Well, there I go again. In my last post, how could I have forgotten Uncle Arthur's cussing like a sailor, sitting on the steps of the dried up Jolly Roger motel pool, while Larry is trying to minister to him--at first just trying to get him not to cuss?
When Larry requests that Arthur not use the word "shit" ("Arthur, don't use that word!") Arthur, who is having an emotional breakdown, then says "fucking shit," as in "It's all fucking shit!" If you've ever been in a similar situation with a relative or friend, you may have felt like just fleeing, or hiding, or leaving him or her alone and trying to go back to bed. Or just starting to cuss right back at 'em. I've felt that way, all those ways. So I was quite emotionally moved by Larry hanging in there and talking to Arthur and finally putting his arms around him after he, Arthur, goes from profane shouting to crying ("Now, I can't even play cards.").
Two previous scenes related to this one come to mind. First, when he is talking with the woman in leg braces at the lake about Arthur, Larry says "He never complains, unlike me." Whoops. Beware of freeloaders who never complain? Second, Sy, in the three-way meeting at Embers restaurant (where the non-beautiful people apparently gather), in telling Larry of the advantages of the Jolly Roger, mentions that it has a pool. There we have another example of how Sy's words don't match up too well with reality: yes, the Jolly Roger has a pool, but, even though summer is beginning, there's no water in it and it appears not to have been used in a long time.
In Larry's "Canada" dream, Arthur apologizes for his poolside outburst of the previous night as he's paddling away in the canoe. Larry says, "It's okay," a repetitive line of his in the movie. Of course we don't know at the time that this scene is a dream. After little Mitch Brandt does his high-powered rifle thing, Larry wakes up and Arthur is sitting on the side of his own bed with his back to Larry. Dazed and confused by the dream and lack of sleep, Larry asks, "Were we...out by the pool last night?" Arthur nods without saying anything but, significantly, and matching up with the dream, then says "I'm sorry."
My introduction to Jewish uncles was a story called "Sleeping Arrangements" by Laura Cunningham, published in The New Yorker on July 17, 1989. From an Internet search, I see that the writer's full name is Laura Shaine Cunningham, and that the story I thought was fiction is actually an excerpt from her 1989 memoir. Having read that wonderful little story (the excerpt) certainly helps me to enjoy and relate to and better understand A Serious Man.
