in the ‘60’s when long hair was considered an act of defiance.

When Mick (Malcolm McDowell in his film debut) arrives, he has a scarf over his mouth and nose. He looks like a bandit, and it fits his outlaw-like personality. He is actually hiding a mustache, a forbidden form of appearance. Stephans (Guy Ross) says, referring to Mick, “God, it’s Guy Fawkes back again.” The reference to the British revolutionary is a foreshadowing here. Mick says he grew the mustache to “hide his sins.” Actually, it seems to reflect his inner lawbreaking self, and when he shaves it now, it may imply that the bare face is a pretense to conformity. He shares what he did during the summer with his friend Johnny (David Wood), telling him he spent time with a girl frequenting pubs. It seems that he enjoys living a rowdy life and when a bell rings, he wants to know when they get “to live,” instead of enduring regimentation.

The students gather in a hall and are told that they should “work,” and “play,” but “don’t mix the two.” I guess these students aren’t supposed to whistle while they work. They are urged to see themselves as a family, which as it turns out is quite dysfunctional. Those in charge believe “discipline” will contribute to helping the entire school which, in turn, will help each individual. Sounds good in a speech, but in practice, the result is not what is hoped for.

Rowntree is a sadist who relishes his power over the others. He threatens them if they repeat the prior year’s slackness, and reminds them that they are restricted from going into the nearby town. Bells sound before each activity, used almost like a Pavlovian type of behavior modification. What follows is a humiliating inspection for venereal disease. The boys must drop their trousers and the matron (Mona Washbourne) inspects their genitals with a flashlight.

The dormitory inspection ranks with what the U. S. Marines must endure. The Whips go to each room and the students must be in their beds. Jute can’t even keep his diary there, but must leave it in the sweat room, such is the absurd strictness of the institution. There is “lights out” ridiculously early and “no talking.” After the Whips leave, Mick sarcastically applauds and tells Stephans what a good job he has done, mimicking the Whip’s compliment. Mick’s pals echo Mick, and one says, “One night we’re gonna massacre you, Stephans. I’ll do it for free.” At the time it sounds like an exaggerated schoolboy threat, but it turns out to be more foreshadowing.

There is more religious singing which is offset by the students complaining about the denial of access to girls at another school. The more the institution denies these youths adequate freedom, the more irreverent they become. The history teacher (Graham Crowden) introduces a bit of unorthodox behavior as he rides his bike into the classroom while singing a traditional song, undermining the lyrics. He also opens the windows as if to let fresh ideas enter the minds of the students as he questions them about their ideas. Perhaps his actions suggest that history offers a basis to question the present. However, the film also depicts the corruption of power by showing the geometry teacher, who is also the chaplain (Geoffrey Chater), as someone who preaches proper behavior while hitting students and otherwise manhandling them. There is a stark contrast as he teaches geometric rules while breaking those of human decency. The Headmaster (Peter Jeffrey), while teaching a class, acknowledges that some of Britain’s rules are “silly,” but necessary, nonetheless. However, he does not provide an adequate defense of the statement. He goes on to say that “Britain today is a powerhouse of ideas, experiment, imagination.” He says that the schools must “meet” the “challenge” of dealing with all the changes that are occurring.

But the Headmaster has an idealistic approach to his job, calling it “exciting.” The school is entrenched in regimented behaviors that are anything but adrenalin inducing. What follows his speech is an indoctrination of Jute to learn, in addition to his regular studies, all the jargon and slang that Rowntree requires. That perversion of education includes misogyny, as the Head Whip wants town girls to be called “tarts.” Brunning (Michael Newport), a fellow student, tells Jute that, “it’s not just a matter of knowing the answers. It’s how you say it.” If he fails then they all “get beaten.” Such is the extreme nature of how power can corrupt a child’s school life.

Mick has pictures of soldiers plastered all over his room, and is cutting out photos of ferocious animals, including lions. IMDb points out that there are also pictures of Che Guevara and Geronimo who represent icons of revolution. Later Mick’s tendency toward violence becomes manifest as the means not only to create revolt against oppression but as an end in itself. Despite the desire of the school to clamp down on unacceptable behavior, or maybe because of it due to modeling or as a need to release their frustration with containment, students act sadistically toward other classmates. For example, a group of boys grab Biles (Brian Pettifer) and dunk his head in a toilet.

Denson (Hugh Thomas) chastises his fellow Whips for their “homosexual” remarks about the scums. Given the power arrangement it is more like sexual abuse. Rowntree calls in the nice-looking blonde underclassman Philips (Rupert Webster) to tempt Denson, trying to show that he isn’t as upright as he pretends. Rowntree is right because when he assigns Philips to be Denson’s servant, the latter does not object. The move is trying to show the falseness of the surface integrity of those in charge.

While with his pals, Mick says, “the world will end very soon.” He adds, “There is no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts … War is the last possible creative act.” He is an anarchist with an apocalyptic vision that seems to say that society is corrupt beyond redemption and must be purged. Wallace (Richard Warwick) complains about going bald, having bad breath, and concerned about becoming senile before he gets out of the institution. He says that his “body is rotting.” His comments add a sense of urgency to break free of the school’s dominance. Mick’s response to Johnny reading the newspaper headline that a person in Calcutta dies of starvation every eight minutes is that “eight minutes is a long time.” His remark heightens the desire to rush into action. When he is presented a picture of a beautiful naked young woman Mick says the only thing you can do with her is make love in the sea and then die. This is one dark fellow who seems to find joy in the moment followed by oblivion. Later, Mick and his pals do some fencing and Mick is ecstatic as he yells “War” and is almost orgasmic when he sees his own blood on his hand from a wound. (Mick seems to have some qualities of McDowell’s character in the later A Clockwork Orange).

Mick hears someone approaching and the young men hide their vodka (a reference to the Russian revolution?) and pornography, assuming the phony upright appearance of what is expected of them. Denson enters and although he suspects transgressions, he can’t prove anything. He still says they will take cold showers for their long hair. It’s as if he must exert some form of punishment as part of his position. Mick does provide one visible act of nonconformity, wearing a necklace of teeth that Denson notes still have blood on them. The image adds to the animal ferocity bubbling beneath the surface of Mick. Denson makes Mick spend a sustained amount of time in the cold shower the next morning, which, instead of cooling Mick down, only inflames his anger.

Mick and friends sit next to the soft-spoken Mrs. Kemp (Mary Macleod), the wife of the House Master of Mick’s dorm, Mr. Kemp (Arthur Lowe). As the boys ask if she wants anything, such as ketchup, with her meal, Mick adds his element of perverse violence by asking if she wants some “Dead man’s leg.” Mrs. Kemp touches her bare throat and the edge of her clothes in a sort of combination of worrying about modesty and experiencing sensuality.

Mick and Johnny escape to the town in defiance of the prohibition against going there and cavort playfully on the sidewalk as they enjoy their freedom. Mick then steals a motorcycle (a car would be too tame) and he and Johnny ride off into the countryside (a precursor to Easy Rider?). They arrive at a restaurant where they are served coffee by a pretty waitress. Mick, fittingly, stresses that he wants his coffee “black.” Then he contrarily dumps a ton of sugar into the cup just to be extreme. He grabs the girl and kisses her. She responds with a slap. This type of male abusiveness is abhorrent, but Mick has found a connection with this young lady. She touches his shoulder as he plays music on the juke box. She tells him it’s okay to look at her body but also says she’ll “kill” him. She says when she looks in the mirror her eyes get large like a tiger and she says, “I like tigers,” and growls at him. He sniffs at her and they act like snarling animals. This type of ferocity is a call to the wild for Mick. The scene abruptly shifts surrealistically to the two grappling on the ground clawing and baring their teeth, naked and making love. (There is a shift here from color to black and white. IMDb notes that economics and technicalities forced Anderson to sometimes shoot in monochrome. However, he then liked that the shifts added a sense of disorientation and movement back and forth between reality and fantasy. The style is consistent with the feeling that the status quo is being disrupted by Mick. Also, the title of the film is If… which suggest a possibility, not a reality. Usually when a work of art calls attention to itself as not realistic it implies that the art form is presenting a fiction that points to aspects of reality).

Philips watches as Wallace practices his routine on a parallel bar and it is a sweetly erotic scene slowed down slightly that allows the audience to marvel at the interaction between the athlete and the observer. The two become close and they share a prohibited smoke together. They are in the armory room that is filled with rifles, a surrounding full of danger if there ever was one. Philips says he wants to be a criminal lawyer, which shows he wants to argue cases against the establishment and points to his anti-authoritarian stance. He says that it will take him twenty years to reach his goal. Wallace says ominously that they’ll be dead by then. Philips accuses Wallace of having no ambition, and Wallace agrees. He is a follower of Mick, which means living only in the moment. We later find the two of them in bed together, which is consensual and out of caring as opposed to the exploitative way the Whips viewed Philip.

Mick is so obsessed with death that he practices his own demise, putting a bag over his head as Johnny times him to see how long he can last without running out of air. Mick wonders what’s the worse way to die, and he, Johnny, and Wallace suggest different ways. Johnny says cancer is bad because his mother endured six months of suffering before the end came. He seems upset by this fact, but Mick shows morbid fascination about how nasty death can be, which shows how pathologically dangerous he is. He even comments that “the night’s dead,” which indicates how he sees lifelessness in everything.

Led by Rowntree, the Whips control Mr. Kemp and get him to allow them to administer strict discipline to those in his dormitory who they see as trying to rock the boat, even if their brutal actions turn the ship into the Titanic. After singing their religious songs the students can indulge themselves in some dessert. But, the deceptively sedate Mrs. Kemp comes down hard on one lad as she yells that he was trying to pick up another bun. She does not want the boys to indulge their appetites.

The Whips call Mick, Johnny, and Wallace into their office. They say they will be punished for being a “nuisance,” and having an “attitude.” Denson criticizes Mick for his “slouching about,” with his hands in his pockets. These so-called offenses present no real harm. Rowntree says that Mick and his mates “have become a danger to the morale of the whole house.” Talk about the crackpot calling the kettle black. Rowntree wants to make an example of the three to ward off anyone who might follow in Mick’s off-road footsteps. Mick’s sharp retaliation is, “The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you give Coca Cola to your scum and your best teddy bear to Oxfam and expect the rest of us to lick your frigid fingers the rest of your frigid life.” He is attacking Rowntree, and the other privileged members of society, who give crumbs off their table to those deserving souls who need compassion and then expect to be praised for their minimal generosity.

The Whips take the boys to the gym and administer a “caning” punishment. The Whips live up to their name as Rowntree whacks the boys viciously on the buttocks with a slender cane that cause bleeding. Wallace and Johnny receive four lashes each, which we do not see, but only hear the slamming of the cane. After enduring this vicious infliction, the boys must humiliate themselves by shaking Rowntree’s hand and saying, “thank you.” Mick, however, as the ringleader, gets ten lashes, and we do witness this brutal punishment as Rowntree runs up to the bent over Mick so that he can maximize the impact of the beating. The other boys in the school can hear the punishment. One is looking at germs under a microscope, which seems to symbolize how cruelty is like a dangerous virus that spreads when allowed to exist.

While the other students celebrate the winning of a trophy and cheer College House, Mick, in contrast, is alone in his room as he loads a paint gun and shoots at pictures on the wall of British celebrities and even of the Houses of Parliament. His defacing of all things famously English shows his scorn and violence toward the establishment in power. He takes a blood oath with Johnny and Wallace by saying the words, “Death to the oppressor.” The spilling of blood seems to be what intrigues Mick as it appears to represent to him the ultimate example of nonconformist behavior. He says, “One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.” Mick presents them with “real bullets.” He is talking about assassination of tyrants. However, negative results, can result from a bullet such as in the killings of Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the Kennedys.

There are scenes which illustrate how people acting pious in public hypocritically indulge in socially inappropriate behavior in private. While Mr. Kemp sings in his bedroom about love and mentions Venus, the goddess of that emotion, and his wife plays the recorder, the school’s matron reacts by becoming sexually aroused. The shot of the bedroom shows husband and wife have separate beds, suggesting an abstinence of sexual activity whose suppression can manifest itself in objectionable ways. Later, Mrs. Kemp walks naked through the student residence as the boys are outside, and touches soap and towels. Again, that sexual suppression finds a way to the surface in an inappropriate manner.

The next section, called “Forth to War,” begins with the chaplain giving an onward Christian soldiers speech, framing devotion to peace-loving Jesus ironically as a call to arms. The students are dressed as soldiers and march as if going off to war. They proceed to engage in war games where they practice “the yell of hate.”  Not quite what Christ intended. This melding of religion and combat gives spiritual justification to violence and sends a message to the students that backfires (gun reference intended). Mick uses real ammunition to fire close to the students and the chaplain, who, despite the call for bravery earlier, now cowers on the ground when he actually faces danger.

The Headmaster tells Mick, Johnny, and Wallace about how the reverend could have been hurt. As he says these words, a bit of surrealism occurs. The Headmaster opens a large drawer in which the chaplain is stretched out as if resting in a coffin. He then rises and shakes the hands of the three students as a sign of accepting their apologies. Again, Anderson is jarring the audience out of the comfort of a standard narrative to show that their status quo is under siege. The Headmaster then says that although he knows that acts of youthful individualism are to be expected, there are limits to that expression. However, he then gets petty about the limitations, focusing on hair length. He spouts the platitude that “Those who are given the most also have the most to give.” However, this statement is not about generosity being disbursed to the needy. Instead, he assigns the boys manual labor as a way of “giving” back to the school and they must clean out the church basement.

Philips joins them, and one object they find during their chore is a stuffed alligator. It could be that the dangerous animal symbolizes what evil can lurk below the surface of a benign exterior. Ditto the deformed fetus they discover in a locked cabinet. The waitress suddenly appears in this scene, another bit of taking us out of the normal course of the narrative. Together they find a large supply of military weapons, including mortars, hand grenades, and various types of guns. The grinning Mick tells us without words what he plans to do with these destructive tools.

The next section is called “Crusaders,” which calls to mind the combatants of the Middle Ages whose wartime exploits were blessed with religious justification. That merging of religion and war is emphasized at a school assembly on Founders Day where parents and dignitaries assemble. General Denson (Anthony Nicolls) and a church bishop are in attendance. The general, most likely the father of the student of the same name, goes on about how some are belittling traditional rules and obedience, and that they must defend those qualities to preserve freedom. What his words imply contradictorily is that one must give up freedom to hold onto it. He then adds the need for warlike actions to preserve liberty. That justification for violence can be used by others who feel that their freedom is being deprived by those in power. That interpretation can encourage insurrection.

Cue the new “crusaders” who start a fire under the auditorium (reminiscent of Guy Fawke’s history) and the smoke causes those assembled to cough and flee from the gathering. As those in attendance emerge outside Mick and his followers open fire from the roof onto the people below. Those on the ground acquire weapons from the school armory and fire back. The Headmaster urges a ceasefire, but it is too late for peace. Mick’s girlfriend takes a pistol and shoots the Headmaster through the forehead.

The film ends with a closeup of Mick firing his machine gun directly at the camera as if telling the audience they better fix things or this story might turn into real life. His image is followed by a dark screen with the word “If …” painted in blood red. The movie has delivered its warning shot.

The next film is Angel Heart.

Inside Llewyn Davis

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), written and directed by the Coen Brothers, focuses on the New York Greenwich Village coffeehouse folk music environment of the early 1960’s. The title is borrowed from an album by a folk singer of that time, Inside Dave Van Ronk. But this film is not just an homage to that time period. The Coens like to take a topic or genre and put their own imaginative stamp on it. This movie is a sort of mock epic that deals with an antihero looking for a home that is in the past, and so he is alienated from the present and ill-equipped to venture into the future. As Adam Nayman says in his book, The Coen Brothers (with the subtitle - This Book Really Ties the Films Together - humorously alluding to the Dude’s carpet in the Coens’ The Big Lebowski), this work contains “complex observations about ambition, artistry, and aloneness,” and the main character’s “various failures as a friend, lover, and performer.” We can have admiration for Davis’s talent and respect for the purity of his music, and even his disdain for those in the world that have desecrated art solely for commercial gain. But we also judge him for his selfishness and animosity towards others.

The story begins at the Gaslight Cafe in 1961. Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac, in a breakout acting role, who is a good singer and guitar player, too) strums his guitar and sings the old folk song “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me.” It is about a man who is sentenced to death, but because Davis sings it, the words take on significance as they relate to his character. The words “Poor boy” repeat often and it talks about traveling “around this world.” It mirrors Davis’s self-pitying concerning his failures and his journey to find the right place for him. But he is never satisfied, so he keeps wandering. The song’s subject has resigned himself to death, an escape from a cruel world, but even that does not give him solace because he can’t abide the thought of being stagnant in the grave for so long. So, he can’t rest in peace, which seems to be Davis’s destiny. After the applause he says they must have heard the song before, and adds “If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” That line sums up Davis’s outlook, which is that the classic songs are timeless, but it also doesn’t leave room for invention.

We find out from a short conversation between Davis and the club owner, Pappi (Max Casella) that Davis had a partner, Mike, which we later discover committed suicide. Pappi tells him there is a “friend” outside asking for him. The man, mostly in the shadows, beats Davis up for heckling his wife during her performance. Davis is a smart-ass even as he is hit by the man, which shows his self-destructive tendencies. It also hints at his elitist attitude about folk music which leads to his scornful behavior toward others who do not meet Davis’s standards. The title of the film sounds like a journalistic expose, but it also suggests that Davis lives “inside” himself, with no real connection with others.

Before he leaves the apartment, Davis plays a track from an album entitled “If We Had Wings,” which he made with Mike which shows aspirations, a desire to reach elevated goals, that, in the duo’s case, weren’t achieved (a possible reference to the Greek myth about Icarus?). There is a shot of the cat that belongs to Mitch (Ethan Phillips) and Lillian Gorfein (Robin Bartlett). Davis has slept at their apartment. We find out much later that the cat’s name is Ulysses, so we have the connection to Homer’s epic (which the Coens also reference as their source for O Brother, Where Art Thou, another mock epic tale). The cat jumps onto Davis and stares at him, and in a way, they are symbolically the same in this story. Ulysses gets locked out of the apartment after he escapes when Davis leaves and the door locks behind them. Like the Greek hero, they are both travelers, trying to find their homes. In fact when Davis leaves a message for Mitch, he says “Llewyn has the cat,” but the woman on the other end of the phone call believes he said, “Llewyn is the cat.” Davis even looks furry, with shaggy hair, beard and mustache. The Coens have said that dogs want to please others, while cats mainly want to please themselves (a generalization with exceptions, since I had a loving cat as a companion), but their statement solidifies Davis as a loner.

Davis finds the cat and takes Ulysses with him to the apartment of Jim (Justin Timberlake) and Jean (Carey Mulligan). (“Jim and Jean” were the names of an actual folk music duo). They are not home, but Davis knows the super, Nunzio (Ricardo Cordero), who lets him enter their apartment through a fire escape window. So Davis enters with, and like, a cat, climbing into the place. He visits old Mel (Jerry Grayson), his manager, and Mel’s assistant, old Ginny (Sylvia Kauders). It figures that they are elderly, because Davis gravitates toward what is old as he lives in the musical past. He says he didn’t get an advance on his solo album, and needs some royalties, since he has no place to live and doesn't even have a winter coat. He wasn’t successful as a duo with Mike, and he isn’t selling any albums on his own. Mel offers his coat, which Davis rightly guesses is just a “bluff” offer, but when he tries to take the coat, Mel reluctantly offers him forty dollars, which shows how these people are on the fringes of earning a living.

Davis goes back to the apartment where an upset Jean questions him about the cat and is not thrilled with his wanting to stay there for the night. Troy Nelson (Stark Sands) is also there. He is wearing an Army outfit but is staying that night at Jean’s place because he is doing a gig at the Gaslight (he is modeled after folk singer Tom Paxton). His speech is very deliberate, as he pronounces each word distinctly. He is also very accommodating and nice (which is the opposite of Davis), saying that he knows of Davis’s music and has heard good things about him, which Davis rightly doubts. Jean hands Davis a slip of paper that informs him that she is pregnant. They are not the best at communicating orally.

As Troy performs at the club, Jim joins Davis and kisses Jean, showing that he has replaced Davis as her lover. Davis asks Jim what he thinks of Troy, and Jim says he is a wonderful artist. Davis is unconvinced and offers the question, “Does he have a higher purpose?” implying Troy needs to have those “wings,” noted in his album with Mike, to soar as an artist. Davis asks Jim to loan him some money for an abortion because he impregnated another woman (apparently the cat-like Davis may be getting women pregnant as he jumps from one place to another). Davis doesn’t want Jean to know, but Jim says that he can’t get the money without her knowing about it. Davis’s selfish nature uses women for his gratification and then can’t meet his responsibilities as a parent or lover, and has the audacity to ask for abortion money for another woman from the man whose partner he may also have impregnated. 

Davis’s narcissism assumes that Troy is asking him to perform at the end of his solo set, but it is the duo of Jim and Jean he invites to come up on stage. The three of them sing “Five Hundred Miles,” which talks about being far “away from home,” and the audience joins in with the chorus, surprising Davis. It’s as if they are all commenting on Davis’s state of living in temporal and physical exile. In fact Jean looks right at Davis who realizes that the song seems to say that he can’t return to what was between them. But, the crowd singing along also shows people connecting with the performers, something Davis has not been able to establish. 

The next morning Troy is up early, in his Army fatigues, eating cereal. Davis had been relegated to sleeping on the floor, representative of his station in life. Davis asks Troy sarcastically if he is next going to “plug” himself in, like a robot, and follow the commands of his superiors. But Troy is not interested in being a “killing machine,” which is what Davis stereotypes him to be. Troy says he doesn’t even like war toys, and only admires the discipline of the Army. He also has no interest in making a career out of the military. Troy surprises Davis by saying that when his hitch is over the record producer Bud Grossman is interested in representing him, who he describes as a “wonderful” man who is “supportive.” From Davis’s perspective, which is the one we are placed in, people do seem a bit lame in their comments and indiscriminate in their praise. Davis is also envious because he had Mel send his latest recording to Grossman and there hasn’t been any response.

Davis is a careless person who makes mistakes and then tries to clean up his messes without much success. Here he opens the apartment window and allows Ulysses to escape. He runs after him but the cat is gone, which metaphorically means that Davis is also lost in trying to find direction in his life. On a walk with Jean she cements this view of Davis when she angrily says, “everything turns to shit,” that he touches, “like King Midas’s idiot brother.” She is not sure who the father of her child would be, so she has decided to get an abortion because she does not want to have Davis’s baby, and only wants one with Jim. She makes Davis promise to arrange and pay for the procedure. She says he should do all women a favor and wrap himself in condoms and duct tape. He does make a point when he says, “it takes two to tango,” but she is not willing to take any responsibility here. He wants her to leave her window open in case the cat comes back, which she says makes little sense since Ulysses hasn’t lived at her place. Davis says he really feels badly about losing the cat, and she indicates the misalignment of his priorities when she says, “That's what you feel bad about?”

Davis has to keep moving on as he is not welcome anywhere. Now he goes to his sister, Joy (Jeanine Serralles). He selfishly asks about money from the sale of his parents’ home which is meant for them, not him. She suggests that he could rejoin the Merchant Marines, which to him is only “existing.” Joy is upset that he lumps his relatives’ lives in the “just existing” category, which means they are inferior to him. (As to being in the Merchant Marines, being “at sea” usually means someone is lost, and living on a ship is just another way of wandering in the absence of a fixed home in which to reside). He demonstrates his bitterness about his lack of success when he sarcastically says he can’t hang around because the Ed Sullivan Show wants him back for rehearsals and a “champagne reception.” Even though he relishes the classic songs of the past, Davis does not want the box of stuff Joy retrieved from their childhood home. He says that his early recording of a song should not be exposed because it would ruin his “mystique” as a folk artist. He seems to still have aspirations about his career, even though it seems to be dead in the water.

Davis lies to the kind Mitch, saying the cat is at Jim and Jean’s place and he’ll bring it back. Mitch says that Jim has a recording gig for him. Davis goes to the studio and Jim introduces him to Al Cody (Adam Driver in an early role). They are to be the John Glenn Singers, doing a novelty song, “Please, Mr. Kennedy,” about being sent into outer space. It is a silly, commercially oriented recording, well below Davis’s standards, and he is taken aback that Jim wrote this bit of fluff. But Davis needs the cash. The song humorously protests being forced to “blast - off” in a spaceship, but even here we have the theme of traveling or escaping. Davis singing the words gives voice to his plight of being condemned to constantly wander.

The homeless Davis receives his mail at Mel’s, but nobody is sending him any, as Ginny tells him, emphasizing his alienation. Mel and she were cleaning out stuff, and Ginny gives Davis a box filled with copies of his album with Mike. Davis carries it around with him, like an anchor weighing him down to his past failures. He now moves to another couch to sleep on, which is at Cody’s place (or as Jean asks later, “Who won the lottery tonight?”). He finds a similar box at the apartment, only it contains Cody’s album. It appears that less than successful artists have numerous copies of unsold works. 

Jean brings him the small amount of stuff he left at her place. It’s as if everyone he has been associated with is getting rid of his belongings as they attempt to evict him from their lives. She asks him if he even thinks about the future, which is so difficult for him to deal with personally that he asks if she means “flying cars? Hotels on the moon?” He is elitist when he says it’s “careerist,” and it’s “square,” (uncool), and “a little sad” to try to use music as a “blueprint” to plan the future. She tells him “you don’t want to go anywhere. And that’s why all the same shit is gonna keep happening to you, because you want it to.” Her description nails his inability to move forward in his life, and it points to how his snobbish rejection of other artists makes him a masochist as he wallows in his self-imposed misery, which is more than “a little sad.” 

He runs off during their discussion because he sees a cat that looks like Ulysses, and he grabs the animal. He goes to Cody’s place with “Ulysses,” and Cody tells him that there are musicians who are going to Chicago and will give him a ride if he shares paying for gas. Davis doesn’t have any plans to leave New York, but then again, producer Bud Grossman is in Chicago. 

Davis finds out from the doctor (Steve Routman) that he doesn’t owe him any money for Jean’s abortion because another woman he had sex with, Diane, did not terminate her pregnancy. She never told him, and the doctor couldn’t reach Davis to give him a refund since Davis has no permanent address or phone. Davis did not consider that his actions may have consequences beyond his scope, and he has a child out there, and his only knowledge of the offspring is that he is about two years old.

Davis brings the cat to the Gorfeins’ place, and Mitch invites him to dinner. Marty Green (Alex Karpovsky) and Janet Fung (Helen Hong) are also there. There is some upper-class intellectual condescending turning of the tables here as Marty calls Davis “Mitch and Lillian’s folk song friend.” Joe Flom (Bradley Mott) is also among the guests. He is a classical keyboardist, who also teaches piano, which adds to the snobbish feel of the room. Feeling a sense of belittlement, Davis jokingly asks if they have heard of the piano teacher who taught him when he was young, but the overly serious Flom doesn’t get the joke. Lillian asks him to play a song, and Davis’s first response is an ungracious complaint that he’s not a “trained poodle.” But she says that she asked because “singing was a joyous expression of the soul.” But there doesn't seem to be much joy in anything that Davis does. He takes Mitch’s guitar and begins to perform “Five Hundred Miles,” which is a song he sang with Mike. The feelings of hurt surrounding the loss of his partner is evident as Davis becomes angry when Lillian starts to harmonize with him. He lashes out saying he sings for a living, not as part of some “parlor” entertainment. (Nayman points out the “tension between the Platonic idealism” of Lillian’s words about music and Davis’s “bottom-line rejoinder that its main function” is to pay the bills). Davis yells that he wouldn’t ask Mitch to present a history lecture if Davis invited him to dinner (which of course Davis never does, not having money or a place to serve the meal). The upset Lillian runs out, but returns, saying the cat he brought to them isn’t Ulysses. It’s not even a male. She screams at Davis, “Where’s it’s scrotum?” Since the cat has been identified with Davis, the film is metaphorically accusing Davis of acting like a psychologically emasculated man, despite being able to get women pregnant physically.

Davis takes the symbolically castrated feline version of Ulysses with him, and hits the road again when he rides with the two men that Cody mentioned to Chicago. One is the almost wordless young Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund), Cody’s friend, and the other is the overly talkative musician Roland Turner (John Goodman), looking like he is one of the Walking Dead, needing two canes to navigate. Turner can out-sarcasm Davis. He is pompous and condescending to the extreme (a look at where Davis is headed?). Davis tells Turner that the name Llewyn is Welsh, and Turner says that he once had Welsh Rarebit that made him severely ill, and wondered if everything from Wales has the same effect. Turner asks about the cat, and Davis says it isn’t his, he just didn’t know what to do with it. Turner savagely comments “did you bring your dick with you, too.” It is a funny line, but also echoes the inference of Davis’s impotence as a worthy man. 

Davis plays his guitar and sings in the car. Turner is asleep in the back and Johnny looks like he just wants Davis to shut up. So these two are the only captive audience he has at the moment, which isn’t saying much. While Davis drives, Turner talks about how the jazz he plays is so much more sophisticated than folk music. When he finds out that Davis’s partner, Mike, killed himself by jumping off of the George Washington Bridge, Turner is nasty about the kind of music they played as he says he can’t blame him for killing himself if he had to sing “Jimmy Crack Corn” every night. Davis can’t take the abuse any longer and asks if one of the canes will go all the way up Turner’s “ass,’ or will some of it stick out. Turner just spouts harmless threats about how badly he could hurt Davis if he wanted to. Davis asks for a cigarette from Johnny, who says he’s out, but then lights one up along the way. What a joy ride. 

When Johnny finally does talk a little, he recites enigmatic poetry and comments about a play he was in getting closed by the police. We feel some sympathy for him because he’s another damaged, failed artist. In a bathroom at a rest stop, Davis reads some graffiti that asks the pertinent question, not only for him, but for all of us, “What are you doing?” Davis doesn’t look like he has a clue, but then again, the movie may be asking, who does? In another stall, Turner overdoses on heroin, but Johnny says he’ll be okay, which doesn’t sound reassuring. The two men load Turner in the car and drive off. 

They snooze in the car, but a cop stops and says they can’t sleep on the side of the road. Johnny is belligerent and resists the policeman when he asks him to step out of the car. The cop handcuffs Johnny and drives him away. Davis does what he has done in the past. He leaves. Turner is passed out in the back of the car and most likely needs medical attention. Davis looks at the cat who stares back at him, as if wondering if Davis will take her along. He selfishly closes the door on the animal, and in a way slams it shut on himself in terms of a chance at redemption. 

Davis continues his odyssey alone, which fits his antisocial personality, to Chicago and the Gate of Horn theater to find Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham). The character is based on Albert Grossman, who helped folk singers become popular. For the purposes of the movie the name Grossman fits in well since it suggests how much money he can “gross” from the music of others. Nayman points out that the name of his club, which is what the real venue was actually called, appropriately fits in with the movie, since it refers to Homer’s The Odyssey. In that epic poem, there were two gates to pass through, one of ivory and one of polished horn. It was a test, and those that were able to pass through the Gate of Horn successfully had something “true” to give to others. 

Grossman says he never received a copy of Davis’s album, which is entitled Inside Llewyn Davis, which suggests revealing the man’s inner soul in songs. We have come to learn, however, that it mirrors the protagonist’s preoccupation with himself and his pursuit of a “higher purpose” that he noted earlier. Grossman asks him to play a song from “inside” him. Typically, Davis plays an old standard, “The Death of Queen Jane.” It is a sad and moving tale of a royal death during childbirth, and is personal, as Nayman points out, since it may suggest that Davis is thinking about the living child and the aborted ones he will never see. But it may also suggest Davis will die before he sees his “children,” that is, his rendition of songs, thrive. Grossman’s cold, capitalistic response is, “I don’t see a lot of money here.” Davis mentions Troy Nelson, and Grossman says he’s good because he connects with people, a quality we know Davis does not possess. Grossman suggests that if Davis stays out of the sun and looks more pale and trims his beard to a goatee, he may fit in with a trio that features two men and a woman, because Davis is not a front man (this could be a reference to the folk legends Peter, Paul, and Mary). Grossman asks if Davis is good with harmonizing. He admits that he once had a partner, and Grossman says he should get back together with him. Of course that is a past that can’t be brought back to the present, which sums up Davis’s life, along with the fact that harmonizing means bonding with another, which Davis has failed to do. 

Davis is on his own once more, hitchhiking in the howling cold of an unforgiving winter. He gets a ride with a young man (Jason Shelton) who he shares the driving with. Davis sees a sign for Akron, Ohio, which is where his son now lives with his mother, Diane. Davis looks like he may stop, but, again, does not make the effort to reach out to another, even if it’s his one child. As it snows, the thumping of the wipers sounds like loud heart beats, menacingly ticking out Davis’s life. It’s dark and the road seems as if it is heading nowhere, also reflecting Davis’s world. A cat that looks like Ulysses crosses the road in front of the car, and Davis slams on the brakes. He sees some blood on the front bumper, and catches a glimpse of a cat behind him limping off the road. He does not try to help the animal. Is it symbolic of his own selfishness which can lead to self-destructiveness? 

Davis decides to give up on his music career and escape back into the Merchant Marines. He visits his father, Hugh (Stan Carp) in a nursing home, and the man seems almost unaware of his son’s presence. As before, there is no appearance of a connection being made. Davis tells him he is shipping out because he wants “to try something new. I mean something old.” These words illustrate his inability to move forward. He sings “The Shoals of Herring,” a lovely song about simple fishermen, which his dad used to like. But, the scene is similar to the one where Davis auditioned for Grossman. It looks as if he has touched his father emotionally by the look on the old man’s face. Instead, we learn he was defecating in his pants. Nayman says the responses of Grossman and the father are “figurative blows to Llewyn’s ego.” 

Davis, like many of the Coens’ characters, suffers existential angst, questioning the point of existence. As Kent Jones says in his essay, “The Sound of Music,” Davis is trying to figure out where he fits in. Jones says that because Mike killed himself, Davis is asking since, “I was once one of two, am I now a half or a whole?” When he returns to his sister’s place, he voices his frustration that what life has to offer in the end is the humiliation that his father now experiences, helplessly soiling himself. 

Davis needs his sailing licenses to ship out, but he again was being irresponsible as he did not want the box that Joy offered him that contained his stuff, including his record albums and the license, which she threw away. Jean allows him to dump his other belongings at her apartment so he doesn’t have to lug them around. She says that he can play a gig at the Gaslight Cafe and make a little cash. He says he is done with performing, but he shows some gratitude for a change, thanking her for trying to help him. He then says he loves her, which is a big gesture on his part, but she isn’t buying it, given who he is, and says, “Come on.” 

He doesn’t have the cash to apply for new licenses. So he decides to play the Gaslight for the money. He goes to the club the night before his gig. There is an Irish quartet singing, and when the owner, Pappi, asks if he likes them, Davis is dismissive as usual, saying he likes their “sweaters.” The crude Pappi isn’t really a lover of folk music as an art form, and wonders if it will pay the rent much longer. He says the audience comes to see Jim and Jean because they want to have sex with them. He then admits that he had sex with Jean, and almost brags that he coerces young female performers to have sex with him if they want to perform at the club. The next act is an older woman named Elizabeth Hobby (Nancy Blake) who actually represents the authenticity that Davis admires. But Davis is drunk and angry at Pappi’s confession, and he ironically mercilessly heckles the genuine Elizabeth. He is thrown out, saying how he hates folk music, which is like admitting he hates himself for striving for that purity he seeks that has become a daunting quest.

The feeling of repetition is evident in Davis’s life as he calls Mitch to stay at the Gorfeins’ place once more for a couple of nights. Mitch again welcomes Davis in, saying his wife is making something to eat, as he did before, and there are dinner guests, as usual. And, Davis is identified, as before, as the folksinger friend. There is talk about the goofy song, “Please, Mr. Kennedy” becoming a hit, but Davis’s artistic dismissal of the song and his need for cash because he is not commercially viable, caused him to take upfront money in lieu of royalties. Another self-imposed missed opportunity. Both Mitch and his wife, Lillian, are forgiving of Davis’s prior nasty outburst, understanding about the loss of Mike. The cat appears, and they tell him that he returned home. The feline Ulysses at least found his way home, as did Homer’s hero. The next morning duplicates the earlier one with Ulysses waking up Davis by sitting on his chest. This time when Davis leaves he makes sure that the cat does not escape. He is at least able to keep Ulysses, if not himself, from straying from the place where he belongs. (To drive home the theme of trying to return home, Davis walks by a movie theater that has the poster for The Incredible Journey, a movie about animals trying to get back home).

What Jean said earlier about “the same shit is gonna keep happening” to Davis comes true in an almost surrealistic manner. Davis is back at the Gaslight Cafe, singing “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me,” as he did at the beginning of the movie. He even says the same line about folk songs being old but timeless. He then performs the song “If I Had Wings” which was the title track of his album with Mike. It contains the line “fare thee well” in it, like other old folk songs during the film. But he must do it solo now, which adds a raw, sad quality to it, stressing his isolation and unrealized lofty dream of gaining success as a folksinger. 

As with the Gorfeins, Pappi is forgiving of Davis’s drunken heckling of the night before. He says Davis has a friend outside asking for him. Deja vu, right? But this time, before he goes into the alley, a new folksinger is on stage. We hear Bob Dylan using the “fare thee well” line but incorporating it into the new song, “Farewell.” Unlike Davis, Dylan was able to use the old form of the folk song and create something totally new, showing the ability to move beyond the past into the here and now and pave the way on the road to the future.

Behind the club is yet another man in the shadows who is the husband of the woman Davis verbally assaulted the prior night. The exchange is the same as Davis is again sarcastic and he suffers a beating as before. The man says he and his wife are getting out of New York. Nayman notes that when the husband drives off in a cab the man is able to do what Davis can’t, which is to actually go away and start over. The last line of the film which Davis utters is “Au revoir,” which means goodbye, but also “until we meet again.” For Davis, his vicious cycle will keep repeating itself. But the Coens are more like Dylan (who came from Minnesota and is Jewish, like the Coens), as they explore an old place and time, and genre, and transform those elements to fit into their own, new vision. 

The next film is Wild Strawberries.