Yes, friends, I have completely lost my mind. I am taking academic classes in Depth Psychology. Teachers have assigned papers and I am writing them.
For my first paper, I chose to revisit the delights of the Coen Brothers film A Serious Man.
To meet the teacher’s criteria, I had to analyze the movie using concepts from C.G. Jung.
To meet my own criteria, and to have a wicked bit of fun, I focused on the secret untranslated Hebrew details in the movie. The kind of details that deeply enrich the movie, but go over the heads of all but the “bull’s eye” of the target audience.
Magically, I connected the Hebrew details with Jung’s concepts, and voila! A paper.
Here’s the introduction:
Using the tools of Hebrew language and Jungian concepts, it is possible to read the movie A Serious Man as an allegory of positive psycho-spiritual growth. In this dark comedy, produced in 2009 by the Coen Brothers, a well-meaning American Jewish man tries to make sense of the challenges of midlife. Although the tools of his religious tradition fail him, the transcendent function of his own psyche propels him forwards as he dreams, integrates shadow material, and evolves his image of God. Larry thus provides a successful model of what C.G. Jung has called the individuation process, adult maturation into a unique, psychologically integrated person (Jacobi, 1959).
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Ha! If you saw the movie, bet you didn’t think Larry could be seen so positively! Read on below for more…
And if you didn’t see the movie, you should! In the meantime, read on for a plot summary…
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Larry Gopnik is a serious man. As we say in Yiddish, he is a mentsch, a good person who tries to do the right thing. Larry lives the American Jewish dream of the 1960s. He marries a nice Jewish girl, earns a Ph.D. in physics, takes a job as an assistant professor, buys a new suburban home, raises a girl and a boy, takes care of his unhealthy brother, and supports the synagogue.
Larry’s serious pursuit of stability cannot protect him from change. Just as the university tenure committee is considering Larry’s case, his student Clive offers him a bribe in exchange for a passing grade. His wife Judith leaves him for Sy Abelman – a man as phony as Larry is serious. His sick brother Arthur, who lives with him, gets into trouble. His own health problems begin to surface.
Larry copes in the only way he knows: he continues to meet family expectations, no matter how outrageous they are. But his coping only makes things worse.
Larry wonders, “Why?”
His friend says, “Turn to our religious tradition!”
The young Rabbi Scott says, “Look, I have problems, too. I am the junior rabbi, no one respects me, and I have to look out the window at the parking lot all day. I am working on seeing God in the parking lot. You should try it, too.”
Larry wonders, “What message should I be seeing?”
The middle-aged Rabbi Nachtner says, “There is no message. Life is absurd. Nothing means anything. I can even say that Sy Abelman is a mentsch – a serious man. Who cares?”
Larry says, “But I believe the world is rational. Even though my explanation isn’t fully worked out, I am still accountable to the structure of reality.”
Larry’s lawyer says, “Let us just deal with each thing as it comes.”
Larry tries desperately to set up a meeting with the elder sage Rabbi Marshak, but the rabbi refuses to see him.
Meanwhile, Larry’s 13 year-old son Danny has problems of his own. While preparing at Hebrew Day School for his bar mitzvah, Danny listens to the Jefferson Airplane on his transistor radio. His teacher confiscates the radio, which also holds the money Danny owes the class bully for marijuana. On the bar mitzvah day, however, a very stoned Danny reads beautifully from the Torah scroll.
Danny’s bar mitzvah earns him an audience with Rabbi Marshak. Rabbi Marshak returns the transistor radio, slightly misquoting lyrics from the Jefferson Airplane. “When the truth is found to be lies, and all the hope within you dies: then what? Be a good boy.”
Larry is awarded tenure, accepts the bribe, and receives an ominous phone call from his medical doctor. Danny’s classroom is evacuated due to a tornado warning. And there the movie ends, hinting that the trials of life continue.
Click here for the rest of the paper — aka my Hebraic-Jungian analysis. Scroll to the section titled “Dream Interpretation.”
