Your Stage : Who was the Man who Wasn't There? by Chris McClure

My take on this Coen Brothers film: “What kind of man are you?” This is the unanswerable question put to Ed Crane more than once in the Coen brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There. Ed Crane, aptly named on account of his attempt to reach up beyond his situation, can’t answer the question very well. He wants out of his humdrum situation, but doesn’t know quite how to do it. He married into the hair cutting business, just as the Texaco attendant in No Country for Old Men married into his situation. Both characters have allowed fate to have its way with them rather than taking charge themselves. Ed Crane, though, has decided that enough is enough. He’s going to look for a new Ed Crane. He will no longer sit passively while his wife carries on an affair with her boss. But when Ed finally does get around to doing something, he doesn’t have much subtlety and fire. His attempt to escape is almost as impassive as his ordinary routine. Ed, as we know, fails. But he is still in search of some sort of contact with greatness, and he thinks he’s spied it in a neighbor’s daughter. Ed is going to get Birdie out of the doldrums and set her on a path to international stardom with her piano playing. If Ed can’t get out, at least Birdie can, and he’ll know he did something with his life. Birdie, though, wants to take care of birds and isn’t much interested in becoming a concert pianist. The more experienced teacher in San Francisco agrees – Birdie doesn’t have what it takes. Ed winds up in jail and dead for something he didn’t do. A foreshadowing echo of the refrain from “A Serious Man” – I didn’t do anything. Ed hasn’t done anything. He wants to, but he doesn’t have it in him. What kind of man is he? An ordinary man. In looking for something extraordinary in himself, he is looking for the man who wasn’t there. http://americanfilmtheory.com/2012/11/23/who-is-the-man-who-wasnt-there/