The Man Who Wasn't There is the story of a barber named Ed Crane who tries to blackmail his wife's employer in order to finance a new business venture, dry cleaning. Since Ed is just a barber and has no prior experience in extortion, the plan goes horribly wrong and he has to get out of more trouble as the movie goes on. As far as movies go, I really enjoyed The Man Who Wasn't There and really recommend it to people whether or not they've read The Stranger. The Coen brothers wrote this film in a way which some points mirror those of The Stranger, while the plot as a whole is totally different. It's strange, but think about it like the story of Little Red Hood and the movie Hoodwinked. In both versions I felt that the movie adaptations seemed to be parodying the its written version and they were willing to take "artistic liberties". The biggest difference however is that looking back at both movies, one is about a barber and the other is flaming garbage.
I'm not gonna lie, when I saw Ed on-screen I thought he was creepy. His deep monotonous voice followed by the dead look on his face while he was cutting hair made me think he was going to secretly be part of the mafia. Strangely I was wrong and he was telling the truth when he tells the audience that all he does is cut hair. The way he responds to people around him is very Meursault-like being he doesn't really show emotion. I think this was really apparent when there's a "dialogue" between him and a the lawyer he's hired when they meet at a diner. I put quotations around dialogue because in the entire scene, Ed might've said about 10 words. With everything that's going on in the movie so far Ed should have a lot more to say to his lawyer than "Yes" and "No, I'm not hungry". From what we read in The Stranger, I think I could replace Ed with Meursault and have very similar actions in their plots occur because they very much alike.
I think the Coen brothers did a great job telling such a unique story. Thee thing that I really liked about the film is that the Coen brothers wrote it in a way that I felt as if it was going to end every time it faded to black. Instead however, they took what seemed to be the end of the movie and suddenly opened it up so the plot could continue. [SPOILER ALERT] The one that I honestly didn't see coming was at the end when he was waiting in the prison. He somehow manages to walk outside and see a spaceship flying overhead and instead of getting onboard, he just looks up and walks back inside like it didn't happen. [SPOILER END] It's the crazy twists that made me laugh and overall I thought it was just an enjoyable movie.
I didn't see the movie, but from some plot summaries I've read, it seems that the movie's most noticeable difference from The Stranger is in the two murders/killings. Not only was Ed's action in self-defense, but he had real motives in his criminal actions over the course of the film. As we know, Meursault had no greater motivation in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteFrom the examples of dialogue and strange, Coen Brothers-esque humor you've provided, I can see that The Man Who Wasn't There also concerns an existentialist topic (a man with no real purpose and no motivation in his life takes drastic actions on a whim to create excitement in his life), but goes about addressing it more honestly. Camus has an agenda; he is trying to convince the reader of his philosophy. From the Coen Brothers film I have seen, they are much more concerned with ironic references and having fun at an intellectually deep level than with anything else, and this allows them to let their character and his story branch out naturally.
I shared your initial reaction to Ed's deep monotonous voice until I realized that it was almost exactly how I imagined Meursault to sound. In fact, Ed and Meursault seem to be almost completely interchangeable, as there were very few moments in either the movie or the book in which I wasn't able to imagine them filling each others shoes.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part about the "dialogue" between Ed and Freddie Riedenschneider (the lawyer, played by Tony Shaloub) is when, after Ed is silent for pretty much the whole "conversation," Freddie warns him against "telling tales out of school"--"What's out of school? Everything's out of school. You keep your mouth shut." And Ed nods. He knows how to keep his mouth shut--no problem!
ReplyDeleteThere's a similar joke when Ed and Doris are driving her brother home from the wedding reception, and the brother doesn't want to even hear the words "blueberry pie"--"Don't say those words, Ed. Don't say those words." And Ed, of course, obliges.