Before this year's Oscar winners are announced - in which A Serious Man somehow finds itself competing for best original screenplay - I thought I'd get in first with my counter-reading of this supposed work of shattering genius.Forget this is by the Coen brothers (untouchable icons in the eyes of many film critics) and ask this:
What are the basic rules of drama? (1) Active protagonist/s with a problem. (2) Conflict that produces (either immediately or ultimately) change.
I'm not talking about the Hero's Journey, I'm talking about all drama, whether highbrow, low or middle, whether cinematic or theatrical.
Measured against this yardstick it's not surprising that some viewers find the film's protagonist boring (when I saw the film at least 20% of the audience left the cinema before the end). He appears to have been deliberately engineered by the Coens to make viewers tear out their hair.
Certainly he has a problem - many. The trouble is he does mostly nothing about them. As a result the narrative remains inert, episodic, flat. There's no spark, except for those too few scenes where he takes matters into his hands (demanding to see the rabbi who he's been told is too busy and marching right in to his office).
More typical of his behaviour is that when he sleeps with his neighbour he has little say in the matter - she pulls him in, makes all the moves and he goes along with it.
Nearly everything happens TO our Serious Man. He does nothing in return. You can call this many things, but you can't call it drama. Compared to Hamlet, who some folks like to cite (incorrectly) as a successful instance of a passive protagonist, Larry Gopnick is about as interesting as a bag of cement.
Mock poster by Tom Phillips, taken from Hollywood Elsewhere, where you can also find the above in the comments thread.
27 comments:
Hmm. That definition counts out a lot of modern drama. Notably Beckett.
Indeed - and the Theatre of the Absurd was a strong influence on Polanski, who in turn influenced the Coens. Another evident inspiration is the Book of Job!
A Serious Man was my favourite film of the year. I have seen it four times and each viewing gets better. You just need to immerse yourself into some research on Jewish religion, history and culture. However, given your distaste for everything Jewish, you may not want to. Jim Emerson on his Scanners blog had a good discussion going on about the film which really enlightened my viewing experience.
I can see why the last correspondent prefers to remain Anonymous.
Accusing me of anti-semitism (you don't even know my ethnic/ religious background and haven't thought to ask) is a despicably low act that exposes your intellectual bankrupcy.
Anon, there is not one word in my post that indicates "distaste for everything Jewish" or anyting like it. So Take your foul fantasies elsewhere and if you want to continue the conversation you'll have to attach a real name to your comments.
Added though, SAnon: A Serious Man has itself been accused of anti-semitism (despite the rather inconvenient fact the Coens are Jewish!). So here film commentators are faced with an intriguing dilemma: if we praise the film, we're supporting an anti-semtiic artefact (in the eyes of some). if we critique it, we're guilty of anti-semitism.
Alison: I'm interested in your comment and wonder if you'd like to expand? Some thoughts: what is your definition of drama? How much of modernist drama takes its cue from Beckett? Waiting for Godot perhaps better described as a theatrical meditation on existentialism and despair than a drama? Do you think Godot is flawless, or could the (in my view tediously superfluous) 2nd act be dropped to its benefit?
Your counter-reading is immediately undone by this classically Hollywood-y asinine argument:
"What are the basic rules of drama? (1) Active protagonist/s with a problem. (2) Conflict that produces (either immediately or ultimately) change."
That's all well and good if you're trying to cash in by writing a hack scriptwriting manual on how to make a financially successful drama, but if you're talking all drama - well, that's precisely the problem. You're not. In fact, you're discounting all of modernism, and nearly all of art cinema, which has accounted for most of the great drama produced in the last 100 years. And we've been over this. And we've given examples. Drama about passive protagonists differs from drama about active protagonists. But it's ludicrous to argue that one is superior and one is inferior. Drama isn't just a matter of 'what happens or doesn't happen' (that's just plotting), it's also 'why does it happen or not happen' and 'what does it mean'.
"Certainly he has a problem - many. The trouble is he does mostly nothing about them. As a result the narrative remains inert, episodic, flat. There's no spark, except for those too few scenes where he takes matters into his hands (demanding to see the rabbi who he's been told is too busy and marching right in to his office)."
I know you'll accuse me of being pithy or what-not, but I do think my counter-argument will be most effective in one-word form: Hamlet.
Along these lines -
"Compared to Hamlet, who some folks like to cite (incorrectly) as a successful instance of a passive protagonist, Larry Gopnick is about as interesting as a bag of cement."
Hamlet is roughly just as passive/not passive as Gonick. And if you and 20% of your fellow viewers found him uninteresting, judging purely by walkouts (since really, we are not delving all that deeplhy with this argument) well, me and 100% of my fellow audience in a Melbourne cinema in the film's third week release certainly found him otherwise.
Further along these lines -
"Nearly everything happens TO our Serious Man. He does nothing in return. You can call this many things, but you can't call it drama."
Events he can't control happen to our protagonist and affect him in serious terms - [often inwardly] he struggles and fails repeatedly to come up with a suitable response or solution - the more he fumbles, the more he has to suffer - he has to do something, but what could he possibly do? It's a perfectly relatable situation to a vast portion of the world (particularly the non-economically-developed world), and it's a situation rich in detail and meaning, with universal and thought-provoking implications. It's f*cking drama.
Goran: Erm, is this the same Hamlet who decides to go see if his father's ghost is for real, puts on antic disposition, sets the 'Mousetrap' using the visiting players, sends Ophelia round the bend, drives himself to the point of considering suicide, pulls off a brilliant reversal of the Rosenkrantz-Guilderstern plot, takes up the fencing challenge, kills mother (by accident)...
Yep, he was so "Hollywood-y", that Shakespeare
It would seem that my usual presumption, that the modern-world is gripped by (and blithely not suffering from) an insidious strain of dramatic illiteracy, has some anecdotal support, at least if these comments are to be trusted.
What always astounds me about cinematic storytelling is the dearth of anything fresh and the lack of anything old - where old references an appeal to essence and origins.
There are any number of films - including a vast majority of Australian films - that might – uncritically - be held up as proof that a film doesn’t need to be meaningful to be made. I remember sitting on a panel once and hearing a funding-body person tell a young filmmaker that films didn't need to be meaningful to be worthwhile. We never had a debate about that statement, so I'm not exactly sure what the funding-body person had in mind. All I know is that DRAMA is a human language created for the sake of presenting EMOTIONAL ENERGY - and that the energy presented occurs IN TIME, enacted by characters who are fighting for something - and when all of these elements are working what one experiences has meaning.
A script that is grammatical, however, may still not be worth the time it takes to read it, let alone watch it if it is turned into a film, unless it is also possessed of MYSTERY and SUSENSE. But even then there must have a character one cares about, who has a need or anxiety that they are striving to deal with and where the outcome is uncertain but provokes our curiosity.
Passive characters cannot provoke our attention or interest short of the mystery that surrounds them, or the suspense that the actions of other characters or things generate. In the case of a passive character, when the mystery is resolved and the suspense relieved, there is no more reason to care about them – that is, unless they are fighting something – and if this is the case, then they must be ACTIVE.
The fact that people would debate this is a sorry comment on the degradation of language and the superficiality and mediocrity that masquerades – and has always masqueraded – under the banner of creativity.
Why drama matters is that it presents us with stories about the BIG things that affect the way we conduct and understand our lives. We are born and we die, and these two facts create a tension that is dramatic. A story is not by definition DRAMATIC. There are plenty of undramatic stories – but a DRAMATIC story is always a story about a human or human-like creature struggling for something that matters. For more on this, see – http://www.wheresthedrama.com
Billy Marshall Stoneking
Anon: "Why drama matters is that it presents us with stories about the BIG things that affect the way we conduct and understand our lives."
I can't think of any film in the past year that deals with any BIGGER things than A Serious Man.
I am certainly no Coem Bros apologist (I hated Burn After Reading!) but A Serious Man is a great film. Jim Emerson puts it nicely from his Scanners blog:
"Schrödinger's (Cheshire) cat sits, grinning, atop the Coen Brothers' oeuvre, simultaneously dead and alive, like... well, like a cat. Like a cat in a box. Maybe it's the box Barton Fink carries to the beach. What's in it? You know, but you don't know. And the Coens aren't going to open it for you because that would be too obvious and, really, where would that get you? No, in order to appreciate the Coens' way of seeing you must be willing and able to hold two -- at least two -- contradictory realities in your head at the same time. Like an inevitable coin flip that's both heads and tails until it's called. Like a man chasing his hat. Like a failing grade that is also an unsatisfactory grade. Like mere sir my sir. Like... the parking lot. Or maybe not so much like the parking lot. Accept mystery.
Any good movie creates its own world. The Coens go beyond that. "A Serious Man" embodies an entire worldview -- a way of perceiving and appreciating (if not necessarily understanding) a moral and existential universe in Coen-esque terms (and Kafka-esque, too). It's a suburban Minneapolis Jewish world in the late 1960s, but it is a fully realized universe with ancient traditions and new freedoms, where to do nothing is to take action and there's nothing more certain than the uncertain. Every shot is in its place -- every pause, every gesture, every inflection, every frame is what it needs to be. Great movies don't have to be perfect movies (someone once said), but like "No Country for Old Men" and "Miller's Crossing," "A Serious Man" is both."
Woody, (i) anyone can address big themes, they do it all the time, it's the HOW that matters. (ii) I've already read Jim Emerson's review (and a good deal of other commentary). What you haven't done is address my points about dramatic grammar. Neither have you addressed the point raised in Anon's comments above.
Just because the character is not an active protagonist does not mean the film is any less engrossing or riveting. I don't buy into the argument that the main character has to do something to move the narrative forward. The narrative moves along quite nicely by what happens to the characters around him including Sy, his son, his wife and his brother-in-law. In fact, him doing nothing or very little says a lot about him and the themes the Coens are wishing to engage with the audience. I found A Serious Man one of the most engrossing films I have ever seen I was never bored and the film has the best ending of any film this year. It is not HOW the story is being told by the filmmakers but how the story/themes are INTERPRETED by the audience.
Mr. Stoneking, I assume I'm one of these illiterate people you speak of.
But everything you so eloquently say about films needing to be meaningful (and how the Australian industry as a rule feels about this) and about Emotional Energy, and Time, and Mystery, and Suspense and striving - not only do I agree, but I'm positively inspired by it.
Also, I get the sense that the problem we have here is the definition of an 'Active' or 'Passive' protagonist. In general - from my experience with scriptwriters, script lecturers and the like (including Mr. Barber in his assessment of A Serious Man) - 'Active' means makes events/plot points happen. Merely responding to events that are happening outside their control is not enough - that makes the protagonist Passive. But based on your definition, responding to a major event, struggling/refusing to, grappling/coping with it - even 'inwardly' - would actually render the protagonist Active. If this is the definition we're working with, then I agree, few films/works of art would be worthwhile without an Active protagonist. Incidentally, along these lines, since A Serious Man revolves entirely around Gonick [and his son] trying to make sense of his environment, maintain a grip on his worldview (specifically "the BIG things that affect the way we conduct and understand our lives") and control every crisis - it is very much a drama about an Active protagonist.
And this makes it very much "a story about a human ... creature struggling for something that matters" (again, I am in complete agreement and admiration at the eloquence).
The only point I'm mildly uneasy about is "there must have a character one cares about, who has a need or anxiety that they are striving to deal with and where the outcome is uncertain but provokes our curiosity." All of that makes perfect sense, but I just want a clarification. When you say 'a character one cares about', do you mean that a protagonist has to be in a sense 'likable'? Because this is a scriptwriting mantra that sh*ts me to no end. A protagonist has to be compelling, I'll grant that (I'll insist on that - in fact, often the more agressively 'likable' they are, the less compelling in my experience), but I never understood why they have to be likable? For example, when somebody tells me that The Opposite of Sex doesn't work because the protagonist isn't likable (because she only ever behaves selfishly and 'immorally'), I want to punch them.
Goran: Good argument about Gopnick, even though I don't really agree.
One thing I didn't write about above is the way the film's conflicts are constructed around passive aggressive behaviour. Indeed the film is almost a study of passive aggressive pathology, a conidition that grips the story's many antagonists.
Gopnick's family, his department head, the Asian student, the Rabbis: all essentially take on the role of victims in order to become the very opposite and thereby score advantage. In their hands "passivity" is not passive at all, it's a weapon.
I found this aspect of the film insightful. At times when I've come across more blatant examples of this in life I've been taken aback and slightly shocked by its inisidiousness. It's always immediately recognisable.
Is Larry Gopnick also a passive aggressive? I'd suggest not, and that this is his problem and the film's central irony. He's the only genuine victim here, the only one who isn't play-acting to gain advantage. He hasn't learned the rules the others are playing by.
I certainly agree that Larry is struggling with his condition, and that internal struggle is a perfectly valid subject for drama. But I'd add that it needs to be externalised to really work, simply because film is an external medium, unlike literature. Eg. Fellini externalises the internal conflicts of Guido in 8 1/2 by literally playing out his memories , fantasies, dreams for the audience to see - an inventive (and innovative way of solving the problem of the passive protagonist).
Re. your reply to Mr Stoneking on protags needing to be someone we care about, I don't think he means this to mean "likable" at all, though I'll let him answer for hiself.
I certainly don't believe protagonists have to be likable. They just have to engage our interest - our empathy, but not necessarily our sympathy.
Correction: I meant to write that passive aggressive behaviour is NOT always immediately recognisable.
goran
to care does not mean one has to be fond of them - "to care" means you have a relationship with them, a shared intimacy - they are "like" me - I am "like" them - if only even in some secret, unspoken way - what i am talking about is empathy, identification, emotional involvement - all the things we find most terrifying because they place us in a position of vulnerability -
then there is THE WALL - and our dread of it (mostly unconscious) that stops most us (screenwriters, producers, etc) dead in our tracks - I have written an essay on this you might find useful. Check it out at http://www.wheresthedrama.com/plot.htm
Billy Marshall Stoneking
I'm amused by all these 'rules' of drama. You guys get hotter than Piet Mondrian did when someone suggested art might contain diagonals. For me the only rule is not to be boring, but that is so subjective as to be meaningless. One man's boring is another woman's pleasure. Which brings me to audiences. Theatre audiences generally have an abundance of education and money and expect drama to match. Wiggles audiences generally have an age under five and expect simple songs. Film audiences are hugely broad, and expect every cinema experience to be heaven in the dark. No wonder most films strive to be all things to all people. (to the extent of putting a 'final battle' in Alice in Wonderland). I enjoy filmmakers like Woody Allen and the Coen brothers who make sometimes eccentric movies, not broadly aimed, but to express a deeply personal view. I think A Serious Man reflects the inability of some of us to be 'Campbell heros' in our own lives, and I thought was well worth a watch.
Why is this sudden strict adherence to the "rules" of drama applied to the Coens masterful, A Serious Man, and not to other films like Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park? is it because one is about devout Jews (who, let's face it, have trouble getting any respect these days because of Israel/Palestinian situation) and the other is about pimply-faced, dopey skateboarders?
Woody: Paranoid Park - an appropriate title given you seem to find anti-semitism hiding under every rock.
OK, let me be clear: every single film about Jews or by Jews ever made is ABOVE ALL CRITICISM. Hope that makes you feel better.
Re Van Sant's film - sure, you can include that, though personally I'd rather not 'cos I dont want to be accused of prejudice against pimply faced goy adolescents ;-)
Lynden, I am not accusing you of being anti-Semite but I don't understand why this film is being singled out for not adhering to the Robert McKee formula for drama. Of course, you can be critical about films made by or about Jews but the reasoning here is so inane, arbitrary, trivial and illogical. Do you think A Serious Man is the only film ever made where the character is "doing anything" while events happen around him. I would submit even his inaction is "doing something" and his attempts to understand the events around him is "doing something." He may not be rescuing the damsel in distress or shooting bad guys he is DOING SOMETHING.
"Many many novels are beautifully written but have protagonists who are passive passengers and observers of the world around them. But drama is about drive. To dramatize a novel with a passive character, you have to find an emotional drive for that character. But a drive creates choices, and choices dictate acts, and acts make plot and plot tells story. So inserting a drive in a passive protagonist will very likely change the story. This is one reason some novels cannot be well adapted to film." - Shawn Lawrence Otto - Screenwriter of HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG. (Not a great film, I admit, but certainly not a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster either)
'The Robert McKee formula for drama'. How about the Shakespeare, Checkov, Scorsese, Cassavetes, Truffaut, Herzog school of drama?
Yes, all fine dramatists and filmmakers but you are limiting the cinema as an art form. Cinema can be about ideas and A Serious Man is about ideas and philosophy than about story. is that such a bad thing. All great art is more about ideas than actual plot.The Coens present a film about a particular worldview that is Jewish. I am sure the film would make more sense to Jewish people but does that mean others cannot immerse oneself in the culture and ideas of another. The film deals with the basis of the Book of Job which is a key feature in the Jewish Torah.
Brief intro about the Book of Job;
"It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of the Satan, his theological discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God.
The Book itself comprises a didactic poem set in a prose framing device and has been called "the most profound and literary work of the entire Old Testament". The Book itself, along with its numerous exegeses, are attempts to address the problem of evil, i.e. the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of God."
I found him (the serious man) very active. He's searching for reason throughout the entire film. Trying to reason with unreasonable people, trying to make them see sense, trying to get in to see the rabbis, trying to UNDERSTAND. It's a spiritual journey, a battle, and he's trying. I don't see him as being passive.
I'm going to take another slant on this film. I was a little perplexed watching it, as the protagonist seems passive and everything is happening around him to which he seems and feels powerless. It's almost edge-of-your-seat suspense. But what I took most from the film was the ethnographic or cultural elements, infused into the film. I can't think of any film that has demonstrated this almost banal element of Jewish culture in such a revealing manner. Though I don't actively identify with any religion, I was brought up in a non-religious Jewish household - not dissimilar to the scenario depicted in the film, down to the 'burbs - and I was stunned by the authenticity of the essence of what was being depicted (albeit in an extremely heightened manner).
You can argue what is drama or what is not drama, but I think it gets down to what you want from film, what your expectations are of any given film, and whether a film affects you. In the case of A Simple Man, I had mixed feelings on first viewing, but I feel a need to see it again to really appreciate it.
I also thought the old-world European introduction at the start of the film to be an intriguing device - it sets a mood and gets one thinking.
Jesus Christ Lynden, whats wrong with one film every now and then that isn't about an active protagonist, chasing something, overcoming, failing and always wanting something? The Coen's have their own little extistential riff on the world..indulge them, sometimes it really hits the mark
Post a Comment