Inside Llewyn Davis is the only Coen Brothers movie (apart from some road scenes) both shot and set in New York (the Georgetown scenes in Burn After Reading were shot in Brooklyn, Hudsucker Proxy although set in NewYork was shot in Chicago, while the beginning of Barton Fink was shot in LA). Stanley Kubrick only shot one of his films in his hometown, Killers Kiss, but his last film is something of a love letter to Manhattan despite having been shot entirely (second unit exteriors aside) in England. Eyes Wide Shut transforms New York into a psycho-sexual dreamscape, while the city setting of Inside forms the bleak backdrop for Llewyn's delusions of authenticity.
What both films share is an episodic, almost picaresque structure. It's a structure that in Eyes serves to underscore how much of dreams are about encounters--that is often the only sense in which dreams make sense. Oscar Isaac's Llewyn is, outwardly, much more of a picaro figure than Tom Cruise's Dr Bill, but even though he pisses off nearly everyone he encounters, Llewyn is mostly dishonest with himself. Where Bill Harford wants to take what he feels to be his "share" of sexual adventure within his marriage, he's not really very good at it. Llewyn thinks of himself as a lovable rogue, and although he serially imposes on the patience and generosity of others, the only person he actually rips-off is himself. Next time we'll pair Llewyn with Barry Lyndon!
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