• About
  • Jewish Community Directory
  • Subscription Information
  • Contact Us
American Jewish World
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
No Result
View All Result
Morning News
No Result
View All Result
Home Arts

Review: 'A Serious Man' unspools funny and foreboding bubbe meises

erin by erin
May 23, 2020
in Arts
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Amy Landecker stars as Mrs. Samsky, shown here with Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays protagonist Larry Gopnik, in writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen’s "A Serious Man." (Photo: Wilson Webb)Amy Landecker stars as Mrs. Samsky, shown here with Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays protagonist Larry Gopnik, in writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen’s “A Serious Man.” (Photo: Wilson Webb)

By MICHAEL FOX

READ ALSO

Not Great Britain’s finest hour

Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

A Serious Man, the most Jewish and the most personal film in the Coen brothers’ 25-year career, is pitched squarely between the musical magnetic poles of Ukrainian-born vocalist Sidor Belarsky and Haight-Ashbury’s Jefferson Airplane.

The film opens Oct. 2 at the Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis.

Belarsky’s regal, soothing tenor provides an unexpected anchor for secular Midwestern physics professor Larry Gopnik, as the world shakes and shudders beneath his feet. Son Danny, meanwhile, tunes into Grace Slick on his transistor radio, finding her words immeasurably more relevant and compelling than the unfathomable Torah portion he’s learning.

It’s 1967, and as his family splinters into shards of breathtaking selfishness, Larry is left to wander through his suburban house impotently asking, “What’s going on?” He’s a living, breathing manifestation of Bob Dylan’s iconic lyric about middle-class complacency, “Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?”

Dylan is Jewish and a native Minnesotan, of course, as are the Coens. But it would have been predictable, and a little too on-the-nose, to use Robert Zimmerman’s tunes on the soundtrack.

These are the kind of inside jokes (and skipped jokes) that make A Serious Man a rare pleasure for Jewish audiences, and something of a mystery for non-Jewish moviegoers. I’d go further, in fact, and deem the movie required viewing for all American Jews above the age of, well, 17 (at least without a parent, per the R rating).

That’s not to say that you won’t have a queasy moment or two of self-recognition on the way home, or the next day. A Serious Man is precisely and elegantly structured as simultaneously a delicious, deadpan comedy of manners and a savage exposé of internecine, passive-aggressive Jewish warfare.

The movie depicts the unraveling of Larry’s neatly ordered life into a paroxysm of uncertainty. What we’re really witnessing, though, is the first buffeting of outside forces against an insular and insulated Jewish community.

In desperate need of wisdom and advice, at a time when few people outside of New York or L.A. saw a shrink or a therapist, Larry calls his rabbi. He ends up approaching all three rabbis at his shul, but not one of them turns out to be a serious man.

The senior rabbi tells Larry a long, marvelously entertaining story that ultimately provides no comfort and offers no moral. This is what Jews do, the movie suggests — spin self-satisfied fables while the world races ahead.

Danny’s Bar Mitzva certifies him as a man, and grants him entrée to this community. But there’s not a single moment that suggests he will become a man of character, or a serious man. Nor, for that matter, are we shown a Jewish establishment that encourages much respect or admiration.

A Serious Man will be viewed in some quarters as a pointed rebuke of assimilated American Jews, thoughtless materialism and the cruel hierarchy of status. But I think Joel and Ethan Coen include themselves in the indictment, through Danny. They’re revisiting their childhood, albeit in a stylized, metaphorical way. But they recognize that Danny’s indifference to Jewish values will leave him, a few decades on, in a predicament not unlike his father’s: bobbing on the sea of life with no anchor and a malleable moral compass.

It would be a stretch to call A Serious Man a family picture, but I entertain the perverse notion that in time it will attain the status in Jewish households that A Christmas Story has among non-Jews. The Coens depict a kind of shared experience and—unlikely as this may sound—provide a rare opportunity for Jewish kin to bond around the DVD player.

But it will have to wait until the children are college age, and home for Hanuka. In other words, when they’re old enough to recognize both the fatalistic chuckles in A Serious Man, and the whiff of impending disaster that hovers over Larry Gopnik, as distinctly Jewish.

Related Posts

Not Great Britain’s finest hour
Books & Literature

Not Great Britain’s finest hour

December 23, 2022
Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’
Theater & Performing Arts

Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

December 11, 2022
Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes
Books & Literature

Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

November 13, 2022
Attention, young Jewish artists! We want your Hanuka-themed artworks
Visual Arts

Attention, young Jewish artists! We want your Hanuka-themed artworks

November 13, 2022
Strange journey of a prophet
Books & Literature

Strange journey of a prophet

October 18, 2022
‘Uncle Philip’s Coat’ is bigger than life
Theater & Performing Arts

‘Uncle Philip’s Coat’ is bigger than life

October 18, 2022
Next Post

The way we were Midwest Jews

Comments 0

  1. Jason says:
    13 years ago

    The Coen brothers are playing with the concept of reality to the point that we can hardly distinguish what is real and make believe. This makes the film akin to the bible, which proclaims to be fact, but mixes unfathomable fairy tale elements. The Midwest certainly is not Eden, but its not Sodom either. A truly great and deeply passionate film.
    Read my full review at http://cfilmc.com/a-serious-man/

    Reply
  2. Pingback: American Jewish World » Blog Archive » Jewish takes on ‘A Serious Man’

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECENT ARTICLES

From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

January 22, 2023
On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

January 22, 2023
​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

January 20, 2023
In local appearance Nick Winton told the story of his father, humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton

In local appearance Nick Winton told the story of his father, humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton

December 23, 2022
Not Great Britain’s finest hour

Not Great Britain’s finest hour

December 23, 2022

About

Since 1912 the AJW has served as an important news resource for the Jewish community. The Jewish World unites the main Jewish communities in St. Paul and Minneapolis, as well as those in Duluth, Rochester and smaller cities, and bridges the divides between the various Jewish religious streams.

Quick Links

  • About the AJW
  • Advertising Information
  • Submission Guidelines
  • Subscription Information
  • Jewish Community Directory

Contact Us

The American Jewish World
3249 Hennepin Ave., Suite 245
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Tel: 612.824.0030 / Fax: 612.823.0753
editor@ajwnews.com

  • Buy JNews
  • Landing Page
  • Documentation
  • Support Forum

© 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
  • News
  • Food
  • Health & Wellness
  • Lifestyle
  • Opinion

© 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.