A SERIOUS MAN
Written by
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
June 4th, 2007
White letters on a black screen:
Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.-RASHI
FADE IN:
AGAINST BLACK: SNOWFLAKES
The flakes drift lazily down toward us. Our angle looks straight
up.
Now an angle looking steeply down: the snow falls not quite dead
away to collect on a
foreground chimneypot and on the little shtetl street that lies
maplike below us.
It is night, and quiet, and the street is deserted except for
one man who walks away from
us, his valenki squeaking in the fresh snow. He carries bundled
branches on one shoulder
and has a hatchet tucked into his belt.
We cut down to street level. The man walks toward us, bearded,
and bundled against the
cold. Smiling, he mutters in Yiddish-the dialogue subtitled.