A Serious Man - The Search for Meaning
To describe ‘A Serious Man’ as playful may seem a bit bizarre, the film is obsessed with punishing its main character in every single way and built around the core idea of Larry’s misfortune. However I think it is so witty and joyously enigmatic with its idea and meaning that I find it mesmerizingly playful, the tone and ideas presented are jumbled and at times nonsensical but that is entirely in line with the film's purpose to keep the audience on its toes. I love this film so much, it is such a genuine delight of a film and honestly appeals a lot to everything I enjoy in cinema, there are so many brilliant elements in this film that I honestly don’t understand why it is often the lesser spoken of film in the Coen’s filmography. It is a kind of distant film, it isn't something that is especially concerned with what the audience thinks about it, there is this beautiful sense of confidence that isn’t arrogant but playful. The questions ‘A Serious Man’ leaves in your mind are best left mulled over, this isn't the film that cares for answers or consistency it enjoys playing with you and your expectations keeping the experience lively, weird and vastly uncertain. A lot of people go round and round in circles obsessing over the meaning and I often find myself doing the same but I think the Coen’s intended the audience to not really be able to work out the film’s meaning because it doesn't really have one, well it does have one but it often throws curveballs which make the meaning consistently develop and change.
Larry Gopnick is at the end of his rope, his life and misfortune is the core of ‘A Serious Man’, most of the runtime is dedicated to ways Larry keeps inexplicably facing trouble after trouble as he slowly breaks down. It almost makes you feel a bit sadistic, you watch as life deals Larry with bad hand after bad hand you realise you are almost enjoying it, he’s a good enough person but something about the tone and atmosphere make you enjoy his misfortune. Of course, that might just be my personal sadism shining through but a lot of people comment that his misfortune becomes unbearable and I find it somewhat hilarious and in many ways fascinating. We open on an entirely separate story, the Coen’s have said that this was written separately and nothing to do with the plot however filmmakers intent and the filmmaker’s product are two different things and I think it adds another layer to the mischievous ideas of ‘A Serious Man’. The opening is a story of a couple who murder an old man who they believe to be a spirit, to me, it gives this film a mythical religious stake and teases the idea of a conventional explanation. Is Larry’s misfortune derived from his ancestor’s wrongdoings? Well obviously not, it never mentions these are Larry’s ancestors however the mere fact this scene is included gives me the idea that perhaps they are and gives me something to clutch onto as a meaning. But that is not what the Coen’s intended, the opening has no bearing on the rest of the film yet as an audience member we can’t help but incorporate it into our perspective. This is my favourite example of their mischievous filmmaking, it is such a deceptive way to open the film, teasing its audience but never intending it to be part of the film’s meaning it makes it feel so rewatchable and so much fun to analyse.
Part of the reason I love writing about film is because of the joyous act of watching a piece of art and being left to mull over exactly what it means to me, it is a two way relationship where my thoughts and experiences meet with the film’s thoughts and experiences and we work something out from there. That is why ‘A Serious Man’ is such a delight to watch, it expects you to listen to it and respond in whatever way you want, a lot of people can get frustrated by the film’s enigmatic approach but I think that is unfair as essentially it isn't the film’s purpose to spell out a meaning. It offers multiple meanings instead, it offers contradictory ideas, hints at ideas that form meaning but never anything solid to grasp onto because it is much more interested in keeping you on your toes. Larry’s story as he goes from Rabbi to Rabbi trying to find the meaning for his troubles is a very blatant metaphor for the film itself, they each offer a different idea and often nonsensical approach but that doesn’t mean any of them are wrong or right. We get ideas of appreciating what we have, confronting the unknown patterns of our life and the realistic idea that sometimes there isn't meaning offered to Larry, yet these separate meanings don't help him with his troubles, they are just a list of unanswered questions.
I think it is a film essentially about the act of finding meaning and the pointless exercise which is trying to attribute order to the chaotic way of life. We see Larry break down and search for his meaning and there is this small idea that perhaps he won’t find meaning due to a small act from his ancestors, or maybe that has nothing to do with it and there is no clear meaning. Maybe religion isn’t the answer, but maybe it is essential to his life, the Rabbi at the end is who Larry desperately wants to speak to for help but it is his son that talks to him, only to have a conversation about Jefferson’s Airplane. Perhaps we get far too fixated on patterns and coincidences, the film edits together Larry and Sy Ablemen’s (Ablemen = Able Man vs Serious man, get it?) car crash simultaneously but there is no evidence these events happened simultaneously, Larry and the audience attribute this as a mystical intervention but it very well could be a coincidence. Sy Ableman is this otherworldly being, I think Fred Melamed does an incredible job at being such a bizarre force in Larry’s life as he is soothing and caring but essentially destroying a family. I love how often the Coen’s play with dream fake outs, in ways that add to characters and meaning without feeling inconsequential, the university dream with Sy opens up the Quantum Physics angle which I am far too uneducated to get into.
You have to bear with ‘A Serious Man’, sit back and don’t worry if you don't understand it, enjoy the feeling of the unknown. Search for meaning like Larry, notice coincidence and details in the background and then add them to a pile of possible answers, appreciate the parking lot in all its beauty. Now, I want to make a very clear distinction with ‘A Serious Man’ that it doesn’t offer answers but it certainly isn’t vague, a lot of films tend to get swept up in their own cleverness and refuse answers because they prefer being enigmatic than having a cohesive argument whilst here the unanswered questions are the argument. This is a film based around finding meaning, the substance is in the very act of analysing it, it has so many ideas and reaches this new level of incorporating the audience’s thought process into the film’s ideas. We watch as Larry searches for meaning in any way or form, as he struggles with the decisions in his life which ultimately seem beyond his control, we watch as his faith is tested yet perhaps vitally important in his life. We witness this constant unending hell of the unknown of life only to be met with an ending that simply says it doesn't matter, sometimes something puts everything in perspective.’ What if Larry was nicer to his family and listened? What if Larry tried harder to help his brother? What if Larry stopped being so serious and revelled in the madness of life? None of these questions matter because sometimes the unpredictable happens and no matter how hard your life is, how hard you have tried to stay true to your faith, your opinions and your way of life sometimes collapse because there is a tornado that is inevitable. Maybe that is a very bleak way of looking at the film, I don’t know if the Coen’s intended the ending to be so nihilistic but it is a brilliant ending that throws everything into perspective and I think no matter how hard you try to work it out there is no simple ending.
Meaning is at the core of ‘A Serious Man’, hell it’s all I have talked about but I want to clarify there is a lot more to love than the film’s unique perspective on its own meaning. It is essentially a black comedy, the way the Coen’s write comedy proves why they are the best, the dialogue is sharp and hilarious especially every scene with Sy. The style is illusive, it has this beautiful score by Carter Burwell that is mysterious and otherworldly whilst managing to make every scene feel a bit off. Roger Deakins is of course one of, if not, the best cinematographer working today and this is no exception, he communicates chaos and uncertainty in such a brilliant manner that honestly, I can’t quite explain. Michael Stuhlbarg is an incredible actor, he plays the film’s straight (serious) man wonderfully and manages to balance out the goofy from the outstanding Richard Kind really well, especially in scenes where he is pushed to his limits. I just think this is a really brilliant experience of a film, it is quite niche and divisive in many ways because people go looking for different things in film but I adore the unknown, the questions and everything that comes with that. As the film says "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you”.
Thanks for reading!