NAPATSORN TREESAP

Inside Llewyn Davis is the film directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. It is the story of Llewyn Davis, a folk singer, who struggle to be successful in his music career after he had lost a musical duo from suicide, so in the story, it can be seen that the inability to move on is one of the issues from the protagonist, Llewyn.

After finishing watching the film, I want to give a compliment to this movie as it captured the theme very well including the enhancement of the protagonist whether by symbols, lighting, or even the music.

Symbols

Cat

• The cat symbolizes Llewyn Davis.

The cat seems to be the motif throughout the story. Since the beginning of the film, the cat lost from its owner, and Llewyn had to take care of it until he’ll be able to return the cat.

• Llewyn seems to relate with the cat, for he also lost his duo and he’s still cannot accept that, so there’s a sign of depression from him.

Not only that, in Llewyn’s life, as we see from the film, he did not have his own place to stay, so he always sleeps at his friends’ couch, and when it comes to the scene that he signed the contract, that scene stopped for a second when the camera captured the word “address” which could be the implied message that conveyed to the audience.

Apart from this, there’s a scene when the cat ran out of the window and disappeared making Llewyn had to take the responsibility to find the cat to return to its owner. He accidentally found the cat on the street which the appearance of the cat looks similar to the one that had lost, but when he returned it, it turned out that the cat is not the same cat that’s missing. Therefore, this can imply a similar situation to Llewyn Davis that after he lost his duo from suicide, he became someone that cannot accept reality. His appearance still the same, but it’s his soul that changed.

Path

• The path symbolizes the decision of Llewyn.

In the story, the path is like the choice for Llewyn to take between living his own life the same or starting his new life. As we see from the film, Llewyn knew that his ex-lover did not terminate the pregnancy, and when he drove past Akron, it became the choice for him to choose if he wants to start a new life, new responsibility, or start changing something about him to be better or not, and we see that Llewyn still chose to live his life the same which makes the ending of the film reasonable because his life did not different from driving in the circle where it takes his life’s going round and round.

Lighting

The light became one of the important elements to help the audience had the same feeling for the protagonist. The use of light creates the dark, gloomy, and unclear atmosphere to emphazise the protagonist’s life, for Llewyn was struggle to pursue his dream while he also lost his duo.

Music

Music is used to enhance the feeling of the audience, and in this film, the songs that are used to capture the audience’s feeling are very perfect such as 500 Miles, Fare Thee Well, The Death of Queen Jane, Hang Me, Oh Hang Me, etc. Apart from this, the audience will be surprised by the end of the film when it comes to the scene when Bob Dylan was singing.