Inside Llewyn Davis: The Next Great NYC Movie

Setting a movie in NYC has become so common that it's almost boring. Not that NYC is boring but, as a cinematic milieu, it has become so cliche that I roll my eyes whenever I see another movie set here. Even Woody Allen, the quintessential New York filmmaker, has started making his movies in other places, and it seems to have made his movies better. If you're gonna make a movie set in NYC these days, there needs to be a damn good reason.

Well, leave it to the Coen Brothers to find one.

Although based in NYC, these great filmmakers are originally from Minnesota, and they set their movies in a variety of locales (like Raising Arizona, Fargo, the noiry Los Angeles of The Big Lebowski, just to name a very few). But their most recent film -- Inside Llewyn Davis, criminally overlooked at the recent Academy Awards -- is a total New York movie, and a great one at that. Here's what it takes to make a great NYC these days (according to the high rigorous standards of Mr NYC):

1. Time and Place. Inside Llewyn Davis takes place during the winter of 1961, mostly in Greenwich Village, the Upper West Side, and a little bit in Queens (there's also a subplot with a road trip to Chicago but that's almost a different movie). The Coens do an amazing job of showing how the streets, buildings, and storefronts of these neighborhoods, and, best of all, the subway in really looked in 1961. Back then, these neighborhoods were working class, bordering on poor, and were drab and run-down. The subway was even dirtier than it is now. You see the seeds of the decay that would later be exacerbated by the 1970s financial crises, before the city was "reborn" in the 1990s. This is not a nostalgic, romantic, paper-dollish look at working class NYC in 1961. Watching this movie, you feel like you've been transported back to a specific time and place in NYC, and it makes you see the city again for the first time.

2. Community: Inside Llewyn Davis is set in the folk music scene that sprouted in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s, then culminated in the 1960s with the explosion of Bob Dylan (this film is set roughly a week before Dylan first performed at the Greenwich Village club the Gaslight). Like the 1920s American ex-patriot writers in Paris, or Andy Warhol's Factory later in the 1960s, the downtown folk music scene of the late '50s, early '60s has now become legendary, almost mythical, with singer-songwriters like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, John Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary all getting their starts there. This film shows how hard making a career in folk music was and how, for many, fame and fortune eluded them. This film not only takes you back to NYC at a special time and place but also into a world who legacy continues to this day.

3. Characters: Llewyn Davis is based on the life of Dave Van Ronk, who was a popular Greenwich Village folk singer during this time. Van Ronk was an early influence and friend to Bob Dylan and, although he never achieved that level of fame, he left an amazing legacy and created some great music that is played throughout the movie (including the song "Hang me oh hang me" posted below). Van Ronk's real life was a little different from Llewyn Davis (he wasn't a couch surfer, he was married, and he didn't knock up his friends' wives, for example) but, when he died in 2002, he seemed fated for obscurity. However, the 2005 book about him, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, and now this film, have given Van Ronk, a great New York character, his due.

4. "No fakery": as I indicated before, Inside Llewyn Davis is not a nostalgic look at 1961 NYC or the folk music scene. It is, like many Coen Brothers flicks, totally unsentimental, almost brutal in its outlook. This is not a film that shouts "It was so much better then!" Instead, it aims to show you what the city and this community were like, warts and all. You get a feeling that you are watching real people living their day-to-day lives, and they are confronting problems that are recognizable to people today. While the movie is set in the past, it's the present for them. Most importantly, even though it's a period piece, there aren't lots of references to the fact that it's 1961 (except for one very funny scene where Llewyn Davis and two other singers croon a pop balled called "Please Mr Kennedy Don't Shoot Me Into Outer Space"). Instead, the film takes for granted that you know what we going on back then -- this a story about people, not a history lesson.

So that's my criteria for making a great NYC movie these day: a story rooted in a specific time,  place, and community in the city without either being self-conscience or displaying any cheap nostalgia. Inside Llewyn Davis does this beautifully, it's a great movie, and deserves to ranked with the great NYC movies of all time.

Classic Mr NYC

Recently I re-watched the Coen Brothers' great 2013 movie Inside Llewyn Davis. Oh, how I love this flick!

My original post was an examination of why this is a great NYC movie. (It still is, by the way.) But what I didn't fully appreciate at the time was and is how radical, how subversive, how daring this movie is; how it completely shatters all conventions and norms of storytelling -- it does all the things you're not supposed to do in a movie, it thumbs its nose at "the rules" of a conventional plot and character development, but it does it so seamlessly, so straightforwardly, that you don't notice.

In short, Inside Llewyn Davis is about a folk singer whose career is going nowhere fast. In fact, this is a story about failure. That's it. It's not a tragedy -- Llewyn doesn't die, doesn't go to jail, doesn't lose everything (because he has almost nothing to begin with), doesn't gain the world only to lose his soul, etc. etc., cliche, cliche. No. It's just about a guy who tries and fails, who attempts to succeed and doesn't. He's an honest failure but a failure nonetheless. He doesn't go anywhere, his future is empty. The end.

Why? Because he's a bad guy? Not really. He's not a great guy (he bangs other guy's wives and has a temper problem) but, when he does wrong, he tries to make it right. So he's flawed but not irredeemable. Is he untalented? Not at all, in fact, he's a beautiful singer -- but he's not GREAT. His fate is sealed not because he does anything wrong but because, as he's told by a music producer at one point, there's just not "a lot of money here."

This is one of the only movies, only stories, I've seen that's about how and why people fail. About how random and how unpredictable failure and success is -- and how failure happens just because you fall a little short. We see this in elections all the time -- a few votes short here and there, and dreams of a political career, of public service, are dashed (often permanently so). Score just a little bit below the "mean" or whatever it is on a standardized test, and forget about getting into college or grad school, with all the career implications that implies. This movie shows how careers and lives are forever altered -- often shattered -- just because the powers that be, the umpires of life, the "means", the beancounters, the scorekeepers, the gatekeepers to the future, find you wanting and ... slam the gate. 

This doesn't happen because you're a bad person or a good person. It happens just because something, like money or a few votes or a few points or something, "isn't here."

I've been there. You've been there. We've all been there. And where are our movies? Inside Llewyn Davis is one of the precious few.

And does Llewyn learn anything from his failure? Does he grow as a person? Does he, as the storytelling Gods tell us he's supposed to, "arc." No! Why would he? It's not his character flaws that lead to his failure. His failure happens ... just because ...

You should read this article from a few years ago that brillantly sums up this movie and its message -- or lack thereof -- about failure. 

At the very end of the movie, Llewyn plays his final set at a nightclub and then walks off and the next act is a guy named Bob Dylan. Llewyn goes into an alley and gets beaten up. And this is the point -- one will go onto make music history and win the Nobel Prize while the other ... well, we don't know what happens to him in the long run. We check out on Llewyn at this point. After all, he's a failure, he has no future, he's destined to be forgotten, so we take our leave. 

This is what failure, ultimately, is -- nothing. A void. A blank page. An empty space. A non-memory. Nada zilch zero. 

And that's why this is probably the best movie about failure ever made.

Best Movie of the Decade: "Inside Llewyn Davis"

As the second decade of the 21st century ticks to a close, lots of 10 Best of the Decade lists are being crafted (Top 10 Best movies, TV shows, albums, tech innovations, etc). And if you're following movies this holiday season, then there's one actor, one mug, you can't escape: Adam Driver, who first appeared on the great NYC-centered show Girls in 2012 and is now starring in one movie after the other (just this fall, he has The Report, Marriage Story, and the next Star Wars movie). 

But back in 2013, he still just "that guy from Girls", and one of his first movies was a small part in the brilliant Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis about a failed folk singer in 1961 Greenwich Village. (The titular character is played by Oscar Isaac who went on to reteam with Driver in the Star Wars flicks.)

I've blogged extensively about this movie, about how subversive and beautiful and dark it is, about how it's a great NYC movie but also how it also stands everything about American movie making on its head. According to many critics, it's one of the best movies of the entire decade -- and it's certainly mine.

There's one scene in the movie that makes it transcend from merely good to truly great (this critic even says its the best scene in any movie in the entire decade): when Llewyn auditions for the music producer Bud Grossman. Everything about the scene is perfect: Llweyn and Grossman sitting across from each other on the vast floor of a nightclub, resembling not a producer and an artist but an interrogator and a hostage or a jailer and a prisoner, chairs stacked on tables in the background, morning sunlight inappropriately sneaking in. There's a sense of foreboding and doom in the entire mise en scene, the darkness that is the folk singer's life drowning out any light of a better future. Hoping to get Grossman to represent and promote his career, Llewyn sings his heart out, giving a moving and deep performance, leaving his entire soul on the shiny and impersonal club floor. When he's done, a quiet moment ensues, Grossman looking at him tentatively, before delivering the devastating verdict, the career death sentence: "I don't see a lot of money here." Grossman gives Llewyn some unhelpful advice about staying out of the sun and joining a trio before Llewyn leaves, his hopes blown out casually and easily like the tiny flames of birthday candles. 

This scene shows the wafer thin line that exists between success and failure, between hope and devastation, between dreams and reality. It demonstrates the capriciousness of life, the chaos we all live in and try to escape. And it does it brutally and unsentimentally but also beautiful. Truly classic.

Bob Dylan in NYC

Newly-minted Nobel laureate Bob Dylan -- the first American to win the literature prize in more than two decades and the first member of a super-group to be so honored -- was born and raised in Minnesota. But it was here in NYC, Greenwich Village 1961 specifically, where Dylan's genius first revealed itself to the world.

Working the downtown clubs, singing in venues all over town, Dylan's brilliant songs and lyrics caught fire with a new generation that had just elected its first president born in the 20th century, a spiritually hungry generation that had survived the worst war in history and the conservative era of the 1950s. 

For the next fifty-plus years, Dylan would become more than just a popular singer/songwriter -- his music and lyrics would become part of the American conscious for late-20th/early-21st century, a communal reference point for the existential dilemma of a nation of plenty and a nation of tumult. Dylan didn't give us easy answers -- or any answers at all. Instead he asked us questions, hard questions, and dared us to be brave enough to answer them for ourselves.

"How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone"

Questioning, searching, longing, yearning, giving in, giving up, hoping, hating, loving, wondering -- it's all there in Dylan's lyrics, the jumble of emotions and thoughts, the emotive and repressed feelings that we all have at the same time, in various shades, in various ways. And it's precisely because it's so hard to express them that Dylan -- through his poetic voice -- expressed them for us in language both economical and powerful, haunting and familiar. He took the complicated frustrations of this complicated nation and made them clear:

 Come senators, congressmen please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside and it's ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a' changin'!

If you're interested in the early days of Dylan, you must read this recent New York Times article but you should also read Dave Van Ronk's great book The Mayor of MacDougal Street about the early 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene that Dylan emerged from. (Van Ronk was a friend of Dylan's and an early influence -- and Van Ronk is immortalized in the great Coen Brothers movie Inside Llewyn Davis that takes place in January 1961 right as Dylan emerges.) 

And if anyone out there doubts that Mr. Dylan should have won this prize, just remember that he's the guy who wrote: 

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Artists, Gangsters, Strippers, Subways & Seawalls: NYC Past and Future

As 2017 recedes into history, we are thrust into a period of time I like to call Weird Week -- those strange days between Christmas and New Year's that are a kind of temporal No Man's Land (sorry, in the #MeToo era we should call it a No Person's Land). Now that the crush of the holidays are over, there's a general sense of looseness among people, a sense of fun aimlessness, lots of folks taking time off work or traveling, indulging in all the things they didn't have the time or energy for during the year. It's a short window to "chillax" until the demands of the New Year arrive.

It's also, of course, a time to ponder the year gone by and the one ahead. Here in NYC, a city that's always changing and making history, that's an especially fun thing to do.

So here's a post that's totally Weird, Loose and Aimless, a fin de l'annee medley of links to stories about the people and places that shaped our city (for better or worse, depending on your opinion) and a couple about our city's future.

First, read this absolutely fascinating story about the life of Lorenzo de Ponte. If this guy's story was a movie, you wouldn't believe it. He was like an Italian Forrest Gump but with a higher IQ and far less morals.  He knew Casanova, Mozart, and Clement Clark Moore, and he worked and scammed his way into European and NYC history.

Then jump ahead to the 1960s. Here's a brilliant sequence of photos featuring the singers and artists of Greenwich Village, including a young Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary. If you've ever seen the great movie Inside Llewyn Davis, this is a wonderful companion piece showing you the spirit of Kennedy-era NYC, a time of excitement and creativity -- before Vietnam, crime, Watergate, and stagflation washed it away.

And, talking about time, we move into the 1970s. If you know about the mafia in NYC, then you know all about the Italian, Irish, and Jewish gangs that roamed and ruled the city for most of the 20th century. There was also, at the same time, a powerful black mafia located in Harlem that for decades ran numbers games, etc. while also taking care of the most vulnerable people in the city. But the war on drugs made it come crashing all down. If you've ever seen the movie American Gangster, then you know the story of how Harlem drug kingpins Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes rose to unprecedented power in the NYC crime world before being brought low. And this article tells the true story behind the one you see in the movie.

The Eighties: if the 1960s were exciting and the 1970s were scary, then the 1980s were sleazy -- really sleazy. Back then Times Square and Midtown Manhattan were populated by strip clubs and porno theaters. You couldn't walk around these areas without seeing them, they were ubiquitous. There was no adult entertainment space more famous or popular in 1980s NYC than Show World, the great sex palace where adult actors came to perform and New Yorkers and tourists went to ... enjoy themselves. Show World had stage shows, peep shows, and sold all sorts of movies and ... equipment. Show World's days as a pleasure palace are long over and, thanks the Internet and blue laws, has been reduced to a small store that, in addition to naughty items, mostly sells tourist chotchkies. These links here, here, and here (NSFW) tell the story of its glory days -- and end of days.

And now we turn to the future. 

On January 1st, 2017, the long-awaited multi-billion dollar Second Avenue Subway opened -- three brand new stations along the Upper East Side. As this article indicates, it's been downhill for the subways and MTA since then. This past "Summer of Hell" consisting of train delays and detours lead to furious squabbling between Governor Cuomo, Mayor De Blasio and MTA Chairman Joe Lhota about who really runs and finances the MTA. Cuomo and Lhota lied, saying that the mayor runs the MTA which led De Blasio to accurately retort that it's simply not true (the state leases the MTA from the city, finances its, the governor appoints the chairman, the chairman runs the organization, and no one really disagrees with that except the people who run and botched the subways this summer). If Cuomo runs for president in 2020, his mishandling of the MTA might come back to haunt him or, pun intended, "derail" his ambitions -- and might therefore affect the future of this nation.

Finally, the fun stuff! NYC is being affected by climate change and a swelling population. This article explores the most amazing ideas by city planners of what NYC might look like in the future. Imagine: the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn/Queens being drained and replaced by a park; sidewalks in the sky; elevated bike paths; whole parks on rooftops of buildings; massive seawalls protecting the harbor. These visions for NYC are, at best, fantastical but, if even one of them comes to fruition, the face and life of the city will be very different ... and the past will seem more distant than ever. 

Interview: Greg Young of The Bowery Boys Podcast

Easily the best podcast about New York City history is The Bowery Boys, created and still hosted today by Greg Young and Tom Meyers. On each episode, these two uber-NYC enthusiasts deep-dive into so many aspects of this city's history: the people, neighborhoods, events, and eccentricities that have formed this most amazing of places. They go way back in history and make it relevant to life in the city today. The enthusiasm and joy that Greg and Tom bring to each episode is infectious, and the show has gone beyond the podcast into books and tours. 

It's brilliant and extremely fun, and I get excited every time I see a new episode pop up in my IPhone. 

The Bowery Boys, still going strong after more than a decade, is extremely popular with listeners from all over the world. Greg Young was kind enough to answer some questions for Mr NYC about the podcast, the city, its history, and his favorite NYC-related things.  

Tell us what inspired you and your co-host Tom Meyers to create The Bowery Boys podcast. What makes you keep doing it after 11 years? And why call is the "Bowery" boys? 

We started the podcast in 2007 as a way to keep us inspired about the city and to learn more about our neighborhood at the time (which was the Lower East Side). We have not been exhausted by the information we continue to find about the city, so we keep doing the show! The Bowery Boys were a 19th century gang that roamed the streets of Five Points, the notorious slum that once sat near Chinatown today. Although we like to also consider ourselves in the tradition of the ‘Bowery b’hoys’ and ‘Bowery g’hals’ of the 1830s and 40s, Irish-phrased slang for the new young Irish immigrant populations that were moving into lower Manhattan at the time.

While the podcast is about the history of NYC, it seems focused on how the history of the physical city intersects with its cultural and social history -- as well as its "mystique." Is this is a good way to describe the podcast or am I missing something? What else would you say the podcast is about? 

All of that – and more! I’d say the meaning of our show has evolved as well, especially now that we’ve done it for 11 years. Things we talked about at the beginning have changed or are now entirely gone. It’s interesting listening to our early shows just to compare how the city has developed – in some ways good, others bad. For instance, it’s almost amusing to hear our early shows on the High Line and the Meat-Packing District, recorded years before Hudson Yards project was dreamt up. 

How do you guys go about finding subjects to discuss and what is your research process like? How do you avoid being repetitive? 

Topics develop out of research or are inspired by current events or pop culture moments. For instance, our next show is on the history of the New York comedy scene, inspired by our affection for the The Marvelous Mrs Maisel on Amazon. And it’s okay to be a little repetitive, we have discovered. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to approach subjects again from a different point of view. We just recently did a show on Emma Lazarus, incorporating the history of the Statue of Liberty into that, but from the angle of immigration (a hot button issue these days). 

The podcast goes pretty far back into the history of NYC. Are you guys most interested in NYC before the 1950s and '60s or do you ever like to get into recent history? 

We do whatever interests us. When we do recent history, we like to interview people who remembered the history. Sometimes, due to time constraints, its just easier for us to talk about older topics but technically no decade is off limits. Our comedy show in two weeks will have a whole section about the 1990s. 

Do you have to fight the urge to make the podcast Manhattan-centric and is it harder to do episodes about the outer boroughs? 

It drives me crazy because I’d love to do more about the outer boroughs. But we have such a diverse audience at this point – with as many listeners outside New York City as in – and Manhattan tales are still the most popular. PLUS you can’t overlook how important New York (which was just Manhattan until 1898) is in American history. That said, there will be a LOT more Brooklyn and Queens in the coming year. 

Tell us about some of your favorite episodes and what made them so special? 

So many ways to answer this! We love our ghost story shows of course – we get to be melodramatic and over-produced – and we love our big infrastructure shows the most (like the subway, Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, the grid plan). Personally speaking, I love the music shows. I come from a career in the music industry and was so thrilled to do shows on Billie Holiday and The Cotton Club that were brimming with music. 

What are some of your favorite pieces of NYC historical trivia -- and what things about the city's history do you think are important for anyone who lives here to know? 

I’m currently obsessed with the origins of place names. Find an interestingly names street and go down a rabbit hole of how it got its name. For instance, there are a row of streets in Greenpoint that are alphabetical north to south (Ash Street, Box Street, Clay Street etc.) and its all to do with the 19th century industry that once lined the waterfront there. 

Have you ever read The Power Broker and what are your thoughts on the legacy of Robert Moses? 

One of my favorite books of course! I’ll say this – our city could probably use a 1930s Robert Moses right about now, to erase and reverse some of the damage that 1950s and 60s Robert Moses did to this city. 

What are favorite NYC neighborhoods and why?

I have about a million, but I always suggest people visit Roosevelt Island. You’d be surprised how many native New Yorkers have never been. It’s got a ton of history and some excellent views. Plus – SMALLPOX HOSPITAL RUINS. 

What are some of your favorite NYC movies, TV shows, and novels? Which movies, in your opinion, show off the city the best or makes people really understand why life is (or was) like here? 

The aforementioned Mrs Maisel, Mad Men, The Knick – are all excellent portrayals of New York. The Alienist was often good, even though it was filmed in Europe. In terms of recent movies – believe it or not, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them actually does an amazing job at re-imagining 1920s New York. Loved the Saiorse Ronan movie Brooklyn, the Oscar Isaac movies A Most Violent Year and Inside Llewyn Davis. I just recently re-watched Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and thought it really held up. 

As the city becomes more and more gentrified, do you think NYC is in danger of losing parts of its history or has historical preservation done enough to, well, preserve it? Tell us your thoughts about how you think NYC should keep its history while also moving into the future? 

New York City always needs to keep changing; it can’t afford to be a museum artifact like Paris or Rome. We’ve got excellent preservation laws in place and well-regarded community groups fighting to save those artifacts that are most endangered. But I do worry about classic mom-and-pop places disappearing with skyrocketing rents. There are some excellent ideas in play to help save them, but the best way to save those types of businesses is to actually frequent them, spend money at them. We can’t lament the loss of a classic diner or a deli if we’ve never bothered to step foot in it. 

What are your hopes for The Bowery Boys podcast moving forward? What does the future hold? 

More live shows, a new spin-off show for 2019, and another book! 

Finally, what do you love most about NYC? 

My answer changes every week. Last week’s answer – the beauty of snow falling in a brownstone neighborhood with a canopy of trees. The week before – my local bakery’s bagels. Next week’s answer – visiting the American Museum of Natural History on Wednesday to watch workers inflate the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats. 

Thanks Greg!

You can find podcast episodes and more info about where to download them here.