A Movie for English Majors – Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) is directed by the impeccable Coen Brothers. You may know them from other films such as The Big Lebowski, Fargo, or No Country for Old Men.  Inside Llewyn Davis follows a week in the life of Llewyn Davis (played by Oscar Isaac), a failed folk musician in 1961, as he deals with past relationships, failure, a trip to Chicago, and the struggles of taking care of a cat.

While Llewyn may not be a sympathetic character, we can see ourselves in him as we try our hardest to succeed in a world that may not value the art form that we love. Llewyn fails and fails again in every aspect of life, but the one thing he hangs onto is his love for playing folk music.

The film follows a narrative similar to that of “The Odyssey”. Llewyn ventures out into unknown territory, meeting eccentric characters that would rather tell their stories than hear his. His journey is tiresome and lonely at times, but he is searching for wealth and fame in a bleak world.

The performances in this film are top notch, and we can see cameos of those who have been in Coen Brother movies in the past. Oscar Isaac is great as Llewyn, and the film does a great job of showing the world around him through his eyes.

The Coen Brothers try to use this story as a way of showing us that sometimes our failures can lead us on incredible journies in a world that could never support us. We are equally part of this world, and we allow this world to influence us. If we are only looking for fame, then we are blinding ourselves to patterns that do not matter. We will be doomed to live a cyclical life, and never learn the things that really matter.

I may have described this movie as dark, but it is incredibly inspiring!

Symbolism and Storytelling in Apocalypse Now

The majority of teenagers in the United States read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness at some point during high school, but surprisingly the book’s 1979 film adaptation, Apocalypse Now, is overlooked in English classes. The film follows Captain Willard as he is sent to assassinate a rogue colonel during the Vietnam War. Like the novel, Apocalypse Now is not something to be casually experienced—at least not the first time. The movie replaces Conrad’s dense narration with slow moving shots that helps create an atmosphere which progressively starts to feel more dreamlike as the movie goes on. I only say this because the setting and tone of Apocalypse Now says just as much about the narrative as any line of dialogue in the film, which is something most English majors are likely to enjoy.

Apocalypse Now uses the plot of a man traveling up a river on a boat as a symbol for someone traveling down the rabbit hole of their psyche, gradually revealing itself to be a story about obsession. Throughout his journey Willard attempts to empathize with a man who has started a cult and decided to act as a god, which only causes him to lose sense of himself. Director Francis Ford Coppola updated the setting from the Congo in the 1800s to the Vietnam War to allow for criticism of the American government and their handling of the war, but both works have a lot to say about racism and imperialist-like policies created by white men forced upon people of color. A viewing of Apocalypse Now not only will help someone draw parallels between America’s treatment of the Vietnamese and Britain’s manipulation of Africa, but also make Conrad’s novel much more accessible.

Apocalypse Now wastes no scenes. Everything in it is an example of how to show, not tell, which can help someone learn about storytelling. It’s rich with content to analyze, and every rewatch will reveal something you didn’t realize in your last viewing. Movies that give you a reason to revisit them are the ones that become classics, and Apocalypse Now will continue to be praised and studied for years to come.