Without warning, fate’s blows start raining down on Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a small university in the American Midwest. What is God trying to tell him? The Coen brothers’ black comedy draws on their own personal memories of a childhood spent in the Jewish community and the academic world of 1960s Minneapolis.
"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.” For the new film – or rather for its protagonist – the Coen brothers could not have chosen a more apt quotation than this bit of wisdom from medieval French rabbi Rashi. That’s because Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a Midwestern university, finds himself in a Job-like situation – fate’s blows mount up for no apparent reason and his once safe little world begins to fall apart. Why, God? Larry isn’t the first or the last to ask heaven a similar question, but neither God nor the Coen brothers respond. Set in the familiar world and time of their childhood, A Serious Man appears to be the sibling duo’s most personal picture to date. The academic environment of 1960s Minneapolis and the local Jewish community are the venues for "a tale of woe [...] that keeps you wondering if the punch line, when it comes, will make you laugh or want to kill yourself, or both.” (David Edelstein).
106 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
/ Screenplay Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
/ Dir. of Photography Roger Deakins
/ Music Carter Burwell
/ Editor Roderick Jaynes
/ Producer Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
/ Production Working Title Films, Ltd.
/ Cast Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, Peter Breitmayer, Brent Braunschweig
/ Contact Palace Pictures, Blue Sky Film Distribution, a.s., Focus Features
/ Distributor Blue Sky Film Distribution, a.s.
Joel (b. 1954, Minneapolis) and Ethan (b. 1957, Minneapolis) Coen make up a one-of-a-kind creative team: until recently they were both credited with their scripts, with Joel cited as director and Ethan as producer. Beginning with The Ladykillers, however, they have both taken credit for writing, direction, and production. They are noted for larger-than-life variations on classic genres, which they push to the point of absurdity. Filmography: Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991, Palme d’Or at Cannes), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Fargo (1995, Oscar for Best Screenplay), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001, Best Director at Cannes), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), The Ladykillers (2004, Jury Prize for Irma P. Hall at Cannes), No Country for Old Men (2007, Oscars for Best Film, Director, and Screenplay), Burn After Reading (2008).
Palace Pictures
Vodičkova 19, 110 00, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 210 083 527
Fax: +420 224 239 162
E-mail: [email protected]
Blue Sky Film Distribution, a.s.
Sněmovní 9, 118 00, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 224 222 398
E-mail: [email protected]
Focus Features
100 Universal City Plaza, CA 91608, Los Angeles
United States of America
Phone: +1 818 777 1000
E-mail: [email protected]
Andrea Machalíková
Other
Richard Signeski
Buyer, Buyer
Milan Dostál
Distributor, Service Company Rep.
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