MovieChat Forums > A Serious Man (2009) Discussion > The story about the dentist

The story about the dentist

posted 8 years ago by davidandrews27
3 replies | jump to latest

If you've watched a lot of Coen Brothers and are reasonably literate, you know they lift a lot of stuff without, um, attribution.

My question: does anybody remember reading a version of the mid-plot story about the dentist who finds a Hebrew phrase seemingly inscribed on the backs of a patient's front teeth?

I could swear that, a few years before the movie, I read this in an article by a writer on medical-psychological oddities, someone along the lines of Oliver Sacks. I remember reading that, as in the film, the dentist went on an obsessive search for other inscriptions on other patients' teeth.

Am I correct, or am I hallucinating this?

[–] hnewstadt 8 years ago

I believe it is based on a German concentration camp guard later living in the US and a Jewish dentist prisoner.

[–] KutWrite (1317) 7 years ago

No, but there seemed to be several strong Talmudic and Kabbalistic references throughout. This includes the "dybbuk" concept at the beginning.

I don't think it was a coincidence that Marshak, the mystical seer at the end, had a huge model of human teeth in his office. Danny goes right by it as he approaches Marshak.

There's another concept here: The succession of Rabbis who only offer Larry meaningless platitudes to his legitimate and important questions. I believe the story is told from the POV of Danny, not Larry. I certainly formed the same impression of Rabbinic "wisdom" when I was Bar MItzvah age, if not before.

Maybe THAT is what signifies spiritual adulthood!

[–] KutWrite (1317) 5 years ago

I had similar impressions of Rabbinic advice.

The ones I met certainly had feet of clay. There was one who was almost saint-like, though I never got advice from him, he lived an apparently exemplary life. HE was the one accused of all kinds of drek to get him to leave the congregation, because he wouldn't kowtow to and condone actions of the high-up mucky-mucks in the Temple. THAT was a different kind of lesson for me.