Inside Llewyn Davis Information

Inside Llewyn Davis is a 2013 American drama film written, directed and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, and John Goodman, and was produced by Scott Rudin, Ethan and Joel Coen. It tells the story of a singer-songwriter who navigates New York's folk music scene in the 1960s. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it screened on May 19, 2013, and will travel the festival circuit before opening in December 2013.

Cast

• Oscar Isaac as Llewyn Davis
• Carey Mulligan as Jean Berkey
• John Goodman as Roland Turner
• Garrett Hedlund as Johnny Five
• Justin Timberlake as Jim Berkey
• F. Murray Abraham as Bud Grossman
• Stark Sands
• Jeanine Seralles
• Frank Ridley
• Adam Driver as Al Cody
• Ethan Phillips as Mitch Gorfein
• Alex Karpovsky as Marty Green
• Max Casella as Poppy Corsicatto

Production

Set in 1961, Inside Llewyn Davis was inspired by the cultural disconnection within a New York"based music scene where the songs seemed to come from all parts of the United States except New York, but whose performers included Brooklyn-born Dave Van Ronk and Ramblin' Jack Elliott. One source for the film was Van Ronk's posthumously published (2005) memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street. According to the book's co-author, Elijah Wald, the Coens mined the work "for local color and a few scenes."

Producer Scott Rudin, who worked with the Coens on True Grit and No Country for Old Men, collaborated on the project. StudioCanal helped finance it without an American distributor in place. "After shooting in New York City and elsewhere last year...the brothers finished the movie at their own pace", wrote Michael Cieply in a January 2013 The New York Times interview with Joel Coen ahead of a private, pre-Grammys screening in Los Angeles. "They could have rushed it into the Oscar season but didn't." On February 19, CBS Films announced it had picked up the U.S. domestic distribution rights for about $4 million. StudioCanal has rights to international distribution and foreign sales.

Isaac, Timberlake, Mulligan, Driver and others performed the music live, which mostly consists of covers of old folk songs played through in their entirety. The music was produced by T-Bone Burnett, working with Marcus Mumford. Burnett previously worked with the Coens on the music and soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which sold about 8 million copies in the United States. At a press conference after the film's screening in Cannes, Burnett said that the music could be released as two albums.

Release

Inside Llewyn Davis has been selected to close the 2013 AFI Film Festival on November 14, 2013.

The film is scheduled for a limited release in the United States on December 6, 2013, followed by a wide release on December 20.

Reception

Writing for The Village Voice, Alan Scherstuhl praised the Coen brothers' film: "While often funny and alive with winning performances, Inside Llewyn Davis finds the brothers in a dark mood, exploring the near-inevitable disappointment that faces artists too sincere to compromise--disappointments that the Coens, to their credit, have made a career out of dodging. The result is their most affecting film since the masterful A Serious Man."