Watch: New Video Essay Helps You ‘Understand The Art Of The Coen Brothers Through ‘A Serious Man’
“What’s going on?” Such a simple and rudimentary yet driving question is at the heart of the Coen Brothers’ 2009 Academy Award nominated film, “A Serious Man.” The film stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher whose life rapidly unfolds beyond his control over the course of a few uncontrollable events.
As YouTuber The Nerdwriter’s new video points out, this fundamental query is actually “a reflexive and sort of stupid question.” At the same time, it provides the impetus for one of Joel and Ethan Coen’s most fascinating films. Nerdwriter’s eight-minute video essay analyzes the complex film, breaking it down into a comprehensible structure and plot, asserting that “each of these situations [those that plague Larry] compound and unfold into one another with surgical precision.” They might be easier to deal with, if not for the fact that “Larry’s inaction, his constant refrain of, ‘I haven’t done anything’” is to blame for most of his problems.”
At...