Film cast © AFP
IN COMPETITION – The Coen brothers, rock and folk style
A musical return to Cannes for Joel and Ethan Coen. The pair have been selected this year for Inside Llewyn Davis, a film with a folk feel set in the legendary Greenwich Village of the 1960s. In 1991, the brothers received the Palme d’or and the Best Director award for Barton Fink, an example of masterful cinema tinged with edgy humour.
Film still © RR
A Bohemian atmosphere reigned in the Village in the 1960s. From the top of the redbrick façades down to the little drugstores, a few notes of folk music resound with increasing volume. These are the notes of Llewyn Davis, an artist who dreams of records and sold-out concerts. In the meantime, he sleeps on Jean and Jim’s sofa, until the day he auditions for a music mogul.
Llewyn Davis is the big-screen version of Dave Van Ronk, an emblem of Greenwich Village and spearhead of folk music. This would be the man who taught a certain Bob Dylan his first guitar chords. Through Llewyn Davis’s story, another portrait is painted: that of the private world of New York folk at its very beginnings.
To take on the role, the Coen brothers called on Oscar Isaac, who has appeared in Che, Agora and Drive, and who is now playing a starring role for the first time in his career. Alongside him, a brunette Carey Mulligan tries her hand at singing and plays Llewyn Davis’s muse. Described as the new Audrey Hepburn, she can count on the advice of experienced singer Justin Timberlake, who also stars in the film along with John Goodman.
Tarik Khaldi
SCREENINGS
Sunday 19th May / Grand Théâtre Lumière / 11.30 a.m. – 7.00 p.m.
Monday 20th May / Salle du Soixantième / 2.15 p.m.
