The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
Directed by Joel Coen
A tale of murder, crime and punishment set in the summer of 1949. Ed Crane, a barber in a small California town, is dissatisfied with his life, but his wife Doris' infidelity and a mysterious opportunity presents him with a chance to change it.
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What critics compared The Man Who Wasn't There to
Many a Coen Brothers film pays tribute to the noir: the sly Blood Simple, which could be described as neo-noir; the nihilist Barton Fink; the satire of Hawks' The Big Sleep, The Big Lebowski .
He could never be the rat, they rationalize; he’s “just a fucking tailor”—a line that echoes how Billy Bob Thornton was “just a barber” in the Coen brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001).
Scarlett Johansson (Ghost World, The Man Who Wasn’t There) stars as Griet, a 17 year old girl who becomes a maid in the house of Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth).
In this EARRING, many of the best moments are due to the formidable abilities of Johanssen, whose tremulous, textured turn adds to her string of impressive performances in Lost In Translation, The Man Who Wasn't There, and Ghost World, making her arguably the most interesting actress of her (very young) generation.
A much more obviously intriguing performer than Firth, Johannson has nonetheless had a bothersome proclivity lately toward films that are rather complacent and over-confident about their sophistication (see Lost in Translation , Ghost World , The Man Who Wasn't There ).
She was the alluring object of desire for Billy Bob Thornton in the Coen Brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”
With his wife gone, there is no one to buffer the gruff old coot from his sons, Mitch (Brian Haley, "The Man Who Wasn't There") and Steve (Brian Howe, "The Pursuit of Happyness"), who think that 'Dad's still living in the 50's.' Walt's grandkids show no respect, his granddaughter Ashley (Dreama Walker, TV's "Gossip Girl") arriving at her grandmother's funeral with bare midriff and pierced navel, then asking what will happen to his classic car when he leaves this mortal coil.
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In fact, of the Coens’ sixteen films, only The Man Who Wasn’t There is so focused on a single figure.
Beginning with their neo-noir Blood Simple, the brothers have delighted in ridiculing their hapless creations—the yokels in Raising Arizona or O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the garrulous gargoyles of The Man Who Wasn’t There, the idiot schemers who come to grief in The Ladykillers or Burn After Reading, the doomed victims of No Country for Old Men, even the likable police officer in Fargo.
Llewyn Davis is in a color so wintry and starved it’s close to black and white, and it’s as fastidious as the last time the Coens used that medium—The Man Who Wasn’t There.
Llewyn remains something of a misfit in the Coen universe, where decent misfortunates (Billy Bob Thornton’s betrayed husband in The Man Who Wasn’t There, Michael Stulberg’s hapless professor in A Serious Man) are easy marks for those with sharper instincts.
Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn’t There, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man , True Grit , Inside Llewyn Davis.