Folk revival "Inside Llewyn Davis" serenades Festival
By Jake Coyle, Entertainment Writer
CANNES, France (AP) --The Coen brothers’ resurrection of the pre-Dylan folk scene in Greenwich Village serenaded Cannes with its period music and melancholy tale of a self-destructive, feline-toting musician.
“Inside Llewyn Davis” was met rapturously at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered Sunday night. Joel and Ethan Coen said their primary interest was to recreate the atmosphere of the late 1950s, very early ’60s folk revival amid the coffee shops of downtown New York.
“The movie doesn’t really have a plot,” Joel Coen told reporters at the festival. “That actually concerned us at a certain point. It’s why we threw the cat in.”
The film stars the relatively unknown Oscar Isaac as a talented but adrift singer-songwriter trying to attract attention after the suicide of his singing partner as he bounces from couch to couch. In tow is a cat — a kind of symbol for Llewyn’s tenuous decency — that he reluctantly shepherds after it escapes from a friend’s apartment.
Isaac’s performance as the caustic, frustrated Isaac drew immediate raves at Cannes and predictions of an Oscar nomination. CBS Films will release “Inside Llewyn Davis” this fall in the heart of awards season.
“It’s really the music where you see his soul come out,” Isaac said.
Isaac and the cast (Carey Mulligan as a furious, expletive-spewing friend; Justin Timberlake as a cheesy pop folkie) performed their songs live with music supervisor T-Bone Burnett, who memorably collaborated with the Coens on the Grammy-winning hit soundtrack to “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Set in 1961 on the cusp of Bob Dylan’s arrival (“the elephant in the room,” Ethan Coen said), “Inside Llewyn Davis” is loosely based on the unfinished memoir by folk singer Dave Van Ronk, “The Mayor of MacDougal Street.” (He released a 1963 album titled “Inside Dave Van Ronk.”)
Timberlake’s bearded character was based on the Irish folk singer Paul Clayton. In perhaps the film’s most remarkable scene, he, along with Isaac and a cowboy hat-wearing Adam Driver (the “Girls” actor), record the absurd, bouncy “Please, Mr. Kennedy.” The main line of the chorus is: “Please, Mr. Kennedy, don’t shoot me into outer space.” The song drew hearty applause at the media screening Saturday evening.
“I enjoy looking ridiculous in everyday life, so that was not hard for me to do in a movie,” Timberlake said. He added: “It felt warm and fuzzy to me to be in this movie and singing.”
While that performance is an uproarious parody, the songs performed in the film by Llewyn are intimate and powerful. “Inside Llewyn Davis” is ultimately a story of talents who don’t get the big break, and the razor thin line separating failure and fame.
“What was interesting to us was the lesser known scene, which was the scene that Dylan came into, as opposed to what Dylan — who is such a transformative character both in terms of music and culture, in general — how he changed that scene,” Joel Coen said. “The music is something that we have a genuine and deep fondness and respect for.”
He then added: “That’s not to say there aren’t funny things about folk music. There are plenty of funny things about folk music.” (Certainly, Aran sweaters make a cameo.)
The Coens have been frequent visitors to Cannes, where they won the prestigious Palme d’Or in 1991 from a jury presided over by Roman Polanski. They’re in the hunt again this year, with Steven Spielberg serving as jury president.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More