Inside Llewyn Davis

I mentioned in my post about Performance how it is extremely rare these days that filmmakers are brave enough to allow a whole song to play out within a film so it was brilliant to see the Coen Brothers do it a number of times in their deliciously melancholic tribute to the 60's New York folk scene Inside Llewyn Davis.

Featuring another meticulous soundtrack compiled by regular collaborator T Bone Burnett all but one of the film's songs was recorded live. My standout scene of the film was the hilarious studio recording of comedy number 'Oh Mr. Kennedy', which has echoes of the 'Man of Constant Sorrow' recording from Oh Brother Where Art Thou.

The film is loosely based on the memoirs of Dave Van Ronk, one of a number of artists who used to play faithful renditions of folk standards in Greenwich Village clubs until the forward thinking Bob Dylan came along and shook things up by performing his own material. The whole look of the film seemed to be inspired by the famous sleeve of 1963's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (above) and a young Dylan can be seen at the end of the film singing an unreleased version of Farewell from 1964.