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Was Uncle Arthur A Dybbuk? Did He Draw The Storm?


We see in the first scene that a Dybbuk can appear in the form of a blood relative, and that it likes to be invited into a person's home (or life). It is implied that if a dybbuk is not dealt with and driven out swiftly then it will bring misfortune on the household.

Like most people, I first saw Uncle Arthur as being nothing more than a one-dimensional background comedy character. I never expected to see him onscreen, thinking he would remain forever in the toilet.

After some depth and even anguish was introduced to his character, though, I felt a lot of sympathy for him. Now I'm starting to wonder if he was the cause of Larry's downfall. We don't know when he first moved in with the family, or why, but obviously Judith didn't immediately call him a dybbuk and kill him like the peasant woman did in the first scene. Larry stood by him despite the problems he caused as well. They were passive, whereas the woman in the first scene actively drove the dybbuk from the home.

Arthur's Mentaculus seemed almost like an occult or demonic book more than a maths formula (though advanced maths is pretty occult in and of itself). We are shown that it gives Arthur certain powers - to win at gambling, but it must surely have deeper uses and significance than that? Seems like he spent his whole life working on it.

Anyway, in the scene where Arthur complains about his life - "Hashem gave me bupkiss!" - he expresses resentment of Larry's family life and job, and even curses God. Larry, though largely secular-minded, is shocked and tells him not to talk that way - presumably because it would anger God.

Larry loses all the things that Arthur resented him having - his wife, his home, his job is placed in serious jeopardy, and at the end it seems his kids might be killed too. The doctor's phone call hints that Larry himself has a very serious illness and will probably die. Did Arthur, knowingly or not, call down this doom on his brother's head through his resentment? Was he the dybbuk who brought misfortune on the House of Gopkin?

"Dybbuk never eat."

We see Arthur leave a meal uneaten at one point (too busy in the bathroom) but we also see him drinking some kind of milk or supplement at another point, so I'm not sure. A red herring maybe.
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What an interesting interpretation! It sounds possible and would explain all of Larry's misfortunes. In the dvd extras the Coens did explain the story at the beginning of the film was in no way related to the final story but I think your idea tie the two together nicely.

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I hope I'm right, but if the Coen's have said the two stories are unrelated then I suppose we have to take them at their word.

Mind you, they do like playing games and having a laugh with the public at times, like making out that Fargo was a true story, and claiming in an interview around the time of "The Man Who Wasn't There" that there is no moral content to any of their work - I think they said that: "Characters in our movies don't get their just deserts, they get their aesthetic deserts." Which isn't always quite true.

Glad you liked the theory anyway MovieBuff.
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It doesn't matter if the Coens said the two stories are unrelated. Sometimes an artist simply doesn't see everything they've assembled. I think "Arthur as Dybbuk" is a perfectly valid theory.

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Thanks Dennis. I wonder what they'd say about that reading of it, but I would be surprised if they hadn't thought of it themselves already.

Wouldn't mind seeing a whole movie from them set in a European shtetl either, with a supernatural theme, like an expansion of that first scene.
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Sometimes an artist simply doesn't see everything they've assembled.

Indeed, Authorial intent is always subject to limitation, especially in collaborative work.

"W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley wrote in their essay The Intentional Fallacy: "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

So I'm quite pleased with the analysis here, great work Flanged.

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[deleted]

I like this interp. for it's originality and plausibility..
Arthur was a Dybbuk in effect to Larry whether or not he was intended as such.
I doubt there's a definitive answer here or anywhere which may be why the Coen canon will live on...like Shakespeare their work is endlessly interpretive..
As for Arthur drawing the storm the same applies..





He didn't look busy...

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I have a thought experiment about this theory.

Larry's dream, where he helps Arthur to move on (to Canada I assume?) and become independent, and then is killed immediately. I wonder if it's illustrative of this theory or at-least theme in some way.

I just read that a dybbuk only clings to a life form (Larry) until it has achieved its goal or is helped in some way.

So in the dream, once Arthur (in dybbuk form) is helped, he moves on from his pseudo-life clinging to Larry and is killed quite shockingly. However, it could be interpreted as finally reaching the afterlife.
Or perhaps more convincingly, Arthur's sailing off is his journey to the afterlife but it is horrifically interrupted by Larry's preoccupation with his real-life 'sins'.
Larry's paranoia and seemingly prejudiced ways towards his neighbors make it into a nightmare. (Larry has no overt proof to be skeptical of them, it could be said that he has no 'faith')

Also is Arthur shot in his dybbuk; his neck cyst? Or perhaps I'm just contrived after having pulled an all-nighter...

Another interesting concept from your theory, is that Arthur is in-fact already dead from health complications before having moved in with Larry, as in keeping with the dybbuk portrayal in the first scene.

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This is a really interesting and well written analysis. I'm looking forward to watching the movie again after reading this. Thanks!

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He's also got the constant abscess on the back of his head. In the dream he is shot in the head.

Maybe the dream means Larry thinks Arthur is a dybbuk, or that he actually is a dybbuk. Either way it seems related.

Good analysis! Not sure if it's what the whole movie was about, as there seem to be some other themes, or some overarching theme to do with probability and the nature of the universe or something. But it certainly makes sense to me as a mechanism used to deliver those other themes.

I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe

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This very neat interpretation would add to the tragic arc of Larry -- the kindness and loyalty (or passivity?) to his brother is what damns him.


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I think the Coens just tried to tell that they aren't sure themselves, to express their annoyance for the unknown, to remind us in an artistic way. And I think that is the whole point of the movie, that no religion is required, yet as humans we tend to cling to ideology.

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The word "Dybbuk" comes from the Hebrew word דִּיבּוּק dibbūq which means "the act of sticking" and is a nominal form derived from the verb דָּבַק dāḇaq "to adhere" or "cling".

In the first scenes of the movie, who is the most evil person you see? Is it the happy-go-lucky man who was coming home, the old man who helped him with his broken wagon wheel, or the woman who kills the old man because she heard through word of mouth that he had died and she was scared he was a "dybbuk"?

How does she kill the old man? She "sticks" him with an ice pick. In other words, "the act of sticking".

If you ask me, the "Dybbuk" in the story at the beginning was actually the wife. After all, what is more evil than killing someone who just helped you?

Going even deeper, who is the second most evil person in the whole movie? Is it not the woman who cheats on her husband because she has decided she wants to to marry Sy instead (completely reneging on her wedding vows), and kicks her husband out of his own house to make room for her new lover?

The movie seems to be painting the "Dibbuks" as the wives in the tale.

Tempting as it may be to interpret it that way, I don't think that's actually the point of the movie, though.

Ultimately, Larry has nobody but himself to blame for his spot in life. Regardless of the demons or angels around him, he is almost entirely passive. That's his real problem. He just naively accepts life as it is handed to him, without ever putting his foot down. He lets everyone walk all over him, and he seeks platitudes handed to him by useless rabbis instead of growing some balls and telling people to "*beep* off".

The reality is that Larry is surrounded by Dibbuks. Nobody in his family gives a *beep* about him. Not his wife, not his kids. Not his *beep* neighbor who keeps trying to steal his property to build a shed on top of. Not his lawyers. Not even his rabbis.

There's actually only one person who is nice to Larry in the whole movie without judging him, and that's his attractive, weed-smoking female neighbor. In this allegory, she represents his most selfish desires, and the only real glimpse of him growing some balls and acting in his own best interests.

At the end of the movie, we see the futility and pointlessness of it all. Despite all of his attempts to play by the book and be a "good guy", Larry gets a very bad call (presumably), and we watch as a giant tornado sweeps toward his son's school, where it will most likely kill many children.

This feels like a very nihilistic message to me. This doesn't surprise me, however, as nihilism (the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless) plays a part in a number of the Coen brothers movies. It's even mentioned explicitly in their cult classic "The Big Lebowski".

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Very well said!

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As I pointed out in another thread, if you follow the logic, such as it is, in this movie, Arthur is responsible for setting off the entire chain of events that end the movie by going into the “North Dakota,” despite the fact that, like Larry, he claims he “didn’t do anything.”

Larry decided to change Clive’s grade from an F to a C- because the legal fees to defend Arthur finally pushed him over the edge compelling him to keep the bribe. It’s inferred this sin is what set off the cataclysmic events of a tornado bearing down upon his son and a call from his doctor inferring some kind of dire diagnosis from his x-rays simultaneously.

If Arthur’d just stayed out of the “North Dakota,” the rest of Larry’s life would’ve probably been significantly different. There were signs his relationship with his wife were on the mend, he was probably going to get tenure, and Sy was finally out of the picture.

Maybe Arthur really was the dybbuk!

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