What is the meaning of the opening scene in "A Serious Man"?

October 21, 2009 7:53 AM

What is the meaning of the opening scene in "A Serious Man"? (possible spoilers inside)

What is the meaning of the opening scene in "A Serious Man"? It seems irrelevant to the rest of the story. Then again, many other things in the movie seem irrelevant. For example, the story of the engraved teeth. In fact, the movie made a point of saying that this story was pointless.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the movie - I just don't really understand it. Am I missing the connections, or is it just an abstract kind of movie?

posted by schrodycat to media & arts (10 answers total)

I have seen the film and read a few critics who seem to agree with you: the first scene has no direct relevancy to other parts of the story; most of the movie is about "events don't necessarily have any special meaning: they just happen".

Personally, I found the whole thing slightly depressing and boring but not unpleasant. The Coen brothers are genius cinematographers and I think they intended the movie to be "slightly depressing and boring". It is an exercise in style that obviously doesn't care about the box office. It works on their own terms. Good for them, I guess.
posted by bru at 8:15 AM on October 21, 2009

That first, seemingly irrelevant scene, established the basis for the "curse" on the protagonist. Presumably, the couple in the first scene were Larry's ancestors who were cursed by either welcoming a dybbuk into their home or (alternatively) attacking a totally innocent person.
posted by DrGail at 8:25 AM on October 21, 2009

I'm with DrGail--I assumed these were Larry's ancestors. Even if they're not direct ancestors, they're early Jews and serve as a basis for the overall mentality or belief of the people involved. One might as well ask what the point of the storyline with his son and the drug dealer is as it's "irrelevant" to the main plot. However, to me, it's setting up the story that will follow this one, the same way the intro did for the story we're about to watch. This is somewhat evident because of the closing shot, which is essentially the result of the scene that immediately precedes it, even though, in the real world as most of us understand it, these two events can't be related.

Am I missing the connections

I think most films can broadly be broken down in to two different types: causal and collective. Causal films are the vast majority of films you see and are usually three acts. They can be summed up as A causes B causes C causes D... etc. Though this seems kind of simple, the writer can cloud the simplicity by adding multiple storylines, each with their own A causes B... timelines. Often these storylines affect one another (so one storyline's D is another storyline's L). These stories are the "easiest" to create drama with because a judgement of pacing is simple: each progressing step must make the situation worse. If D makes things easier than C then they should be reversed and re-evaluated. This will give you escalating conflict/drama.

This theory of storytelling is explained well by David Ball in his book, "Backwards and Forwards" where he describes action A as a trigger and action B as a heap (of bodies). So, in his opinion, good drama is a series of Trigger-Heap/Trigger-Heap connections until you end up with a huge pile of bodies.

Collective storytelling is much more difficult because there is no judgement system at its heart because, though it has A, B, C, etc, each point does not necessarily cause the following point. These films are generally one or two act films. (Note that I'm not saying that nothing in the story is causal--something always has to be--but that causation does not form the structure and the causes don't have to be so blatant.) I'd offer Mean Streets up as a good example of a collective, 2-act story.

Another way to look at the two structures is that one is primarily plot-based (causal) and one character-based (collective), even though both have plots and both have characters.

SPOILERS BELOW

A Serious Man works very well, in my opinion, because it straddles causal and collective. In fact, what it is is a collective story waiting for something to happen to cause something else. As Larry says repeatedly, "I didn't do anything!" And his lack of active action prevents anything from really happening to him. All that "happens" to him are threats of something happening in the future. His wife never leaves him, though she says she will--the Koreans never take action, though they threaten to--he never takes the advice of his Rabbis (because he's never really given any), though he seeks it--he never sleeps with his neighbor, though he fantasizes about it and she's obviously into it--he doesn't help his brother, though he dreams about it--etc.

Instead, things just happen around him, shaping him, affecting the way he sees and thinks about the world. We're learning about his character as he learns about the world he lives in. However, he's a passenger rather than a driver, partly because he fears what will happen to him if he takes action.

Not until the last minute of the film, when the character takes active action in changing the grade, does he himself cause anything to happen. And, because he's Jewish, what's going to happen to him is extreme... and causes things to happen to his offspring as well, who presumably will pass the "curse" (of suffering the consequences of one's actions) to his own offspring.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2009 [13 favorites]

Oh, and I saw the film at the worst theatre in Toronto (the only one it's playing in). Where you saw it, was the opening sequence 4:3 and the rest of the film wide or was it all in the same aspect ratio?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:28 AM on October 21, 2009

Yes, the opening sequence was 4:3 for me as well.
posted by ripley_ at 9:40 AM on October 21, 2009

Interesting, YouShouldSee. It never really hit me that nothing bad actually did happen to him until he changed the grade. It was all just threats until that point, at which time all hell broke loose.
posted by schrodycat at 9:47 AM on October 21, 2009

Holy shit, You Should See, you just completely rewired the way I look at that movie. Nicely done.
posted by COBRA! at 9:54 AM on October 21, 2009

YouShouldSee, you've definitely opened my eyes to bits of that movie.

On a basic level, I figured that the people in the opening scene were Larry's ancestors. But after the end of the movie, I turned to my girlfriend and said "That's what it is like to be part of the Tribe." The idea of two thousand years of suffering that continues to be borne. I'm not sure I really agree with my flippant comment, but there is a history in Jewish literature and art of suffering until the End Times. So the two in the opening scene could simply be the metaphorical ancestors of all Jews.
posted by X-Himy at 1:27 PM on October 21, 2009

Thanks, You Should See. I like the move even more now.

Makes me wonder what other movies I ought to have explained to me. Maybe Jumper was awesome...
posted by Moonster at 3:10 PM on October 21, 2009

Just noticed the name of the OP. Funny, considering the Schroedinger's Cat stuff in the movie, which was a metaphor for what happens in the movie--that we can't see what happens until we take action and become part of the experiment.

As for other movies explained, this is one of my favorites. Didn't love Mulholland Drive till it was explained to me. Now I think it's awesome.

And nope, Jumper wasn't awesome. Though I hear they're making a sequel. :)
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 3:37 PM on October 21, 2009