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Midterm2 (2013 midterm2 assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2013 #1: Research Report Starts |
LITR 4333
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Adam Glasgow
A Serious Paper: Jewish American Identity, Assimilation,
and the Coen Brothers
Joel and Ethan Coen, commonly known as "the
Coen brothers" are Jewish American filmmakers. Unlike most, they write, direct,
produce, and edit their movies themselves, giving them end to end control over
the final product. Most of their films are original stories; only a small number
of their 15+ projects have source material in a book or another film. Their
filmography includes Fargo, The Big
Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, and the 2010
version of True Grit. Between the two
of them they have been nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, the same number
Stanley Kubrick earned before he passed in 1999. My goal with this information
is not to try and convince you that the Coens are great, but to establish that
they are a respected and acclaimed pair of filmmakers. Their style is often
imitated and the Coen name frequently appears on other filmmakers' lists of
influences.
The Coens' Jewish American identity is
embedded in their work, but it usually goes unnoticed by the general public.
Actually, it probably goes unnoticed by the brothers themselves. In one
interview with Haaretz, the brothers were asked if being "strangers in a strange
land [the Coens grew up in the Midwest where Jewish communities are much
smaller] affected how they approach their story telling." Joel replied:
I guess everything to do with your background has some
influence on how you tell stories, but it's hard to parse, I think, how growing
up in a Jewish community in Minnesota really affected it. There were other
things which were probably much more culturally influential on us than that in
particular, things like television, pop culture that other kids are exposed to
at the time, if you want to sort of look at things that were probably most...
formative, but I really don't know (Schwartzberg, "'A Serious Man' - The Coen
brothers' most Jewish film to date") .
Here Joel is essentially admitting that the influence of the
dominant culture is likely more of a factor in their filmmaking than their
Jewish American roots are. The Coens are
deeply assimilated. However, there is one Coen brothers' movie where their
Jewish Midwest American upbringing is front and center of the story.
A Serious Man
(released in 2009) is a story about a Jewish American college professor named
Larry Gopnik and his family in 1960s Minnesota. They live in a largely Jewish
community, and Larry makes sure to frequent Jewish-owned businesses. his son
goes to Hebrew school, though his daughter does not. His son also is also seen
preparing for his Bar Mitzvah multiple times in the film. His wife reveals that
she wants a divorce in order to be with another Jewish man, and she wants a
"get," a document that a husband must provide a wife in order for the divorce to
be considered valid in the eyes of biblical law. Jewish culture (or at least
American Midwestern Jewish culture) is central to the film, and while some of
the influence is obvious, like the examples listed above, much of it is more
subversive. For example, while watching the movie I noticed many of the
doorframes had something hanging on them - a small box of some kind. After some
research, I discovered those are containers that house a small rolled up scroll
called a "mezuzah." Their presence is meant to remind the inhabitants of their
heritage and connection to God (What is a mezuzah?), something that further
drives home the idea that the character's Jewish identity is very important to
them.
The Jewish American influence on the film
goes far beyond the setting. The story itself is a retelling of the Book of Job,
which is one of the books found in the Hebrew Bible. Job is about a God-fearing
man whose devotion to God gets constantly tested through hardships. Everything
he owns gets destroyed, he becomes sick, and all of his children die. In
A Serious Man Larry is in the process
of losing his family via divorce, his job is threatened by both a South Korean
exchange student trying to use bribes to pass his physics class and mysterious
letters sent to the university urging the school not to grant him tenure. His
mooching brother lives at his house without contributing anything, the Columbia
Record Club is harassing him to pay for a service he didn't sign up for, and his
rabbis are supremely unhelpful in regards to helping him through his
adversities. A major difference worth nothing, however, is that at the end of
Job he is given a new family and becomes more prosperous than he ever was
before, while at the end of A Serious Man
his doctor calls him and asks to speak with him in person (it sounds like more
bad news), and a tornado prepares to rip through his son's school, possibly
killing him. Job was given a happy ending (or maybe a "happy" ending; I don't
think getting a new family makes up for killing his old one), but things seem to
be looking mostly terrible for Larry at the end of the movie.
In the next paragraph or two I will talk about
assimilation by talking about Larry's children. His daughter won't go to Hebrew
School (the only excuse we ever hear for that is that she always has to "wash
her hair") and steals money from her parents in order to save up and get a nose
job so she looks less Jewish. His son seems more interested in smoking weed,
watching TV, and listening to music than
learning about his culture and religion. (I do wonder if the son is modeled
after the Coen brothers...)
WORKS CITED (still need to format this properly):
IMDB Filmographies: Joel Coen -
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001054/ Ethan Coen
-
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001053/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
Academy Awards database -
http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp
Haaretz interview -
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/2.209/a-serious-man-the-coen-brothers-most-jewish-film-to-date-1.6888
What is a "get?" and what is a
"mezuzah?" -
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/557906/jewish/Divorce-Basics.htm
http://www.chabad.org/generic_cdo/aid/278476/jewish/Mezuzah.htm
A very good article in Slate about the movie (I haven't used this in the paper yet but I plan to) - http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_oscars/2010/03/whats_going_on.html
