Why is everyone assuming that the cat has a deep meaning?

my friend, the cat is a set of keys that the Coen brothers put in the movie to help us get what's the movie all about.( the cat's name and the scene where jane compares llewyn to Hades) the movie is an adaptation of James Joice's Ulysses

read a bit about the book, the "plot" and how the book is constructed and you will start to see similarities.

in principle you should know that the better the director is the more everything in the movie has a point of being where it is and serves a purpose in the construction of the movie and it's meaning)

Because it's repeatedly foregrounded, saying "Look, see this cat? It's important! Pay attention! Symbolism!".

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it doesnt have a meaning, first the coens dont construct things around meanings, they are not jodorowsky, they have said so themselves, things just come out, no symbolism intended.

secondly they said they put the cat as a way to tie in what was at that point a plotless film, he gives the film a narrative and chronological structure.

For me, The Cat.. and Stark Sands, were the only highlights of this movie.

In a movie filled entirely with muted tones of beige and blue a bright orange cat sticks out like a sore thumb. It's hard to think that the filmmakers don't want us to read in to it. I don't know if it means anything, but it is fun to read in to things like that.

If it were to mean something it might have something about a search for identity and recognition that Llewyn is failing to find. That he mistook another cat for the first cat kind of ties in to it. Llewyn continues to to fail and earn any recognition, in fact what little recognition he gets is due to his dead partner.

Movies like this, there's no trouble trying to read in to things like that cat. We can't be any more certain that it holds some sort of meaning than you are certain that it doesn't.

I remember thinking stuff like this when I was made to analyse literature and films at school. It feels as if people are trying to find meaning into something that isn't there.

Ever since I had a go at writing a novel I've found myself having a greater appreciation of these kind of interpretations.

From a writer's perspective the cat probably came in several drafts in as a strange incident and then developed into something more significant further along. It's unimportant to the actual plot of the story but the cat is there for character development. It just accentuates aspects of Llewyn's character.

Additionally putting stuff like this into stories makes you look smart as a writer.

Or it could be the Coens having fun with the audience by trying to get them to read something significant into something insignificant. It's always fun to see what people read into your work which isn't there but actually makes a lot of sense.

It's the Coen brothers! Assume there are underlying meanings to just about everything in their movies.

No directors/writers worth their paychecks would throw in a cat that carries on through more than one scene without it meaning something relevant, anyway...

Sometimes when you go too deep, you drown.

Yeah, the cat's a cat. I'm reminded of the end of Stardust Memories and the line "I think the Rolls Royce represented his car."


The cat just provided a good thread through the story. "Is that what you care about, the cat?" Llewyn can't get anything right, but he so desperately doesn't want to lose the precious pet of the only people who seem to accept him for who he is. Lew can't seem to bond with anything or anyone, but we get shades of Harry and Tonto with the wrong cat on a road trip. But when it comes time to commit, Llewyn doesn't take the cat with him, and the cat doesn't seem too anxious to get out of the car. I think the cat knew he might be better off in a deserted car.

It also seems that someone had the old folk song "The Cat Came Back" in mind while creating this movie. In the song, the owner doesn't want the cat but it keeps coming back. Well, in the movie Llewyn is the cat no one wants—but dang it, he keeps coming back.

And if anyone wants to find similarities to another movie, I'd look to Five Easy Pieces.

For things represented in this movie, I'd suggest that Joe Flom is modelled on Peter Schickele.




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