Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Inside Ilewyn Davis

What's cooler than a new Coen Brothers' film? A new Coen Brothers' film set in Greenwich Village in 1961.

Loosely based off of Dave Van Ronk's memoir The Mayor of MacDougal Street, the Coen Brothers' intend on capturing the place and the time of the folk hub that was Greenwich Village, New York.


The film will be interesting not because of the Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell references, but of the context  of the folk music scene that formed in the coffee houses, cabarets, and bars of Greenwich. While there are numerous films on, or dedicated to, Bob Dylan (No Direction Home, Don't Look Back, I'm Not There), a film on the culture and characters that shaped the '60s folk movement will be refreshing.


The Coen Brothers will have to capture a lively time, the year before Dylan released his first record, Bob Dylan, and where he primarily performed covers of Woody Guthrie, or his contemporaries like Dave Van Ronk. Bob Dylan, according to an article in Monday's New York Times, "kind of, sort of" shows up in the film.

It's funny how the article mentions a venue called Gerde's Folk City, because Dylan first gained publicity through an article written by a Robert Shelton from the Times after a performance in September of 1961.

Clearly, evident of the trailer, the film will be full of rich history.

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