Oscar Isaac plays the title character in “Inside Llewyn Davis” directed by the Coen Brothers.
Photo courtesy of CBS Films.

Musical biopic movies are a tricky proposition for filmmakers.  Depending on how keen the audience’s perceptions are, especially musicians, the movie’s success, depends highly on how credible the actor is.  Actors aren’t usually musicians.  Musicians aren’t usually actors.  When you have someone playing the music directly in front of you without any trick film editing, that film becomes a type of documentary and the character becomes true to life.  The challenge is finding the right actor to play the role.  For example, it took 14 years to wrap up Taylor Hackfords “Ray”, mainly because they couldn’t find the perfect “Ray Charles” that would convince an audience, until Jamie Foxx came into the picture.

Casting an actor who plays a musician can be “uncast able”, as Joel Coen said at a recent screening for his latest movie.

“During the audition process, it was difficult to cast the lead title character.  They would first audition musicians who could not act.  Then they would audition actors who could play, but not to a credible level for the audience to believe the character.  We started interviewing actors who could play, but we thought may have written a part which was uncast able, until Oscar walked in the room.  Without him it was impossible to make the film.”

Enter Oscar Isaac, an actor trained at Julliard, who also played the memorable ex-con who was part of the failed heist with Ryan Gosling in “Drive”, co-starring Carey Mulligan.  Even more importantly, he was also a singer-songwriter and lead guitarist for “The Blinking Underdogs”, which helped prepared his character and musical pacing for the title role of “Inside Llewyn Davis”, collaborating with who he calls, the “Mr. Miyagi of Music”, the legendary producer extradonaire, T-Bone Burnett, reteaming again with the Coen Brothers for the fourth time.

Shot with a documentary feel to it, “Inside Llewyn Davis” is loosely based on the Dave Van Ronk’s memoirs, “The Mayor of MacDougal Street”.   It revolves around the redefining folk scene around New York City’s Village in the late 50’s, and it’s unknown directions of post Eisenhower America; just right before the likes of the trio of Peter, Paul and Mary or individuals, such as Bob Dylan came to existence. This was an era when musicians would try out and perform folk music in front of crowds, hopefully connecting with what they presented to their audience.

Without question, the supporting roles of every Coen Brothers film, seems to produce the memorable characters for the film. “Inside Llewyn Davis” is no exception.  In this case, John Goodman as Roland Turner, may be his zaniest role ever, even with all the insane characters that he has played over the years.  Garret Hedlund, whose last role as Dean Moriarty in Kerouack’s, “On the Road”, where he probably had to learn more lines from a script than any other actor ever on screen, barely had any in this one, but is impressionistic as Goodman’s driver, Johnny Five.  Mulligan and Timberlake make the best of their believable roles as folk musicians rounding off the cast.

Perhaps the best supporting role (uncredited) has to go to Ulysses, the cat.  Unfortunately, there were a few cat doubles, which is probably why the cat‘s name wasn’t headlined on the movie poster.

“Inside Llewyn Davis”, took the Grand Prix at Cannes last May, and deservedly so.

Article by Marcus Siu