With the recent start of Mad Men’s fifth season, the critics have been piling praise high and deep for a show that as much as I watch leaves me cold. The reviewer for Terry Gros’ Fresh Air gassed on about the show’s finely textured characters. Puh-leeze. This seemed like a desperate attempt by a university professor with a radio gig to find a way on to the invitation-list for one of Hollywood’s upcoming galas. Mad Men is entirely lacking, in my not so humble estimation, in character development and the other factor that develops characters — dialogue. So I see Don Draper brood over which babe he is going to bed next. So Don has a complicated past and multiple identities. I wouldn’t want to have a meal with him (especially if I cross dressed). In comparison I’d be all over a meal or pint with Jimmy, Bunk, Bunnie, or Carcetti — from The Wire. I’d like to add Omar to the list, but I’m doubting a fellow on that side of the law would want to dine with this egg-headed honkie. Nor do I imagine that in real life such a social outing would be safe.
What Mad Men does have is atmosphere. And for us baby-boomers who were too young and too fundamentalist to know about the world of advertising and New York City life in the fast lane, Mad Men evokes an era and a world that is heavy on eye-candy. It allows us to see the world our parents did everything to prevent us from seeing.
But you can’t get by only on atmosphere, which is why the Coen Brothers are gems in the world of not-so-Indie cinema. They do atmosphere incredibly well. Just see Miller’s Crossing (their homage to the gangster genre) or Barton Fink (their homage to post-modernism). But in addition to atmosphere, the Coens add humor, irony (several helpings), and the Montaignian twist of things not being what they seem.
This is a long winded way of recommending a recent post by Noah Millman, a guy trained in economics who used to blog at the American Scene and now does so regularly for the American Conservative. Millman is the first to write (at least the first I’ve read) about the opening scene in A Serious Man and make sense of it, a movie that, by the way, captures the mood of an era and I suspect does well with Jewish-American life in the land of Lake Wobegone. Millman also supplies a reading of the movie based on Job which makes complete sense and completely missed me — perhaps because my biblical w-w is defective or because I spent too much time in the movie trying to figure out the opening scene. Here’s part of Millman writes about the Coens’ modern-day Job (he compares it to Tree of Life):
“The Tree of Life” is a snapshot of the moment when Job hears the voice out of the whirlwind. Jack has “kept it together” for years, decades, but for whatever reason today the defenses have broken down, and he is face to face with questions he has buried since he was a young man. (As the festival musaf liturgy says: “in the face of our sins were we exiled from our land,” which I take to mean: now, conscious of our exile, unable to make expiation through the Temple, we cannot escape a confrontation with our sins.) And he – we – see God’s answer: look at the dinosaurs! I made them, they lived, and thrived, and then I took them all away, and you never even knew them. And somehow Jack sees: yes, You will take them all, You will take us all, to where I do not know, but if I remember that, perhaps I can accept that taking my brother was just . . . taking back what was Yours. And I can make that a gift to you.
“A Serious Man” stops just before this point. The whirlwind comes – and the movie stops. This seems like an ending that endorses Larry’s moral confusion – even the whirlwind doesn’t mean anything – but, notwithstanding the Coen brothers’ evident lack of interest in piety, I question that. The filmmakers’ anger at Larry, at the smallness both of his seriousness and of his sins, and, by extension, at the entire middle-class insular Jewish culture in which they were reared, burns forth from the screen. The whirlwind doesn’t speak – the idea that the “wonders of creation” constitute some kind of answer to Larry (or Job) is simply mocked. But they did not make this movie arbitrarily. They made it for a reason. This perspective, this anger, is itself a version of God’s answer out of the whirlwind, and a meaningful one, as surely as Malick’s film is, and the Coen brothers, in abusing poor Larry so mercilessly, are playing the part of God in the story. They want to shake him out of who he is, into something, well, more like what they are, what Larry’s son, presumably, grew up to be.
I may disagree with Millman about the Coens’ “anger” or attempt to play God — I am not sure they are all that firm in their convictions. But it is the best reading of the film I’ve seen and invites another viewing — which will further predispose me with the Season Five version of Don Draper.
Old Life 
I’m the biggest Coen Bros fan around but I passed over Serious Man for some reason. What did you think of Tree of Life? For my part I feel like it’s the most important film I’ve seen in my life, ever. Along with the Job motif, structurally and thematically it also tracks very interestingly with Augustine’s Confessions.
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A Serious Man is my favorite of the more serious Coen bros films. I see it as more existentialist than anything else, with a dose of biblical narrative to give the story a frame that then can be thrown into confusion (read meaninglessness.) That said, it was the most personal of their films, and I loved it. I also loved (the first half) of Tree of Life. I remember people laughing when the dinos came on screen, though that 10-15 minute stretch is the best I have seen in a film in many years. It is funny how people tend to miss the dino showing (the director’s view of) grace to the injured one, and later on the child showing (the director’s view of) grace to the burned child. It all plays into the nature vs. grace theme and that it is (to the director) inherent in nature. Either way, I loved both these films and my ears lift whenever a film from either filmmaker comes out. I am still waiting for the Coen bros to do an adaptation of Dickey’s To the White Sea, as they bought the rights a long time ago. Carry on! (puts pipe back in mouth)
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But Larry isn’t brought back to his orginal situation in life and God never speaks. There is no resolution, and the Coens would not approve of resolution. On the other hand, Camus would approve of A Serious Man. With Bob, I say it’s existentialist.
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Dr. Hart,
Overall, an interesting post that has motivated me to see more of the Coens’ works. Still, I must take exception with your omission of Stringer Bell on your list of The Wire characters you’d want to drink or eat with. In some ways, I think he’s the most interesting and complex character in the earlier seasons. He might not even mind being around an egg-head either since he’s sort of one himself.
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A satisfying review of Malick’s film can be difficult to find, but Millman’s is the best so far.
Joe, I had a similar response. Whatever else might be said of it, the most succinct description is poetry meets the big screen. But when Piper warns against getting pricked and bleeding movies it reminds me of when Baptists warn against expelling the Holy Spirit with every tabaccoed exhale:
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/why-i-dont-have-a-television-and-rarely-go-to-movies
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Joe B., haven’t seen Tree yet. I’m a little worried about seeing it. Often films don’t live up to the praise. Then again, low expectations are easily met.
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Tim, sorry, I’m no antinomian. I like to associate with people on the right side of the law even if they bend the rules. The law is more forgiving than vice.
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Dr. Hart,
I’d rather hang out with sinners than the self-righteous (i.e. Carcetti). Besides, decontextualizing Luther’s quote to Melancthon, aren’t we supposed to sin boldly? Or maybe we could justify it as evangelistic drinking? 🙂
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Tree was a fantastic film. I thought the first half was the best thing I’ve seen in a very, very long time. Second half? A bit too pretentious for my taste -kinda like bad poetry from a teenager (ending was silly.) But man, that first half…it has dinosaurs…count me in. Everything from Malick is beautiful, but sometimes goes off into teenage poetry land. First half, wow. Second half, meh. 100% worth seeing however, especially on Blu-Ray. I am sticking to my guns on the Coen bros though -everything they do is coming from an existentialist backdrop. (puts monocle back on.)
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Also, I loved most of the Wire. However, I agree with Chuck’s opinion here:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6763000/bad-decisions
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Bob? you expect me to believe a guy writing on the Wire named Klosterman?
I’ll up the ante on The Wire. Not only the best tv show ever, the best moving picture production ever. It’s the characters. They are real, like life.
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Darryl, if you can’t get past the bodies in Breaking Bad then you’ll never see how IT’S the best show on TV in terms of story line. But if we’re going by characters, Six Feet Under gives it a run for its money.
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Sorry, Zrim, but I have to disagree. The best and worst of people — the lawful and lawless sides — are not on display in Six Feet the way they are on The Wire (all about me).
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{Takes off monocle} We will see, my good sir, where Breaking Bad goes this next and final season. I will say this, however, {knocks ring on table} our dearly beloved friend Chuck over at Grantland is an astute Culture Vulture. But, {puts monocle back on} The Wire does best represent the lawful and the lawless in a way Dickens or Dostoyevsky would be envious of. Though I think Dostoyevsky would gravitate towards the willful downward spiral of BBad. I am sure there is a 2K application in this somewhere. {Twirls walking stick and whistles.}
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DGH: “I wouldn’t want to have a meal with him.”
This is why I couldn’t get through the first season of Mad Men. I didn’t like any of the characters, and I didn’t want to.
And I totally agree about The Wire. The worst thing about that silly New Orleans show (???) was Bunk as a different (but not really) character. I don’t want to ever see that man in another role. I want Bunk to say Bunk so I can fantasize about bumping into him in a bar and having a beer and being made jealous all over again of his profanity. Oh, the profanity!
And why am I always embarrassed to say
Lava LampTree of Life was the worst movie I ever had to sit through? (was it once or twice? I don’t remember.) Why am I made to feel as though I must be aesthetically retarded for feeling it was the most self-indulgent, lame, and under-edited film of the young century? I went with someone who was seeing it for the second time, and I kept thinking “Really? Twice? Really?”Darryl, set your expectations low — way low — and you may enjoy it.
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Self-indulgent and under-edited is a perfect description of every Malick film. I cannot sit through The New World, yet, I actually enjoy sitting through Thin Red Line. I cannot sit through Days of Heaven, yet, I love the first half of Tree of Life. The 20 minute sequence that leads up to the birth of the child is all someone needs to see really, at least if one does not like lava lamps or lava lamps set to teenage poetry. It is overrated though. I agree with that. But those 20 minutes get me every time, and then I probably spend the rest of the film reflecting on those 20 minutes, looking into a lava lamp. Funny, that is the best title I’ve heard it described as.
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Brian,
And why am I always embarrassed to say Lava Lamp Tree of Life was the worst movie I ever had to sit through? (was it once or twice? I don’t remember.)
Only because you didn’t see The Fountain. What a train wreck of competing ideologies and poorly developed characters.
I don’t get the bashing of Mad Men, not my favorite show, but for anyone who has spent some time in the business world, the story lines are compelling, as is the rise of marketing as a cultural force. If I worked on Madison Ave. I probably would have enjoyed, maybe even too much, the freedom to have a couple of fingers of Bourbon after 9AM coffee (or with it). Don Draper is a fairly compelling character in my book.
While we’re at citing our favorite shows, I’ll let my dork flag fly high – Firefly is my favorite series ever. It’s Joss Wheldon’s take on what happened to the fighters in the South who lost at Gettysburg, but happens to be set 500 years in the future – who knew that Sci-fi and Western’s made such a good combination. Almost as tasty as French-Asian fusion in the culinary world.
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Brian, you have me worried. But I’m not with you on Treme. It’s not The Wire but (with only one season seen) I thought the end of the first season and John Goodman’s character was amazing (not trying to give it away).
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Jed,
Funny that you mentioned The Fountain as I just watched it the other day. I will give it this: the tree looked beautiful, but you are right, what a train wreck (insert floating-naked-man-in-a-lotus-position-in-a-bubble and destroy all sense of possible meaning.) Visually, The Fountain was striking, but that was about it.
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Corners in the City of God: Theology and The Wire
(forthcoming, Cascade, 2012), ed. Jonathan Tran and Myles Werntz
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