Prompt #1
Of the few movies I have seen by the Coen Bros, it seems like the contents in which they explore all tend to gravitate around the idea of taking average, common day people and putting them in extraordinary situations they would never normally find themselves in. The Big Lebowski for example, The Dude is the epitome of your run of the mill guy, unemployed, part of a bowling league, does the same thing day in and day out.. but gets mistaken for a millionaire lebowski and has to be part of some heisty situations, people start dying, people shit on his rug etc. In Burn After Reading, the same thing happens except replace the dude and his friends with a couple of gym employees and the mistaken identity is a swap of a bag or the handling of an important CIA disc (can't remember exactly). In a very rough, simplistic analysis, it seems as though the Coen Bros are trying to elevate the hopes and status of the average person by saying we are all privileged enough to be in these situations. OR it could just be a very good formula for entertainment: put someone in a situation they know nothing about and watch them run around like a chicken with their head cut off.
In relation to Whitman, he is doing somewhat of the same thing. Celebrating the average american by trying to elevate them to a status worthy of 'poetry' and 'scholars.' What the Coen Bros and Whitman are saying is that we are all worthy of entertainment topics, to say the least, so when we see ourselves up on the big screen or in the latest Whitman poem, we feel acknowledged, accepted, privileged, special etc. One good example would be Whitman's Song for Occupations: he literally lists occupations, and it's almost like we're going through a list, searching for our names, as if wondering "did we get accepted?"
One difference I must mention though is that in the Coen Bros movies, the average guy tends to get fucked over, so in a way it's saying we can't handle high rolling. Let's just stick with the reasoning being to make ourselves feel better about or current status.
I think you're with it concerning the Coens' and Whitman's "elevation" of the average American. Consider "The Dude" -- he is at once an average (or below average) slacker and a philosophical entity worthy of his own (albeit fake) religion... Just like Whitman! "Song For Occupations" also kind of reads like the Coens' filmography -- they both run the gamut of average archetypes and put them in the spotlight for their own brief moment. Looking forward to discussing more on Thursday!
ReplyDeleteGreat observation! I haven't considered this myself, it is an interesting connection. They do equate the "average" person with everyone else, giving their characters (and the occupational) a sort of status. They both enjoy using the subjects of the working class, a common American figure. The Coen Bros. acknowledge Whitman's idea of the American people in a similar way, even if the era and mediums are far between.
ReplyDelete(Dana)