The Real-Life Inspiration:
For the character of Llewyn Davis, the Coens took their inspiration from Dave Van Ronk, a legendary folk musician who, like Davis, played the New York coffee house circuit. They straight up took scenes from Van Ronk's biography and put them in the movie, such as when he tries to rejoin the merchant marines but realizes he's missing his seaman's papers or his painful audition for the '60s folk equivalent of Simon Cowell. On top of that, Van Ronk had an album titled Inside Dave Van Ronk, whose cover looked like this:
Prestige/Folklore
CBS Films They were worried Dave Van Ronk fans wouldn't get all the other references if this didn't have the right font.
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