Went to see the Coen brothers’ film, ‘Inside Llewyn Davies’ a couple of weeks back and was very disappointed. However, on the good side, I was introduced to Dave Van Ronk – the folk singer the film is supposedly based on. Unlike the movie’s miserable loser the original was an articulate, brilliant, amusing and very influential musician. His autobiography, The Mayor of MacDougall Street’, is the best book I’ve read about the folk scene (American anyway) packed full of anecdotes based mostly in Greenwich Village during the Sixties. He knew just about everybody – Dylan, Ochs, Paxton, Baez, Mitchell, Seeger, etc – and has many insights on their exploits during those formative years. He’s also very down-to-earth and informative – the book being completed by Elijah Wald (a brilliant writer on the history of the blues) after Dave’s sudden death in 2002.

Going back to the film – the main character is not only a pale shadow of the real man (who spends half the film being screamed at by a supposed ex-girlfriend that he’s a ‘fucking loser’) but Greenwich Village is also portrayed as drab and boring in the early Sixties which was totally the opposite of the truth. DVR says many times in his book that they were well aware that the times were ‘a-changing’ socially, culturally and politically, yet none of this excitement is transmitted. A big shame Coen brothers, and boo to you. My only consolation was that the cinema was virtually empty when we went and I’ve heard others had a similar experience – so it looks like this travesty will sink without trace.