A Cat's Tale: Why Those Three Moggies Are The Heart And Soul of Inside Llewyn Davis.

"Ulysses" in a scene from Inside Llewyn Davis

As you probably already know from my previous post I am a bit of a fan of the Coen's latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis. To be honest, I was completely predisposed to loving both the film and Llewyn after seeing the trailer way back in May last year in which a cat, a ginger tom rather similar to my own, played a major role. While the film has divided critics, praise for the cat (or more precisely the three cats used in the film) has been unanimous. McGuffin, plot device or light relief, the significance of the cat in Inside Llewyn Davis has become a bit of an internet hot topic since the film's release. At the Cannes film festival where the film debuted last year, winning the Grand Prix, Joel Coen joked "The film doesn't really have a plot, that concerned us at one point; that's why we threw the cat in." but then the Coens have never been ones to shed light on their work in interviews. Steve Rose in The Guardian argues that the cat is a blatant "save the cat" device from Blake Snyder's screen writing guide, designed to make our obnoxious hero more sympathetic, albeit with a Coen meta-twist. Less charitable bloggers have dismissed the cat as a "puddle deep" symbol for Llewyn himself. 

For those of you who haven't seen the film, it might be best to come back to this post when you have. The fact that talking about the cat in Inside Llewyn Davis requires the discussion of a number of plot spoilers, in itself tells you how essential the cat is to the story and character of Llewyn  Near the beginning of the film, Llewyn wakes up to find a ginger tom sitting on his chest. He has crashed at the house of a couple of  Academic friends/benefactors, The Gorfeins, and the cat belongs to them. When Llewyn leaves the apartment, the cat escapes and the door locks behind them. Llewyn tries to leave the cat with the elevator attendant but when he refuses, he takes the cat with him to friends Greenwich Village, on the subway no less, where he hopes to be able to stay. Rather than a plot contrivance, the fact that Llewyn takes the cat with him tells us two important things about his character - an ego driven need to control situations (even those beyond his control) and a subconscious desire to take care of something other than himself, even if he seems incapable of it. The following day the cat escapes from his friends' apartment through an open window adding to Llewyn's myriad of problems. After falling out with his friends Jean & Jim,  Jean brings Llewyn's things to a local coffee shop. Their conversation quickly descends into acrimony as Jean is pregnant and suspects Llewyn is the father. Llewyn patronises her about her "square" pretensions to family and commercial success but abruptly runs out of the cafe when he spies a ginger cat on the street. It's ironic that Llewyn breaks off his big speech about artistry over compromise to retrieve the cat - more specifically what Llewyn believes to be a house cat - that great symbol of domesticity. Could it be that Llewyn's actions betray his real priorities? 

Returning the cat to the Gorfeins that evening, an emotional scene erupts when Llewyn is asked to perform one of the songs from the album he made with his late partner. During the fall out a distraught Mrs Gorfein discovers that the cat that Llewyn is a female stray - not their beloved male.  Is this a further example of Llewyn's careless disregard for sex - not only in terms of gender but also in the wider sense - having got both Jean and a former girlfriend pregnant? It turns out that the cat Llewyn grabbed was not the representative of home and hearth that he had hoped for, but a drifter like himself. 

For better or worse, Llewyn is now tied to this new feline and so takes her with him on his trip to Chicago on the hope of being signed by a producer there. Llewyn is sharing a ride with an unpleasant jazz musician, who turns out to have a drug problem, and his driver. When the driver is pulled over and arrested three hours out of Chicago, Llewyn is left keyless in the car with the comatose jazzman. In one of the film's most poignant moments, Llewyn hesitates before leaving the cat behind, hitchhiking the rest of the way to Chicago in the punishing snow. If the cat was really a Snyder device to allow the audience to see Llewyn's softer side, this scene would seem to negate that. Arguably Llewyn is doing the cat a favour, not taking her out on the cold dangerous road with him, but leaving her in the car also consigns her to an uncertain future. On a symbolic level, personal commitment is here sacrificed for artistic endeavour as Llewyn heads off to The Gate of Horn - a real Chicago folk venue but also the first of several telling references to Homer. As in the Odyssey, this audition turns out to be a dream not of horn but ivory - a false dream - or at least not the dream of unqualified success that Llewyn was after. In typical petulant fashion, Llewyn throws away the opportunity that he is offered. 

Llewyn hitch hikes back to New York defeated. Taking his turn at the wheel while his driver sleeps, Llewyn is tempted to turn off towards the sparkling lights of Akron, where, he has recently discovered, an ex-girlfriend lives with the two year old child who he didn't know he had. Llewyn resists the "siren song" of normal family life in Akron and drives on. Also on this journey back, the car hits an animal on the dark road. Llewyn finds blood on the bumper and then spies the shadow of a cat limping off into the forest. Although this is clearly not the cat which Llewyn abandoned, the accident pours new guilt on to old. The cat is injured but struggles on into the wilderness, its fate hanging, not unlike the elliptical ending which the Coens have in store for Llewyn. 

Back in New York, Llewyn finds no welcome with his own family and having nowhere else to go,  calls on the Gorfeins, who warmly invite him back into their home. He is surprised to find that their cat has made it back to their apartment by himself. The cat's name is revealed to be Ulysses, which surprises Llewyn even more. On the way to his gig at the Gaslight, Llewyn stops outside a cinema which is showing the film "The Incredible Journey", the story of three pets (one cat and two dogs) who travelled 200 miles to get back to their owners. Inside Llewyn Davis is set in 1961, two years before The Incredible Journey was released so this is obviously a deliberate anachronism. Ulysses the cat has been on his own odyssey/incredible journey from the Village back up to the Upper East Side - a lesson to Llewyn in faith and finding your way "home" or a reminder that the journey is long and hard but not impossible - like a career in music. 

The appearance of three separate cats in Inside Llewyn Davis would seem to suggest that seeing them as somehow representative of Llewyn himself and/or his soul is an oversimplification. The cats can be interpreted any number of ways and this, is probably the directors' intention, given that they give the film a typically bittersweet yet open ended finale. Viewers who want concrete answers will be frustrated by this, but then that is not the Coen's style. At his audition in Chicago, the producer (cannily played by F. Murray Abraham) talks favourably of a rival act, noting how he "connects"with people and therefore implying that Llewyn does not.  For all his selfishness and short sightedness though, Llewyn does want to connect and we see this in his relationship with the cats. 

Cat lovers will have a lot to savour in the film  (the scene in the subway where Ulysses, hooked over Llewyn's shoulder, is transfixed by the stations rattling past, is a gem) inspiring many of them to contribute to the online discourse on the film. In January, Jen Girdish wrote an particularly good piece for The Morning News, entitled Giving up the cat, which interweaves her critical response to Inside Llewyn Davis with her very personal experience as both a writer and a cat owner. Just under a month ago my own ginger "Ulysses" passed away and I did think twice about seeing the film, fearing that it would only serve to open a very recent wound. I shouldn't have worried. If anything Inside Llewyn Davis reminds us of what all knowing, resourceful companions cats are and that no matter how short our time with them is, they leave an indelible mark on our lives.