Criterion 'Llewyn Davis' fares well with folk tune
Before Oscar Isaac became the Internet's new boyfriend in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he was a cinematic folk hero in Inside Llewyn Davis.
The Greenwich Village folk-music scene of early 1960s New York is the backdrop for writer/directors Ethan and Joel Coen's 2013 movie, and a Criterion Collection edition of Llewyn Davis (out today on Blu-ray and DVD) digs into how the genre is used in a variety of ways for the film.
In this exclusive clip from the new release, famed Oscar-winning music producer T Bone Burnett discusses with the Coens the importance of Dave Van Ronk, the folk legend who was used as a basis for Isaac's struggling Llewyn, and the durability and adaptability of folk tunes such as Fare Thee Well (Dink's Song). A staple in that retro scene, the song was done in memorably bluesy fashion by Van Ronk and a lyric from it — "If I had wings like Noah's dove" — plays into the movie's plot: Llewyn's musical partner kills himself by throwing himself out a window and the Coens decided to call the album the duo recorded If We Had Wings.
Isaac and Marcus Mumford (of Mumford & Sons fame) recorded a version of the song for the movie that's "a joyous version of the tune," Burnett says, and this Coens-approved upbeat take on it was the characters "trying to be out there" in the commercial landscape.
Other extras on the Criterion version feature music historian Elijah Wald looking at Van Ronk and '60s folk, a new audio commentary, a discussion featuring the Coens talking about their filmmaking with Guillermo del Toro, and a 2014 Inside Llewyn Davis tribute concert starring Mumford's band, Joan Baez, Jack White and others.