New Coen Bros, A Serious Man

no, i just know pot + comedy = boredom

apologies if i said this before, but the scenes depicting the tense jewish/gentile relations were unsettling and genuine.

It's strange - I'm sure there were Gentiles in the town that were a bit taciturn with their Jewish neighbours for whatever reason (and tbh I'm sure that neighbour would have been considered fuckin' weird by anyone unfortunate enough to be next door) but we were not those neighbours. Few were; the suburb is known for its Jewish community.

oh i didn't mean that suburb in particular. but those scenes capture the feeling of being a particular type of outsider that i've felt, too (albeit in a different time and place).

I mean, I'm not going to deny a certain anti-Semitism of the lazy, centred on envy of either perceived wealth or intelligence. I for one, did not resent the Frozen Chosen. Also, in school, it was a huge, detention-punishable, all-tongues-wagging offense to call a classmate a schmuck, much less anything more inflammatory. Anyone who was going to do that pretty much got schooled within a month of starting 7th Grade.

thought this was even better second time around fwiw (and loved it to begin with)

Frozen Chosen--ha, name of MN klezmer compilation a decade ago, iIrc. Did this expression/joke precede Public Enemy?

The expression was current when I was in high school, so yes (we also said Chosen Frozen).

that lutheran wit!

Just who are you calling Lutheran?

that phrase was presumably created by jews to break the ice with their uneasy gentile neighbours i guess?

Collectively arrived at by comedy nerds in my high school.

it's a nice phrase!

Suzy, when were you in high school?

Btw, spending all Passover discussing this film with family.

Pete, I am old: class of '86.

Ah, you're a baby. Email me at petescholtes at gmail dot com, I'd love to ask you about da cities during that period for mah bookh.

Will do. Shall I put you in touch with M1ch3ll3 Str4uss, who is older than me and used to work at Northern Lights?

You're writing about about the Cities in the '80s, Pete? Sweet!

if u need the perspective of a 5 year old (in 86), lemme know

What a great movie.

Also, what a dark movie. Life is uncertain. Things happen. Move along, there's nothing to ponder here, except perhaps to the end of figuring that fact out. Sussman: "Is the answer in Caballah? In Torah? Or is there even a question?" No, there's no question. Just look at that parking lot.

First there is a parking lot, then there is no parking lot, then there is.

thinking about starting a dybbuk / not a dubbuk poll

As long as the third option is "Who cares?"

Having recently started journaling my dreams, I was impressed by the dream sequences. I love when Sy Ableman asserts that mathematics is the art of the possible, and Larry knows that's wrong, but can't remember what it actually is. (Otto von Bismark said that "Politics is the art of the possible.") It's an expression of how Larry knows that Sy is, or was, completely full of shit. And that obviously Sy was banging his wife. Sometimes we need dreams to tell us the obvious.

It took me a while to figure out the scene between the uncountably wise old Rabbi and the kid, but I think I have a handle on it. He's saying, "The things that are important to you now are as important as anything will ever be." Very old people can take the very long view of life, and children can take the shortcut, but neither can be bothered by the mushy middle that poor Larry is stuck in.

I like that take on the old rabbi

I have to comment on that rather unhinged Ella Taylor review.

A Serious Man is crowded with fat Jews, aggressive Jews, passive-aggressive Jews, traitor Jews, loser Jews, shyster-Jews, emo-Jews, Jews who slurp their chicken soup

Wow, that's a lot of Jewish stereotypes, most of which I've never heard of. Are you sure we're not taking about... people?

what you never saw the classic Nazi propaganda about emo-Jews

those are all total Jewish stereotypes. Which isn't to say the representation of Jews in that movie was a stretch, or to be surprised that the Coen brothers use exaggerated characters.

Doesn't a bit of the piss get taken out of stereotyping when that many bases are covered? I mean, I wonder if she even read that article back to herself.

I guess maybe she really meant to type "Jewish fatties, Jewish aggressors, Jewish passive-aggressors, Jew traitors, Jew losers, non-Gentile shysters, Chosen emos, chicken soup slurpers of the Jewish persuasion."

it's a bit... all cultures use stereotypes in their fictions. and a lot of them are pretty similar: apart from the chicken soup dude, maybe, all of those "types" could be found elsewhere, more or less. im not jewish so probably shdn't talk on it, but it does seem way the hell ott.

The fact that these people are Jewish is not the source of either the humor or the meaning of the movie. They're Jewish because these are people the Coens know and grew up with, in one way or another. I don't think they're meant to be exaggerated at all, at least not W.P. Mayhew-style.

(not to say that I don't love W.P. Mayhew.)

Take Arthur, for instance, the easiest target of ridicule in the movie, if one wanted to take that route. He takes a really, really long time in the bathroom, but that's not a stereotype. He has a cyst that's disgusting and needs draining, but that's not a stereotype, either. Arthur doesn't even kvetch. He's actually in constant pain. The one scene where he airs his grievances is more of a breakdown than anything that could be called specifically Jewish. And to boot, he might actually be a genius, though of course the movie doesn't tell us.

Well, from a culture that's given us the mensch, the schlemeil and the schmuck, often in very humorous contexts, it's hardly surprising that some of the characters here would be describable as such. Thought her insinuation of Coens being self-hating thoroughly missed the point. I found all those things she was on about - the exaggeration of habits and characteristics - to be more about the claustrophobia of growing up in a particular suburb and community where everything you do is under the microscope of your god and the neighbours, who may or may not have it in for you.

Btw: a detail I liked. Sy Ableman points out to Larry that the Jolly Roger has a pool. In the scene with Arthur by the pool, we see that the pool is empty.

if i wrote a piece of drama it would have various stereotypes from my background basically

granted it's not a frequently persecuted minority ethnic group but j/s

about the claustrophobia of growing up in a particular suburb and community where everything you do is under the microscope of your god and the neighbours, who may or may not have it in for you.

The neighbors, well... maybe there's something to be afraid of there. I freaked out myself when the people moved in upstairs who hung American flags in the front windows and drive a big-ass truck. Anyway, I relate very much to Larry's fears on that front. This is why I don't live in Texas anymore.

But I don't think Larry feels like he's under the microscope of God. He's too rational by nature to ever assume that he's being punished by God. But that's also his problem -- he also demands rationality from the world, and the world doesn't have gracious amounts of that to spare.

Which explains the opening scene, too.

Kind of.

Most every review I've read, positive or otherwise, has seen all three rabbis and all of their advices as being merely comic. What's comic is Larry's frustration, not the advice. All of the rabbis are saying something essential about our place in the world. The comedy (and tragedy) of it is that Larry is not the kind of person who will ever hear it.

A Serious Man is crowded with fat Jews, aggressive Jews, passive-aggressive Jews, traitor Jews, loser Jews, shyster-Jews, emo-Jews, Jews who slurp their chicken soup

Which one of these is Mrs Samsky?

hot stoner jews

MILF JEW

milf jew > bear jew

as a gentile i must agree

MILF JEW

hmmm is this a website yet