Joe Swanberg as Tim in LOL, Swanberg, Bewersdorf, Wells, 2006
I: Apologia
Why Swanberg? Why now?
Blame it on my snark.
In January, in the midst of some armchair commentary on the
2009 Sundance Film Festival, I noted Mr. Joe Swanberg’s pronouncements at a
press breakfast at which IFC announced a partnership with the film arm of South
By Southwest, in which IFC would provide VOD screenings of varied SXSW
premieres simultaneous to those films’ screenings at the festival. One of the
films is the latest from Swanberg, the young filmmaker whose works (frequently
tagged as components of a not-quite movement dubbed “Mumblecore”) are noted for their improvisational “realism” and the unusual candor of their depictions of sexual
matters (e.g., Swanberg himself and varied other members of his casts engage in
unsimulated sex acts therein). Swanberg’s musings on where the “interest” in
his films began and ended solicited this rejoinder from your correspondent: “I think I
speak for myself, and for many others, that when I hear about a new Swanberg
picture my first question is “Does he show his schlong in it?” and if
the answer is “Yes,” my “interest” shrivels up like a
Pac-Man that’s just gotten it from Inky, Winky, Blinky AND Sue.”
Now, those who know me even slightly, or read this blog with
some regularity, probably understand that when it comes to cheap jokes I pretty
much have no superego. And my Swanberg joke was pretty cheap. But it elicited
some impassioned defenses of Swanberg’s work from, at first, Craig Keller, a
cinephile of great passion and erudition and one of the more forceful and
tenacious arguers I know. I hadn’t been aware that Craig was such a, as I put
it, “Swanbergian.” I was aware that at least one other formidable film writer
on the Internet, Dan Sallitt, held Swanberg’s work in pretty high esteem. With
Keller on his side, a potential front was coalescing. My post also received
some intelligent comments from Tom Russell, a young independent filmmaker who’s
both a Swanberg fan and associate.
If I’m going to come out and say that I for the most part
reject the work that Joe Swanberg has put his name on thus far, it occurs to me
that individuals such as Keller and Russell are entitled to some fuller
accounting. I also wanted to take up a kind of formal challenge: to construct
a rejection of Swanberg that would avoid the sort of snark I used in the
above-mentioned Sundance post, and steer clear of the too-easy ad hominem attacks that Swanberg (some would say rather
bravely) leaves himself open to. Before doing so, it’s incumbent on
me, with my old-school journalistic ethics and all, to lay some cards on
the table.
II: Caveat
I’ve only met Joe Swanberg on one occasion, and the
encounter was not unpleasant. But I have never found his public persona
particularly appealing. (We’ll get to his performing persona soon enough.)
Like several of the main characters in his films, he seems to sport a perpetual
half-smirk that’s rather grating. He always struck me as a bit of a, well,
fraud; a smarter-than-average collegiate jock, perhaps, who figured out that
picking up a camcorder was a good way to meet hot art chicks. I understand that
the facts of his biography don’t support this perception, and some might argue
that his work ethic (he’s put together five features in as many years; done two
web-based video series, one still ongoing; he acts and does technical work in
seemingly scores of micro-indies) obliterates the notion he’s a fraud. Still. There’s my bias.
Other things you might believe germane to the spirit of full
disclosure: I did have something of an on-line dustup with Swanberg over at the
Spout blog; I made some remarks about what I considered the irredeemably
insipid nature of his web series Butterknife, and he responded by naming a post
“Glennkenny Glen Ross.” (Which, like, you know, really blew my fucking mind,
because, you know, I’d never heard THAT one before.) I am friendly with Aaron
Hillis and Andrew Grant, who run Benten Films, which released the DVD of
Swanberg and co.’s LOL. (As it happens I believe that LOL is Swanberg’s
strongest work; that assertion, I allow, might look funny next to the above
admission.) I appeared as a performer in a short film that Hillis directed for
an abortive web anthology of shorts initiated and subsequently, I suppose,
abandoned by Swanberg. Please believe me when I say I don’t care about that, to
the extent that it took me a good amount of brain-racking to even recall it.
I once attended a party that was also attended by Greta
Gerwig, who has collaborated on three films with Swanberg. Swanberg and I have
51 Facebook friends in common. (Man, Bosley Crowther never had these kind of
issues, did he?) That is all, I think.
III: Non-Theoretical Phallus: Kissing on the Mouth
Swanberg’s first feature, 2005’s Kissing on the Mouth, made
shortly after he received a BA in film from Southern Illinois University, is
the most sexually explicit feature Swanberg has made to date, and hence, a good
place to take on one of Craig Keller’s points. Keller insists that Swanberg’s “sex-scenes have something true,
honest, funny, brash, and sincere to say about sexuality on film,” and that the
heat he (Swanberg) takes for them stems from “some My Phallic Camera
sub-theoretical basis.” Keller believes that Swanberg’s work in this area could
fuel “an entire panel discussion [pertaining to] what/how/when/whether that
camera or the cinema can or should show with regard to sex/violence, with
regard to a narrative-construct around it.”
“It’s a question,” Keller insists, “that Swanberg has been
implicitly posing from Kissing on the Mouth to Young American Bodies…which I
find has much, MUCH less to do with ‘provocation’ for its own sake than
plumbing down to the well of an aesthetic question that, as far as I’m
concerned, has barely anything to do with any morality beyond the emotions of
the actors.”
Pace Keller, but one doesn’t need any
theoretical basis, “sub” or not, to detect the presence of a phallic camera in
KOTM. It’s right there, trying to make an abstraction out of the way Kris
Williams’ character trims her pubic hair with a scissor, then trying really hard
not to lose it as it lingers long and hard on Kate Winterich tending her
sparser thatch with a razor in the shower. Yes, people trim the hair around
their private parts, and why shouldn’t that be something we can show in cinema?
Point taken. On the other hand, just what the fuck are you looking at, buddy?
Things come to a head when…okay, okay, sorry, I said I wouldn’t resort to such cheap shots. Ahem. Let’s continue.
The film’s centerpiece is a shower scene in which
Swanberg’s character, Patrick, masturbates, alternating fantasizing about
having sex with his roommate Ellen (Winterich) and her friend Laura (Williams,
later to become the real-life Mrs. Swanberg). Most of KOTM is shot in handheld from a relatively
objective perspective, such that, without the sex, the film could pass for a
documentary about a particularly dull group of post-collegiates. But in this
scene, its masturbation unsimulated and performed to completion, we are
actually taken inside of Patrick’s mind. We see him pawing and kissing Laura’s
breasts, then Kate’s, and we see him furiously beating off. What all this is
for, we don’t know. The sudden switch from an objective to subjective
perspective doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know; that Patrick is strongly
attracted to Ellen and more ambivalently attracted to Laura has already been
established. It doesn’t create suspense; the picture, up until this point, hasn’t
been about whether Patrick will end up with Ellen or Laura; it hasn’t really
been about much of anything. So what’s this scene for/about? Even if we discount whatever
personal motives Swanberg had for conceiving, shooting and editing the scene in
this fashion, the inevitable conclusion is not encouraging.
Is the “implicit question” Keller mentions posed here? Yes.
But it’s inextricable from a literally balls-out assertion of male privilege.
Why anybody would find this off-putting I have no idea. (Another such assertion, more cannily played, occurs at the climax of 2008’s Nights and Weekends, wherein Swanberg’s character withholds sex from Gerwig’s.)
IV: The Slackness
Keller says he often finds the performers in Swanberg’s
pictures “magnificent.” Tom Russell cites a scene from Hannah Takes The Stairs as
particularly moving, indeed, “the best moment” in Swanberg’s work. “The scene
in which Gerwig’s Hannah and one of her suitors are discussing his medication
for his depression, and then Hannah explains that she doesn’t want to use him,
that he’s a person and so she doesn’t want to use him (or something along those
lines, I’m paraphrasing)…the self-consciousness on display, the acute
self-awareness, it’s palpable and moving. ”
Here is a case where agreeing to disagree just won’t do. I particularly do not see what Russell sees, and the reason I don’t see it is, I insist, that it’s not
really there. That is, the self-consciousness is there. But not of these
half-formed characters. It’s of the actors. The fault is not (particularly)
with Gerwig, a potentially appealing performer (see her work in The Duplass
Brothers’ Baghead) whom I believe is ill served (not to mention ill-used) by
Swanberg. The fault, in this particular scene, is with Kent Osborne, as the
suitor, named Matt. Rarely, if ever, moving any body part below the neck, Osborne
sleepwalks through the picture with, yes, a perpetual half-smirk; it only
disappears for one scene, when he goes into a petulant sulk, by way of
expressing his displeasure that work colleagues Hannah and Paul have taken up
with each other. Otherwise, the smirk is always there, along with a smug
near-monotone. It never leaves his face even as he describes some of his most
perhaps painful secrets, such as his use of medication for depression. I don’t
know Osborne at all, perhaps he is one of the finest people on this earth, but
I could not watch his face in Hannah for more than two minutes at a time
without wanting to do violence to it. Not that I ever would, mind you. Just so you know.
Kent Osborne, Hannah Takes The Stairs, Swanberg et. al., 2007
Andrew Bujalski’s depiction of Paul is also smirk-laden, which by
rights ought be even more annoying, as the unprepossessing character would seem
to have little to smirk about. Pretty much every performer in Hannah, save for
Gerwig and Jay Mark Duplass, is some kind of slack disgrace. So too, is Hannah’s
dramatic argumentation, such as it is. Every other scene in the picture has the
air of an acting workshop improv exercise, right down to the way the furniture
is arranged. Below is a shot from one of Hannah’s “office” scenes; note the chair
in front of the door. Rather than any coherent idea of production design, Swanberg
invariably works with consideration only for whatever he needs/wants for any
given scene. So, here, Hannah and Paul need to be sitting down and facing Matt,
which means…putting a chair where it would rarely, if ever, actually be in an office. But that’s
okay. Contingency rules.
Bujalski, Gerwig, Osborne, Hannah
The slackness reaches an apogee of sorts with Butterknife,
the series Swanberg created with Ronald Bronstein and Mary Bronstein for Spout.
Butterknife’s eight episodes have a structural similarity to the very, very many
episodes of Swanberg’s other web video series, Young American Bodies.
Bifurcation is key here. In Young American Bodies the bodies in question
dissemble and stammer about their desires while they’ve got their clothes on,
and…have sex with their clothes off. This—the contrast between modes, that is—is a little more interesting than it
sounds, at least for a couple of episodes, and possibly speaks perhaps more eloquently
to Keller’s above quoted concerns than KOTM does. But…it gets real old, real
quick; the repetition of the idea doesn’t reap any benefits. As for
Butterknife, its episodes toggle between the workaday travails of an inept
private detective (or whatever he is) played by Bronstein, Ronald, and his
relatively blissful domestic existence with his loving wife, played by
Bronstein, Mary. Only without showing the couple having sex, because I suppose
the actual Bronsteins were a little shy about that (although we are treated to
the sight of Bronstein, Ronald, negotiating a bongo board in black briefs).
The half-assedness of Butterknife’s dramatic conceit—there’s
no other way of putting this—practically reeks of the contempt in which
Swanberg, the Bronsteins, and pretty much every other participant in the
project, would seem to hold their putative audience. Bronstein, Ronald, plays a
private investigator of sorts, who both hates his work and is bad at it. Now I
recall that Phillip Marlowe had his off days, and quite a few of them at that,
but my understanding about investigative work is that it’s kind of an elective.
Or an avocation. Or, you know, not likely a job that one gets roped into for
lack of other employment options. So there’s that. Bronstein can’t even get the
vocabulary of the profession right; trying to discourage a would-be client, he
tells him that he’s read his “disposition.” That would be “deposition,” and it
would be a deposition only once lawyers had already gotten involved. But, as
they say, whatever.
The bits of business involving marital bliss are not much of
an improvement. In one attempt at, I don’t know, maybe an I Love Lucy homage,
Mary (the characters played by the Bronsteins are putatively unnamed, but that particular conceit isn’t held on to for terribly wrong, as Mary lets drop a “Ronzo” at one
point, and then…well you get the idea) finds herself stuck under the couple’s bed and calls for
her husband to help her out. He responds by getting a camera to take a picture
of her predicament, and then proceeds to pull at her feet. Ronald Bronstein is
a pretty skinny fellow, but I think he’s got it in him to, you know, actually
lift the bed. Those who consider Swanberg and his cohorts to be little more
than self-infatuated circle-jerkers will find ample evidence for their argument
here.
IV: The Imagery
Occasionally a Swanberg picture will offer up an
image that is memorable in itself, and Swanberg’s supporters sometimes cite him
as a “director of moments,” moments in which the performers will hit upon an
emotional truth that we may find discomfiting, or unusual to see in a film at
all, or whatnot. While I’ve never perceived the emotional temperature in a
Swanberg movie to rise above lukewarm (which is one reason I find Dan Sallitt’s
comparison of Swanberg to Maurice Pialat frankly ridiculous), I will grant that
there are such moments in his films. Sometimes they come across awkwardly, as
if they’ve just been stumbled across; sometimes there’s a modicum of wit in their delivery, as
in the texting-in-front-of-the-girlfriend scene in LOL. That said, I insist
that this doesn’t happen enough to make Swanberg worth my time and faith. Put
another way, he gives me more grief than aesthetic bliss. And while I agree to some extent with Russell, in that I
don’t exactly think Swanberg merely shoots a bunch of stuff and then throws it up
there, I do again insist that there’s something largely, sometimes overwhelmingly, contingent about Swanberg’s
cinema. The image quality is always in the hands of whoever’s holding the
camera. And it ratchets up, or down, from there. LOL, I think, works as well as it does partly because of the
quality of Swanberg’s collaborators; something in the aggregation was pushing
him, albeit ever so slightly, out of his claustrophobic world of close-ups and
medium close-ups, out of his almost infantile refusal to ever use the camera to
evoke a sense of space beyond the immediate proximity of his characters. I have
not chosen to attack Swanberg on the grounds that his work does not, in Kent
Jones’ phrase, allow for a sense of experience beyond its own parameters, but
it is of course guilty of that, and it looks as if it will continue to be. But
attacking it on those grounds is just too easy.
I do, however, take umbrage
with attempts to tie Swanberg to filmmakers much, much greater than he, citing
some affinity by way of circumscribed circumstances, or of, say, a putative eschewal of
pictorialism. Swanberg defender Tom Russell wrote in the above-cited comments thread:
“Take the last shot of Ozu’s Late Spring; it’s just Chishu Ryu peeling an
apple. Take a still frame of that, and it’s not particularly
“beautiful”– put it at the end of the film, though, and it breaks
your heart, it’s Beauty Par Excellence.” Well, exactly, except I take issue
with the assertion that a single frame from that scene would not be
particularly beautiful:
That aside, the shot/scene works the way it does because
it’s a culmination to a series of sequences and shots that have been precisely
calibrated by director Yasujiro Ozu. There is never any sense of such
calibration at work in a Swanberg work. Swanberg likes to cite Herzog and Dziga
Vertov as theorists who’ve influenced his own vision of film. But putting aside
the fact that the collectivism espoused in Swanberg’s credits (it’s rarely a
film by Swanberg, but rather a film by Swanberg/Wells/Bewerdorf,
Swanberg/Gerwig, and so on) points to a Vertovian ideal, if we’re talking about
cinema as a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s not (as Scorsese so
memorably put it), what’s in gives zero indication of a masterful sensibility
at work. This is what makes Swanberg so suspect to me: the fact that a good
three-quarters of what he puts on screen could have been coughed up by somebody
who only got through half of Camcording For Dummies, or some such. A particular
moment in Hannah stands out for me, in the scene in which Hannah’s soon-to-be
ex-boyfriend Mike (Mark Duplass) slathers Hannah with ice cubes in a putative
attempt to ease her sunburn. Gerwig’s Hannah squirms and jerks in discomfort;
before the camera zooms in on her, she jerks up her head and for a split second
looks at…what? Something to her left, a reasonable distance away from the space
described (clumsily) by the frame. It’s clear, in that split second, that
Gerwig is no longer registering the character’s discomfort, but that, instead, she’s
trying very hard not to look at the camera. Some might argue this is one of
Swanberg’s moments of truth. I see a bad take, one that should have been
discarded in the editing room.
And, yes; the final shot of Hannah, in which Hannah
and Matt share a bath and play inept trumpet at each other (I presume that any
correspondence this has with the last lines of Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter
Point is entirely coincidental), is something of an ironic fillip, a
nose-thumbing at conventional happy endings. But as the sole piece of
directorial commentary in the entire film, it sticks out like a sore thumb in
much the same way as KOTM’s shower scene does.
V: The Insipid
Swanberg’s characters really do talk a lot of shit. That’s
the whole point, I’m told. Still. Gets numbing after a while.
“Don’t you hate that guy? He’s a fuckin’ prick, right?
Whatever…”
“You should come out here. I’m really bored.”
“I get really frustrated because I love things so much and I
feel that what I do is so trite and so small.”
“I feel like I been, I dunno, I dunno, just didn’t know.”
“I’m not ready to kiss people.”/“You’re not people.”/“Yeah, okay, yeah, okay; I just don’t want…weirdness.”
This is real? I don’t know. I know a fair number of men and
women in their twenties, early thirties, and all of them are far more
stimulating conversationalists than this. Maybe I’m lucky. And even allowing
that this is real; well, just because something is real doesn’t exempt it from being twaddle.
And speaking of twaddle, I haven’t even gotten to the music in Swanberg’s
pictures yet. But I believe this will do.
Understand, please, in taking issue with these films, I’m
not trying to make any kind of blanket statement about the putative ethos
behind such works, or tar all of Swanberg’s associates with the same brush. I
certainly don’t want to put across any kind of “you damn kids with your digital
video and your casual nudity” vibe here. Just trying to answer a particular set
of queries and concerns.
UPDATE: I incorrectly attributed one Swanberg-praising quote, specifically citing a scene from Hannah, to Craig Keller, when it in fact came from Tom Russell. I have corrected this. Both Keller and Russell have informed me they are preparing responses to this piece; I am not being in any way snarky when I say I look forward to them.
FURTHER UPDATE: Craig Keller posts an “overture” to further thoughts on Swanberg here. More to come.
Well. You make a strong case against a filmmaker I’d never even heard of until your self-described cheap shot in the Sundance article. But as bad as you make Swanberg’s films sound, I’m now curious to check out a few in order to find out if I feel the same way, which is a reaction I doubt you would have a problem with.
But, considering my own tastes, my knee-jerk reaction, based on this article, is to give him a pass. I scrolled through this article before actually reading it (to see how long it was – I do that sometimes), and I initially assumed that the office still from “Hannah on the Stairs” was taken from some behind-the-scenes home movie, or something, where the low-budget indie filmmakers were hashing out plans in some kind of jerry-rigged office. Because it sure doesn’t look like a frame taken from an actual, honest-to-peaches film.
And the whole unsimulated sex thing…okay, fine, if you want to, I won’t stand in your way, indie filmmakers of the world. But when the guy who wrote and directed the film is the same guy humping away on the females in his cast, that’s when I begin to find the whole concept to be very dubious.
You know, I probably should have thought twice about throwing in the Ozu reference. I should note that I didn’t really intend to equate the two, per se, only to make a point re: “beauty”, but I see how I left that open to misinterpetation and apologize for having caused the aforementioned umbrage. (It was also a poor example because, looking at that still, you’re right, it is a beautiful image in and of itself, though not as heart-breaking devoid of context.)
A response– not *precisely* a rebuttal, but a response– will be forthcoming.
You nailed it, Glenn. Dull is a perfect word to describe Swanberg’s work. Whether it be narrative or filmic technique, he’s lacking on all fronts. His supporters can rattle on all day long, but they’re reaching for stuff that simply doesn’t exist.
Great points.
As I said before, Swanberg’s work is important to those who make or want to make movies, since he makes them so cheaply. He is sort of the Gen‑Y version of Richard Linklater and SLACKER, in that respect.
However, for those with no interest in making films, they can be quite dull. That is something you couldn’t say about SLACKER.
@Tom—Don’t kick yourself over the Ozu reference. Had you not made it, I would have had a harder time pursuing a particular line of argument. I don’t mean that to sound sarcastic, although I allow it might. I appreciate that you were making a point in good faith. It’s just one that I disagree with. In any case, I look forward to your response and further thoughts.
Glenn, I haven’t seen any Swanberg, but I must admit I’m interested. It seems like his work would at least have interest for anyone with a tendency towards voyeurism. Am I wrong about that?
You’re not wrong. Per se. But there are better films out there about voyeurism, and better ways to satisfy one’s own voyeurism jones. Just saying.
Whether or not Tom was fully committed to the Ozu comparison or not, the comparison now stands – and it’s clear from those screenshots who is the artist and who is the fraud. Honestly, though, I had never heard of Joe Swanberg until I started to read this entry, Glenn. And like bill, I want to at least try one of his films just to see how I react. But the way you describe them, they do sound very amateur, look very amateur and have a surprising lack of depth.
What’s great about this post is that even though I’ve never heard of Swanberg, it’s always instructive to read about how a filmmaker has gone wrong so it’s easier to see when filmmakers go right. And any chance to look at a still of an Ozu film is worth reading about a supposedly terrible filmmaker. Ill-thought-out comparison aside.
Well, Keith, it wasn’t that I wasn’t “fully committed to the Ozu comparison” but rather that, as I stated above, I wasn’t making a comparison. I was using Ozu as an example to illustrate a related point in answer to another commentator’s comments. To give you a little more context, let me re-present what it was that I had actually said:
“You can’t divorce style from substance; a director’s craftmanship is not measured (if it can be measured at all) by how many magic hour shots he has or how much dolly track he can lay but by how he uses those elements to create whatever meaning he’s trying to create. Take the last shot of Ozu’s “Late Spring” (at least, I _think_ it’s Late Spring)– it’s just Chishu Ryu peeling an apple. Take a still frame of that, and it’s not particularly “beautiful”– put it at the end of the film, though, and it breaks your heart, it’s Beauty Par Excellance.”
Nowhere did I say Ozu = Swanberg, or even Ozu’s style is like Swanberg’s style. I was talking generally about a theory of aesthetics. You can even look it up on the comments for the entry Glenn linked at the beginning of this entry (and thus see some of the arguments this piece is in response to) instead of merely assuming that I equated the two and had gotten cold feet about it.
I don’t mean to be bitchy here, but I’d really hate for this to become one of those “Al Gore said he invented the internet!” things (look at crazy Tom Russell! he thinks Joe Swanberg is like Ozu!) and so I thought I ought to nip it in the bud.
Thanks for re-presenting your comment, Tom. I see what you meant now – and why Glenn chose to call you on it in his response post.
I’m not sure I fully agree with your proposition that “you can’t divorce style from substance” – certainly Michael Bay has a style without being substantive in the least. And the crux of that para of yours you have re-stated here suggests quite clearly that if you take a still frame from Ozu’s final shot of “Late Spring” that it’s not particularly beautiful – where Glenn’s screenshot clearly shows that it is beautiful. Where the multitude of screenshots from Swanberg’s films don’t even remotely resemble beauty.
Same caveat as Glenn, though – I certainly don’t want to put across any kind of “you damn kids with your digital video and your casual nudity” vibe here.
It’s a fine line to suggest you’re not equating one with the other, but the example inside an impassioned defense of Swanberg does read ambiguously. Which of course you have already admitted to upthread.
From what I’ve seen, I would actually strongly disagree that Swanberg’s work would especially appeal to a truly voyeuristic tendency. The thrill of voyeurism is partly in catching something that wasn’t meant to be seen, and is therefore genuine in a way that something meant for public consumption cannot be. There is little genuine here, and the pervasive self-consciousness of everyone onscreen never allows the viewer to forget that the performers know they’re being watched. It’s incredibly uncomfortable, and only accidentally interesting, in the same way that the real reason “Girls Gone Wild” is interesting (the hollow desperation) is different than the reason everyone pretends it’s interesting (the tits).
I’d also argue that Swanberg’s a pretty bad model for low-budget filmmakers, because his movies look every bit as cheap and casual as they are–I mean, it’s not exactly astounding or inspirational to hear that they didn’t cost much. His process, I guess, is mildly instructive/interesting, and yes, he did make five features in five years for what is I’m sure a shockingly small amount of money, but look at the produce: it’s mushy, and probably won’t stay fresh beyond the car ride home.
He’s exposing the ugly side to that early-digital-revolution slogan: “Everyone can make a film now!” Indeed, now it’s: “Everyone can make a film now, and get a deal out of it!”
That first office shot still, I gotta say, is hilarious in so many ways. Not only for the retarded placement of chairs, blank white walls, awkward camera-height, and possibly accidental paper towel roll, but really, what’s with the guy in the foreground? It’s like Swanberg wanted to shoot a “dirty” two-shot, as they say, but couldn’t bring himself to fit more of the guy’s head in…and the foregrounded head is IN FOCUS, so one might assume his hair should grab equal attention.
Ick. This is the antithesis of space. It’s like looking at a kindergartener’s maniacal glue-and-construction-paper collage. (Maybe Vertov would be proud?)
Amen.
And to throw in a couple perhaps more controversial examples of films in which style is divorced from substance, please, viewer, take a look at 2008 faves SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. Both are very stylish–not beautiful, necessary, but stylish, heavily designed–and in their own ways, precise.
And neither has much to say at all.
(Swanberg, I feel, is lacking in both departments.)
“Mumblecore” is to film as stories by senior year undergraduates in a creative writing program are to fiction. They might show promise, but somebody needs to tell them “Write what you know” doesn’t mean “stare at your navel.”
I love it when you go longform, Glenn, even though I have doubts as to whether or not this creep really needs any more publicity. I’m sure he’s sitting in Austin right now, shit eating grin on his face, a UT sophomore pre-med hottie sucking his balls, saying to himself, Yes, yes, I am Joe Swanberg, motherfuckers, that’s right, uh huh.
Joe Swanberg is the Goyim Eric Schaeffer.
At least Mr. Swanberg doesn’t habitually abuse the word “putative”, Mr. Kenny.
What I want to know is what the did Joe Swanberg do to invite the level of contempt that people are heaving at him? He must have a really repellent personality. This all just can’t be about his mediocre movies. Anyone care to dish?
In a just world, William Greaves would’ve been the one to make a plethora of films and Swanberg the one to only make one.
@ Herb Birch—There’s no abuse of the word “putative,” as in its meaning, “assumed to exist,” nor of “putatively” as in its meaning “supposedly.” Okay, probably the phrase “putative attempt to ease sunburn” is pushing it, but in every other instance the usage is correct. If you want I’ll find some grammarians and copy editors to back me up. That said, I certainly do use the word one or two times too many in the piece. The guilt over which doesn’t make me feel any less inclined to make certain suggestions to you, with completely immaculate usage, but I’ll restrain myself.
@Natalie—My whole point was to accomplish the aim without dishing. So you’ll have to look elsewhere for that. I will say that it’s a good thing for one of the filmmakers under discussion here that he has not achieved a level of fame that would attract the interest of an investigative journalist of John Connolly or Mark Ebner’s ilk. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
Crap! I wrote a whole big response to this and it got lost. Ah well. here’s a truncated version…
I’m still plotting a response to the critical response to Joe’s work but have alot on my plate and can’t formulate those thoughts just yet. That being said…
The term “mumblecore” was latched onto by journalists, bloggers and festivalites. Joe and the other filmmakers who got lumped into that category really don’t have similarities in their films other than use of actors and a general attitude of improv. If you put all these films together (films of Shelton, Bronstein, Katz, Ross, Duplass, etc) you would find them all very, very different. Sure, there’s some similarities, but I think Joe’s films are the least like the other films to be honest.
And although as stated, I’m a friend of Joe’s and I like his work, in NO WAY do I like everything he does or feel it ALL worthy of praise. This article and the anonymous internet naysayers in here act as though everyone thinks everything he shoots is gold. It’s not. And that gets to my main point.
Joe’s made 5 features in 5 years. That’s fine and dandy but everyone jumping all over him is forgetting…5 years in the terms of making features really is not very long. He’s still learning and crafting. Still getting closer to (or, some might say, further away from) what he’s saying about cinema, human interaction, sexuality, personal space and so forth. Does he miss the point sometimes? Hell yes. But he also nails alot of it and even if you don’t agree, I think you should at least respect the fact he’s getting at what he wants to get at or trying to.
Now, that being said.
You guys act like Joe has worked tirelessly to create this image of digital video DIY Godfather. Like he grabbed a camcorder and shot some naked friends fucking and called it “MUMBLECORE” and crowned himself king of this newfound land of filmmaking. Truth is, he’s just making his films. What’s he supposed to do if people want to distribute them or show them at their festivals? Say no? The guys a filmmaker for crissakes.
It reminds me of the band Vampire Weekend. All these critics and bloggers collectively shit themselves over their debut album last year. “It’s low-fi GRACELAND!” “It’s brilliant!” “These are kids who made an amazing album!!” Then the backlash starts and rather than shine the light on those claiming VW is genius, they attack the band. The bands job is to make the music. The press builds them up, attaches a moniker, creates a buzz. When people don’t agree, they attack the musician. The same is true for Joe and “mumblecore.”
Joe’s just making movies. Attack the movies, not the guy. A majority of the statements here are just wrong and mean spirited in terms of where he lives, what he does, etc. I’m willing to bet 3/4 of the negative commenters in here are jealous wanna be filmmakers who *could* shoot and edit what Joe does and don’t. Or, have and haven’t received any notice. Or worse, same commenters haven’t even SEEN any of Joe’s movies, got sick of reading about him and just jumped into the backlash for shits n giggles and some misplaced issues of inadequacy or artistic frustration.
Now THAT being said…
Glenn‑I love the way you laid out your biases against Joe in the start of the piece (the apologia section). I wish more writers would do that when criticizing. However, your issues still come across as arrogant, condescending and smug. So…you met Joe and his public personae didn’t thrill you so.…his movies suck? I mean, he’s not an actor per se, he’s a filmmaker. I tend to judge films on what I see, not on what I perceive as some “half smirk” that you probably earned while bashing the guy all over Spout. And everywhere else you could get a word in. It seems to me you’ve grafted your impression of Joe the person onto every aspect of his work (the films, the style, the actors) and that seems trite and rather silly. You’re more or less projecting your feelings on him and what you perceive of him onto the work. Obviously, you will disagree, but having read your piece 2–3 times, that’s what I gleam.
I’m sure you (and most people…including me truth be told) are just sick of hearing his name mentioned constantly in terms of his movies, but again, why is that Joe’s fault? He’s just doing what he does and still has a ways to go. I think his new movie “Alexander the Last” will be a big step forward and yet, I feel as though people will continually want to pigeon hole him. “Oh! There’s a cock! There’s some pussy hair!! Ooooh.…same old same old Swanberg. Lecherous!” (** I haven’t seen the film, just being snarky myself**)
So, that’s my issue with what you wrote and my take on it. I do have some thoughts about what he’s doing philosophically and cinematically speaking, but can’t extract them from my head right now. But in closing I will say, it’s unfair to totally reject his work based on the first 5 years of his career. It’s FIVE YEARS. I mean.…really people.
Still formulating my larger response, but let me echo Don Lewis here: you might not like Swanberg’s films but you can all be civil when talking about another human being. We’re all adults, yes?
@Don: You ask: “So…you met Joe and his public personae didn’t thrill you so.…his movies suck?”
No. Exactly no. But if that’s all you gleaned after 2–3 readings, there’s probably nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. I make about a dozen specific points based on what’s on the screen in certain Swanberg works, and still all you can see is my personal animus. I guess that’s your privilege. But trust me when I tell you that I really do not envy or resent Mr. Swanberg. I just don’t like his films, and I wrote this post in response to some people I respect who do find them worthwhile.
As for “it’s only 5 years,” well, I guess we’ve come to expect too much from filmmakers early in their careers. Look at Godard’s first five years. Oh, wait, I forgot, no fair comparing Swanberg to good filmmakers.
@Tom Russell: Look, I laid out my biases, potential and otherwise, at the outset, and then tried to put them aside for the rest of my piece. If some commenters want to vent in a more personal style, I’m not gonna intervene unless it gets really out of hand. Admittedly, Mr. Felice’s comment is borderline.
I actually disagree with Don’s assertion re: your biases and I actually find the whole piece to be extremely intelligent and a lot of your arguments speak to some of the reservations I myself have about his work– which is why it’s going to take me a couple of days to muster up a proper response.
It was more Mr. Felice’s comment that I was responding to.
Thanks, Tom. I know that Craig has something in the works as well. I look forward to both. As the Polish film critic once wrote to Andrew Sarris (this was recounted, I recall, in the introduction to “The American Cinema”): “Let us polemicize.”
Mr. Lewis, I’m not sure I understand your point–yes, it’s only 5 years of work, but one can only decide whether one likes a director’s work based on the work that *currently exists*–not based on a sense of what he may or may not be able to accomplish in the future. I don’t think anyone’s saying “I don’t like Joe Swanberg for infinity!! No matter what he does! Ever!” But since his future work is not yet available for viewing, one can only evaluate what’s here. And it’s totally fair to reject someone’s work based on…their work.
pssst: it’s Mark Duplass who’s in Hannah Takes the Stairs, not Jay.
I sometimes have trouble connecting with the characters and situations in Joe Swanberg’s films, and figured it was a generational thing – they seem a lot younger than I am, and deal with relationships in a way that I don’t (anymore). Maybe it’s really the smirks that are keeping my empathy at bay. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that with the next Swanberg film I see.
@Jette—Indeed. I was wrong in the first citation, and right in the second. Someone’s gonna say I was trying to tar the brothers with the same brush!
Corrected now. Thanks.
Don, I assume this…
“Or worse, same commenters haven’t even SEEN any of Joe’s movies, got sick of reading about him and just jumped into the backlash for shits n giggles and some misplaced issues of inadequacy or artistic frustration.”
…was a reference to the comments made by Keith Gow and myself. Have you ever commented on a blog post about a filmmaker with whose work you were unfamiliar, wherein you stated how you believed you would react to it? Never?? Really??
And I can’t speak for Keith beyond this: his comments were hardly mean, and neither were mine. And we BOTH said that we were curious to check out Swanberg’s films, despite what Glenn had to say.
Meanwhile, you throw out your own insults, based on what? What did I, or Keith, say that was so incredibly out of line? And use our words, don’t try and tell us what we “really mean”.
I don’t understand why people should be given kudos for doing the minimum amount of work, as Swanberg does. He films improv acting exercises and then edits them together. So he works fast. So what? Maybe he shouldn’t work so fast. That these movies are even talked about speaks to something larger that has happened in our culture, because movies like these have always been made. Most of them were ignored, though. And then something happened about six years ago, a democratizing of the means of production and distribution, which I think is wonderful. It’s just that the people who are benefiting from this confluence are not really deserving, artistically. If Swanberg goes on to become a better filmmaker, someone who cares about the possibilities of the medium (as opposed to just caring about Joe Swanberg and Joe Swanberg’s place at the table), then I will be happy for him. But I don’t think he will, and why should he want this, when, in some circles, he is already spoken of as some kind of master filmmaker. Pialat? Ozu? I mean, okay. That’s kind of like placing Ariel Pink in with Dylan and Lennon & McCartney. My biggest problem with Swanberg’s and Bujalski’s and The Duplass’ (I haven’t seen anything by the Bronsteins [Glenn: I know you are referring to Ron Bronstein when you mentioned John Connoly and Mark Ebner. I’ve heard the stories.]) films is the acting. I went to NYU, graduated with a degree in Dramatic Writing, worked with plenty of bad, mediocre, good, and great actors, and I can’t believe how truly awful and just plain lazy the acting is in these movies, and how unaware the actors are of how bad they are and how smug they come across. If there was some acknowledgement of the smugness, if the subject of these movies was the smugness, then okay, now we have something. But these movies are not about that. These movies are about people who figured out a way to make movies. And that’s not enough for me. That shouldn’t be enough for anybody, but I guess it is. At least I take comfort in knowing that this type of cinema has been named, and as such, will eventually fade away (only to be reclaimed by cineastes in, what, 15 to 20 years, give or take?). Hopefully the next proponents of Minimum Exertion Cinema will take a little more pride in their work. Swanberg gets a lot more from making movies than the audience gets in watching them, which, to me, is just greedy. But when I think about it, that seems to be apropos for the time we live in. Maximum profits for almost no work.
Let me diffuse a couple milligrams of unbridled contempt for the Commenters on this thread who would believe that a still frame-grab, divorced of context or, y’know, movement and sound, can settle the case once-and-for-all for bad mise-en-scène, or the demerits of a filmmaker.
One can capture frames from any film, even one by a revered studio-based master like Ozu, which look like shit — F.Y.fucking.I. Setsuko Hara with her eyes half-blinky, maybe; Chishû Ryû seemingly captured mid-seizure but actually on the cusp of pronouncing, “Kono thread de hihan-suru hitobito wa, Kurosawa no hakuchi da yo.” I suppose the points-scoring rejoinder to this will be, “Heh-um, [snark-expulsion of air from nostrils, accompanied by half-smirk similar to that castigated by GK above], of course, it’s one thing to pull out an ugly frame from a film with so many beautiful ones, but try finding a single beautiful one in a place where there ARE none.” To which I would respond that they exist in the films of Swanberg — who, by the way, shouldn’t be induced to formulate a body of work that only justifies its existence by its degree of proximity to Ozu, any more than should Hollis Frampton, or Bob Clark — and I’ll be presenting the evidence when I write about each of the films over the next week or two at Cinemasparagus + the Indiepix blog. At that point, feel free to take the — not a defense, but an elucidation — or turn and walk away. Just know that your glib little crowing on Internet comment threads smacks about five times more envacuumed, implicitly-‘superior’, and self-conscious+totally-unaware than any of the persons/characters in the films under discussion.
Let me also register my disgust at the prevailing viewpoint, which clearly exists, no matter how much you people (yes, YOU people) deny it exists, that the aesthetic value of a film is directly proportional to its budget or — how I coat this term with such bile-relish as I pronounce it — “production values.” The entrancing waft of Mammon creates the thrall to everything from short works being considered “supplements” (or: “bonus features”), to the U.S.‘s most popular films being reported by way of ticket-grosses, rather than number-of-tickets-sold. (The tallying itself being, obviously, absurd to begin with.) Couple completely independent filmmaking, shot ON OCCASION in spaces with white walls and dumpy furniture, like the kind that wasn’t at all art-designed (because it’s fucking REAL) (I would love to see any of you “art-design” that office from the temp scenes in Bujalski’s ‘Funny Ha Ha’ and in thus attempting even get NEAR articulating both the warp-and-woof of the suburban world beyond New York City or metropolitan exurbs, AND a very particular and soul-crushing pathos of the American lower-middle-class) — with portrayals of sex, and the American public — those Pragmatic Purveyors of Proportion — really, REALLY get their dander up. The thought process, which might be titled “The American Anxiety Over a Perceived Discrepancy in Levels of Commitment to the Diegesis on the Part of the Filmmaker, or: The American Anxiety Over Perceived Way-More-Than-Any-of-Us-Had-Been-Expecting-Commitment to the Diegesis on the Part of the Filmmaker,” goes something like this, as I see it:
‑Look at Joe Swanberg’s fuckin’ FACE. With that fuckin’ GOATEE. And his fuckin’ MOUTH OPEN.
‑Yeah. That dumb fuckin’ MOUTH.
‑I know. And he’s getting written about (ugh, and by the way seriously I could do what he does and get written about, ugh it’s so depressing), because there was like, this scene, where he came, right. And it was coming to other women.
‑Other women who were IN the FILM? Oh my god. That’s so phallocentric.
‑I know. He must have had them hypnotized to agree to it. Didn’t they realize they were being, essentially, RAPED?
‑They were TOTALLY being raped! By proxy. Which is to say by the camera. Which is to say by what it filmed, which is what I was watching. Which is to say Joe Swanberg is making me feel like I’ve committed the raping.
‑Ugh. What a creep. And he keeps puppeting them into doing this again and again in his movies. And you know what, if they’re not, okay, being puppeted, let me just go on record and say that, if that’s NOT the case? then these women are just LOOSE, I’m sorry. It’s like, anyway, I’ll take my movie-sex simulated next time, thanks, where it exists to mechanistically keep the story moving. Proxy-rape is only for behind the door of my own bedroom.
‑Seriously. And okay, I’m all for “more mise-en-scène than there is story,” I mean, SOMETIMES, but it’s gotta have some punch — y’know, ’cause mise-en-scène as I understand it is really just vividness of colors, epic’ness of scope, and busy-ness of the flower-arrangements in the frame. Gloss.
‑I don’t want the dull-matte-finish that Swanberg’s selling.
‑I know. I want something saleable. Something that makes me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth — I want to see a car-chase or at least some fuckin’ velvet curtains, y’know, so I have SOME evidence that the filmmakers respected my spending my money on the price of the ticket/rental — which car-chase or velvet curtains would evince their concern and that they did put forth some effort here by at least finding SOME funds. If not ideas.
‑Exactly. At least have the courtesy to give us signifiers.
And so on and so on. Hey, Commenters, we can agree to disagree — one man’s Gerwig-looking-away-to-avoid-looking-at-the-camera-is-an-amateur’s-botched-take, is another man’s Gerwig-looking-away-to-avoid-looking-at-the-camera-is-touching-human-and-real. It just comes down to two different ways of looking at movies, to two different ways of looking at the world. And, apparently, to a difference in opinion over whether such twains as movies and life, must ever, ever meet — whether there must ever, ever exist a Cinema of Contiguity.
Since his name was mentioned once in a (tangential) comparison Dan made between the filmmaker and Swanberg, I’ll shut off my vent’s diffusion by reciting the words of Maurice Pialat: “Si vous né m’aimez pas, je peux vous dire que je né vous aime pas non plus.”
I think you’re right about Gerwig as well, Glenn. By association, I assumed that I disliked her (almost) as much as I disliked Swanberg’s films, but in fact, after seeing both Baghead and Mary Bronstein’s Yeast, I found that she’s actually quite good. I guess it’s about time for her to start working with some better directors.
Yeah. I agree with Craig Keller. It’s all the commenters’ fault.
By the way: Who is Craig Keller?
And, Craig Keller: the though that you may have hitched a ride with the wrong crowd is kind of scary, isn’t it?
Jesus. A lot of people are putting a lot of words in the mouths of other people around here, aren’t they?
Also, Craig, your forgot to add “I don’t like Joe Swanberg because I like Michael Bay, or whatever!”
I can’t believe you forgot about that one.
Craig: who says we want car chases? I think you’re at the wrong site. No one here wants car chases. But we do want something other than 90 minutes of auto-fellatio. But I guess that’s really too much to ask, huh? How dare us. And it sounds like you’re about to lose your shit, bro. Calm down. It’s only movies. Go get a latte and read some Willa Cather. Jeez. You’d think we all just took a collective dump in your mouth. Are you that invested in these movies that you have to throw a public hissy fit when people don’t like them, and for reasons that seem entirely, well, reasonable? Let’s see:
1) The movies are ugly.
2) The acting is amateurish.
3) The production design is nil.
4) There is no script.
5) The “director” likes to show his cock. (Which isn’t a bad thing per se; I think Brown Bunny is a great movie for precisely that reason, because Gallo exposed himself in honor of his characters sorrow and desperation.)
6) Everyone involved seems exceedingly pleased with themselves.
7) The only audience for the films is the people making the films, and their friends, thus leading to charges of hermeticism.
I don’t know, Craig. Maybe people just don’t like these movies because they don’t think they’re very good. Is that a possibility? Of course not. Because what the fuck do we know. We’re just a bunch of losers living in our parent’s basement.
Your contempt is palpable.
I think I can boil Craig Keller’s rant down to this:
I HATE YOU AND I HATE YOUR ASS-FACE!
or
YOU’RE SO STUPID!
Nice.
Well…to be honest, occasionally, I DO want car chases.
I’m out the door and haven’t fully caught up here but I will say…
bill- none of what I said was directed at you man. I respect you and your opinions and you’re not an anonymous internet commenter either, So…sorry for the confusion. If I take issue with what you say, I will say “bill…I disagree” or what have you. I was talking to the anonymous trash talkers.
My apologies, Don.
Don: I don’t see any anonymous commenters in this thread. I see a lot people giving their full names. Do you mean to say that because you don’t know who any of these people are, they are somehow anonymous? That seems kind of snobby. Plus, I have no idea who you are, or if that is even your real name, so should I consider you anonymous too? My email is agreg200@hotmail.com in case you think I am an “anonymous.” News to me.
@Emilio Perez: Is that like being on the wrong side of history? (And @Emilio Perez’s Withering Snark: Who is Emilio Perez?)
@Bernard Lurie: We look at movies in two different ways. To wit: Any of your first five points could apply (a) in any combination; (b) as a whole; or © individually, to any given film — but in any of these hypothetical examples, this would have “nil” to do, at least for me, with contributing to how good or bad I think the film is, and whether it succeeds as cinema. Beyond that, “the director likes to show his cock” and “everyone seems exceedingly pleased with themselves” aren’t even insights. Here’s something else I find contemptible, since we’re engaged in a serious stretch of cataloguing: The rhetorical ‘tactic’ of: “It’s just movies, man, calm down.” “They’re just IDEAS, bro – chi’zill out!” “It’s just LIFE, dawg!”
Wake up. The cinema is as real as your latté. (Thought-experiment: What are the implications of pitting Plato’s Cave vs. Lurie’s Latté?)
@ Craig,
I’m surprised by your reaction. Other than a few trolls trying to foment a snark war (and it’s pretty obvious that they’re being ignored), most of the commenters here have expressed a desire to check out Swanberg’s work despite (and maybe even because of) Glenn’s criticism.
The fact that Glenn is giving Swanberg such a long analysis (I’ve rarely seen a post as extensive as this one since he left Première) signifies that he recognizes that Swanberg has had some kind of impact, even if he doesn’t agree with the nature of it.
And it looks to me like 1) the commenters who haven’t seen his work are still open to viewing it, 2) those that have seen it either dislike it and are saying so, or 3) like it and are defending him.
So I think we all need to chillax a little bit. One can argue passionately without losing their grip on reality.
Craig, you should work in government. You say everything and nothing at the same time. That’s quite a talent. You should put it to better use.
@ John Felice “I’m sure he’s sitting in Austin right now, shit eating grin on his face, a UT sophomore pre-med hottie sucking his balls, saying to himself, Yes, yes, I am Joe Swanberg, motherfuckers, that’s right, uh huh.”
I love you.
I for one enjoyed Craig Keller’s rant. The dialogue was a lot of fun. But I also liked this statement: “It just comes down to two different ways of looking at movies, to two different ways of looking at the world. And, apparently, to a difference in opinion over whether such twains as movies and life, must ever, ever meet — whether there must ever, ever exist a Cinema of Contiguity.”
I think we’re in the middle of a never-ending discussion of exactly how much “realism” we want, and how we should define it. There are vacuous people out there, and they do speak in vacuous ways and mouth cliches, and sometimes eliminating the “mise en scene” can give us the exhilarating sense of looking in on the real. But as Mr. Keller said, any two of us can vigorously disagree about whether the result is worth watching, let alone whether it qualifies as art. I haven’t seen any Swanberg–and argh, after reading these descriptions, I don’t think I want to–but I do think it’s entirely possible that the filmmaker who makes us angriest could turn out to be the one the next generation will find to have been the trailblazer.
As for the non-simulated sex aspect, I would have thought there was no way to make that work in any serious film–until I watched Breillat’s “Romance.” But then, Breillat doesn’t put herself in the scene humping anybody…
Thanks to all of you posters–this is the most stimulating exchange I’ve read in quite a while!
Actually, Craig, there’s nothing much fucking REAL about sticking chairs in front of doors. It’s not the absence of art direction or staging, it’s an embarrassing staging *mistake*.
Unless, that is, we’re supposed to infer from that small context clue that HTTS is actually secretly a movie about a bunch of people trapped in a room together, not through any catastrophic circumstance, but through their own tragic failure to recognize that they need only scoot a chair a few feet in one direction in order to achieve sweet freedom. God, Joe Swanberg is just like a po-mo Samuel Beckett, isn’t he?
Ray: “I do think it’s entirely possible that the filmmaker who makes us angriest could turn out to be the one the next generation will find to have been the trailblazer.”
Uwe Boll?
Michael Bay?
Brett Ratner?
Or maybe Joel Schumacher? He makes me really mad.
I would argue that Swanberg’s films aren’t realistic at all. As a matter of fact, I find them totally artifical, and this is mainly due to their shoddy construction and aesthetics and acting, etc., etc. I never not know that I’m watching a movie, if that makes any sense. I find that I can’t lose myself in the movie because there is no movie to lose myself in. I do think they’re pretty good home movies, though.
Listen, this whole Austin/SXSW/Mumblecore thing has become a little industry unto itself. I totally get why the people involved are so adamant about hositing themselves up the art pole and proclaiming their worth. I would too if I was them. It makes financial sense. And they have the platform to shout those down who call them out as frauds. In the end, the only thing that’s going to matter is whether or not the movies were any good, and I am of the school that believes that those who care, who pride themselves on attention to detail, who are specific, are the ones who will last. I have seen LOL, Hannah Takes the Stairs, Nights and Weekends and a few episodes of Young American Bodies, and I would say that attention to detail and specificity are not Swanberg’s main concerns. I think Swanberg will be an inspiration to those seeking a business model for how to make a film for nothing, quickly. But artistically? There’s nothing in the movies to inspire anyone to do anything. And I find that the subject matter of his movies, how young people deal with each other in relationships, to be kind of quaint and inconsequential. But that’s just me. Is there really any difference between Nights and Weekends and He’s Just Not That Into You? I don’t know. Part of me thinks no. But then again, I’m probably wrong because I don’t have a blog.
If any of you are interested in watching a movie by a young filmmaker who does care about these things, and whose pretty humble to boot, you should check out Kentucker Audley’s Team Picture. He’s been lumped in with the whole Mumblecore crowd by some, but he shouldn’t be. He’s too good, too funny, and too humane. I think he stands on his own.
First off, I’m dying to say, if I read Cinemasparagus will my pee smell funny after?
Claire-you absolutely can decide if you like a filmmakers work after 5 years worth of it. But when a comment like Glenn makes such as when he hears about a new Swanberg movie he wonders if he “shows his schlong in it?” as a means of pre-judgement, I find that trite and kind of lame. Are you telling me that a comment like that implies Glenn (or whoever else says that) won’t “dislike Swanberg’s films for infinity?” Or only if he shows his schlong will they dislike them?
All I was getting as was, Joe is exploring as he goes. I never meant to imply this was the correct thing to do for him and perhaps he should take his time. But, he’s doing it this way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Has anyone seen his doc on Ellen Stagg on IFC.com? It’s really good. That being said, I gave up on “Young American Bodies” into the second season and “Butterknife” after 2 episodes.
Alex- I agree that what I said about the perceived (by me) anonymity of people here could come off as snobby. However Swanberg has a bunch of bitter Betty enemies so I do tend to take names I’ve never heard of with link-free ‘net handles with a grain of salt.
As for that “office scene” Glenn pointed out, those people in the film work in an advertising firm and the chairs and that room was set up for these brainstorming sessions they’d have. While I totally concur with Glenn that things have been set up in order to placate the scene and how the camera will be placed, it’s a bit disingenuous to say he sets up “all” his scenes that way.
And along the lines of how his films look…the dude is shooting what he knows within the budget he has. Does it look like shit? Yeah, sometimes. The photos I’ve seen of his new one look a lot better and he has real actors in it (Josh Hamilton, Jane Adams, Jessica Weixler) so maybe the “acting” will impove.
As for the thus far “poor acting,” ummm….I could be wrong, but they aren’t acting. Aside from Gerwig, none of those people are really actors. I think that’s Joe’s point in a lot of ways (and I hope I can pull my later thoughts back to this) in that the camera is only capable of capturing truth and maybe the truth is, the camera makes you lie? Is it possible to NOT be conscious of the camera? I mean, isn’t this the question posed by several people over the years?
The case of Joe Swanberg is an interesting one, if only because the guy has had the balls to publicly show his films in the first place. As far as I can tell, KOTM was his first foray into filmmaking, period, and it’s actually available on Netflix. As someone who went to film school, I couldn’t imagine wanting to share my student films with anyone now. I’m 28, and it’s hard to imagine what life would have been like if something I’d made at 22 premiered at SXSW.
I think filmmakers, compared to, say, songwriters or novelists, are at a disadvantage in a lot of ways, because once you make a film so much time and sweat has gone into it (often the product of many, many more brows than just your own) that you feel a sense of obligation to submit to festivals and the like, when maybe the best thing to do would be to just put it in a drawer and move on to the next one. In Swanberg’s case, he got into a fairly major US festival his first time out of the gate, and I wonder what might have happened if the only people to ever see KOTM were his cast and crew.
The only reason I bring this up is because, largely by choice, it seems like Swanberg has really had to learn as a filmmaker in public, something I both admire and feel sorry for. It used to be, back when you had to shoot on film and get together a fair amount of money, that you’d already had some successes and failures before you made your debut… now with digital and the Internet, that’s all changed.
I think the real enemy now is access – specifically, there being too much of it (and, yes, this is coming from someone who would one day like to make a film he’d let other people see). I also think, by and large, the only people really interested in Swanberg’s films are other filmmakers (and I’m grouping critics in with that).
I’d also like to add that I don’t think his films are entirely without merit, but that’s not really my point here.
My point here is this: there are scores of young filmmakers who put a lot more effort into their craft than Swanberg does, yet none of them get a fraction of the attention that he does. Why is that? How come the critical community hasn’t rallied around the films of Travis Wilkerson? Or Jenni Olson? Or Mark Kneale? What is it about Swanberg and his cohorts that drives some of you to soapbox on his behalf? That’s what I’m curious about.
And the whole, WELL HE HAS LIMITED MEANS SO YO CAN’T REALLY FAULT HIM FOR HIS AESTHETIC POVERTY is a cop out. Plenty of filmmkaers have made totally independent films with miniscule budgets that aspired to be more than stretched out student films. And how many movies is the guy going to make before he stops getting the benefit of the doubt? Learning on the job is one thing, but he’s not in his apprentice phase any more. That seems kind of disingenuous. “Treat me as if I don’t really know what I’m doing, but then, you know, treat me the other way when it serves my interests.”
And Don: None of these people are actors? I don’t understand. They’re in front of a camera, making a movie. It’s not like they work at the carwash and Swanberg has ambushed them, forcing them to act on a dime. That seems kind of like a strange thing to say. “They’re not actors.” My question to you is: who ISN’T an actor?
@Alex Gregorianis: Good point, and you made me wish I’d expressed myself better. I’ll try again: I wasn’t commenting so much on Swanberg–whose work I haven’t seen, and so, I grant, maybe I ought to shut my fat mouth–but instead was commenting on the quality of reactions people seem to be having. Michael Bay et al. make some of us mad for very different reasons, I think. What I take to be Swanberg’s drive is a greater realism–and that often involves seeking out an anti-aesthetic, some idiom that dynamically opposes itself to the prevailing one. Many times, that impulse leads to total failure, but sometimes it changes the aesthetic altogether. I do NOT want to suggest that Swanberg is some great artist like Ibsen, but Ibsen’s work provoked reactions similar to what we’ve seen on this long thread–and we can all think of similar examples from the past. And I thought that was an interesting point. (And I apologize to the ghost of Ibsen!)
@Ray re; actors..
Now you’re getting it.…
(I’d go on, but have thus commenced my Friday night beer drinking in which I pretend I write for an awesome site that makes me a comfortable living and allows me to go to film fests every weekend pro bono and behave like Jeff Wells while all the while not living in suburban hell ala April Wheeler sans blood)
@ don lewis: “As for the thus far “poor acting,” ummm….I could be wrong, but they aren’t acting. Aside from Gerwig, none of those people are really actors. I think that’s Joe’s point in a lot of ways (and I hope I can pull my later thoughts back to this) in that the camera is only capable of capturing truth and maybe the truth is, the camera makes you lie? Is it possible to NOT be conscious of the camera? I mean, isn’t this the question posed by several people over the years?”
This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of terms. What do you mean, Don, when you say they “aren’t acting”? Of course they are. (Should I give you the benefit of the doubt with your “I could be wrong”?) They’ve been charged with forming characters, right? And those characters are not themselves, correct? Just because lines might be improvised doesn’t mean this isn’t “acting.” It is. You say that Greta Gerwig is the only actor here–well, then what, pray tell, is Joe Swanberg? What would you call him? Andrew Bujalski? Kent Osborne? What are they doing here? (And now that we’ve brought these alleged “non-actors” up, if Swanberg has no interest in mumblecore labels, he sure does try hard to keep certain people in the fray–and for no discernible reason. Why cast Bujalski? Because of his emotional range? His training? Might there be, and I know this is SO CYNICAL, other motives?)
And your choose-your-own-adventure theories here–that it might be Swanberg’s point that the camera “makes you lie” and maybe it’s impossible to not be “conscious” of the camera is a kiddie’s pool of sophistry that even Craig Keller, in his spitting-mad and semi-coherent voodoo diatribe, didn’t bother to wade into.
I mean, after all is said and done, Joe Swanberg’s films are really reflexive commentaries on the impossibility of a filmed reality? DO YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT?
Wow, I really should take another look at Butterknife. And bookmark Film Threat.
“Isn’t this the question posed by several people over the years?” Well, I should say so: how many goddamn filmmakers over the past 110 years have questioned the role of the camera, and its “reality”? Yeah, I’d say a lot. Porter, Godard, Maysles, Fred Wiseman, Straub-Huillet, DePalma, von Trier, Fincher, Dogme, on and on and on. So, I guess one more voice couldn’t hurt? Except…he’s not really doing that, is he.
Honestly, I’m trying to put my finger on the value here. Why one might find him a great filmmaker. Or good. Or particularly groundbreaking. And it’s hard.
And as others have said, it is absolutely 100% bunk to defend a director’s lackluster mise-en-scene–and such a thing exists, guys and gals, some directors have better eyes than others, please compare, say, Scorsese to Sam Mendes when you have a moment–by arguing that, well, all five feature-length films had limited means. “The dude is shooting what he knows within the budget he has.” Well, thats a terrific defense. I won’t even go into the obnoxiously narrow endeavor of “dude’s shooting what he knows.” (That is, five fucking films’ worth of white people…in their twenties…who…are…really into their relationships…and don’t, for some reason, stray from their own director-imposed demographic… Along with Cinema and Reality, Unmarried White People in Sexual Relationships is really an untapped region). But a budget has NOTHING to do with mise-en-scene. Yes, if you’re making THE LEOPARD, there are certain, shall we say, requirements, but who couldn’t instantly come up with films made on shoestring budgets that have a carefully considered mise-en-scene? (Let’s start with, say, IN BETWEEN DAYS.) Staging don’t cost nothing–angles don’t cost nothing.
I should say, by the way, that I’m a huge fan of Bronstein’s FROWNLAND, and find Bujalski’s films pretty interesting. I’m very much looking forward to seeing YEAST and MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY and QUIET CITY. I have nothing against Realism or Truth.
But to be blunt about it, I don’t think Swanberg’s a very intelligent dramatist, and his visual style approaches worthless.
And I sincerely hope–and kind of believe–he’ll get better.
I’ve always thought of Swanberg as someone who ripped the pages straight from Henry Jaglom’s playbook – someone, basically, who has created their own personal, psycho-sexual playground and whose work ends up foisted on the world as “the epitome of indie auterism.” However, even Jaglom has his editing work on Easy Rider in his back pocket. Swanberg’s brief footnote, if he ever warrants one, will be that his work coincided with and epitomized the height of American narcissism in filmmaking, however accidentally it occurred.
Where’s Swanberg or Ray Carney’s defense?
in spite of my own misgivings, i can’t seem to get as up in arms about swanberg’s work as most. the movies, in their unabashed commitment to looseness, may not be built to withstand the kind of criticism directed at them. it’s odd. critics want to keep calling him out for the lack of depth and incisiveness, even though his whole modus operendi seems to be the celebration of pure offhandedness for its own sake. does this approach yield anything of value? hard to say. at the very worst its just a harmless experiment standing at the very far end of the traditional mise en scene vs. verite spectrum. at the very best, he might manage to capture fleeting moments and gestures that a more structured approach simply could not. in the end, he’s completely abandoned something that is considered essential to creating art. namely, premeditation. some people find that exciting, liberating, others think it a lazy walk down a dead-end. but either way, what he’s doing is so specific and so small and so utterly bereft of attitude or pretense that it’s hard to see getting too upset about it without projecting onto it. he’ll keep working and mining this narrow territory, his output a reflection of his lifestyle more than anything else. good for him. it definitely seems more like an intense personal preoccupation than a careerist strategy. and maybe that’s what bothers people so much about him. he’s so hellbent on following this questionable path that he comes off as being arrogant. i get the sense the whole world could tell him he’s wrong and he’d still be cranking these things out. i like that about him.
also, there seems to be a contradiction in the way you disqualify swanbergs freeforall approach while simultaneously tearing into the performances themselves. if swanberg has the audacity, confidence, balls, idiocy (you decide) to ignore the very notion of preparation then he’s the only only one to blame for the appearance of “perpetual smirks” and “petulant sulks”. it seems you are attacking the work from all sides at once and that’s what gives the impression of a fuming rant.
I don’t give a fuck about Joe Swanberg. He’s a fly buzzing around the shit-pile of lousy cinema that gets dumped into the street every year.
Let people start a fan club if they want. There are a million fan clubs for a million different people.
It’s funny that some of you are talking about “honesty,” as if there is such a thing and as if that is somehow higher up in the hierarchy of viable ways to represent the world, as if the possibility that Joe Swanberg is full of shit shouldn’t even enter the conversation. Maybe Joe Swanberg already knows he’s full of shit. Maybe that’s what his movies are about. Maybe it’s one of those things where you have to watch his movies over and over to parse the delicate touches. I’m sure someone will eventually do that and explain to all of us why Joe Swanberg matters. It sure isn’t going to be me. The thought of watching his movies over and over does not sound like fun to me. It sounds like a job.
Maybe it’s a job for Craig Keller. Probably won’t pay very well, though, Craig, so you might want to really think about it before you agree to do it.
All of you need to have more sex. Some of you sound like you’re going to explode if you don’t.
“You guys act like Joe has worked tirelessly to create this image of digital video DIY Godfather. Like he grabbed a camcorder and shot some naked friends fucking and called it “MUMBLECORE” and crowned himself king of this newfound land of filmmaking. Truth is, he’s just making his films.”
Well, that’s not quite true, Don. Joe didn’t coin or popularize the phrase “mumblecore,” of course, but he did intentionally cast filmmakers from (at the time) better known DIY projects in HANNAH not for acting abilities at all, but for the sole purpose of attracting press attention, for creating a new independent movement of some kind. (The guy’s nothing if not shrewd; the fact that he’s a big fan of Gladwell’s THE TIPPING POINT shouldn’t be surprising.) Go back and look at reviews of HANNAH, even by the estimable Matt Zoller Seitz in the Times, and see how few critics discuss the content or form of the actual movie in question, and how many talk about the “movement” instead. The stunt casting was a form of protection against negative responses to the film.
If Bujalski, for example, was unable to appear in the film (and he certainly was reluctant), Jacob Vaughan from THE CASSIDY KIDS (another SXSW alum) was to take his place. And Joe wanted to squeeze Michael Tully into the office scenes of HANNAH, obviously for no other discernible reason (no insult meant to the wonderful Mr. Tully, but those scenes with the other co-workers are, by and large, fairly insignificant to the film) than adding another SXSW filmmaker to the roster. (Tully’s SILVER JEW played SXSW in 2007, too.) Now, you can say Joe just casts his friends and all his friends are filmmakers, but he used to have real-life non-industry friends. But he cast Bujalski, Mark Duplass, Ry Russo-Young, and Todd Rohal (the latter two in complete throwaway parts that certainly could’ve been played by anyone, not people that had to be flown specifically to Chicago). It’s pretty hard to argue, Don, that the creation of the mumblecore press explosion wasn’t directly (and deliberately) engineered by Joe.
The one person cast sheerly for presence in HANNAH was the (then) unknown Greta, and this role wasn’t even slated to originally be played by her. The initial notion was to put Susan Buice from FOUR EYED MONSTERS in that part; when Buice expressed hesitance, and, more importantly, as FOUR EYED MONSTERS fell out of press favor, Joe changed his mind.
“What I want to know is what the did Joe Swanberg do to invite the level of contempt that people are heaving at him? He must have a really repellent personality. This all just can’t be about his mediocre movies.”
You’re very perceptive, Natalie. This isn’t the time or the place for those things, but let me just say Joe would have been met with far more indifference and far less vitriol without involving personal factors. I’m not arguing this is fair, but it certainly has factored into the debate.
@Faye: I suppose everyone on this thread should be proud that it took 60 comments before we got our first sock puppet. And for all that, I’m disappointed that the best you could do is just a more polite variant of “you guys need to get laid!” Such hilarity! But thanks, anyway.
Memo to Craig Keller:
One surefire way to undercut your argument is to insist that anybody who doesn’t appreciate the movies you appreciate is some unwashed clod who shouldn’t be considered as a viewer of depth and refinement. Or worse, a lover of “mere” commercial cinema. It’s like that guy who eats nothing but health food. Do you want to be near that guy? Or talk to him? Ever?
What little I understood from Craig’s rant encapsulates what I don’t like about Swanberg’s films. Formal incompetence aside, I find the “it’s fucking REAL” “aesthetic,” or the rather “it’s fucking REAL” line of defense for why there is no aesthetic to his work, to be profoundly conservative and immature. Ideologically, this line of argumentation strikes me as no different than the demands giant block-busters place on mw by demanding that I appreciate their spectacles simply because they look “realistic.” To me, Swanberg masturbation scene is a version of juvenile indie spectacle. As Glenn suggests, it advances the story in no way and doesn’t really tell us anything we don’t know. Intellectually, it tells us nothing interesting about sex on screen either. But, man, “it’s fucking REAL!” so somehow we can’t possibly criticize it.
@Dan: Can you see this? —
.
It’s the Internet’s smallest violin.
@“ZZZ”: “Profoundly conservative and immature.” In that case, kiss my ass.
No, no, but seriously, ZZZ! — whom I’m supposed to take seriously on account of an ‘argument’ such as filmed masturbated ejaculation = “juvenile indie spectacle.” No, ZZZ, I don’t think you (you) CAN “possibly criticize it.” But let’s look at this concretely. For one thing, I have to admit — being a male with functioning anatomy — I’m not shocked by the sight of an ejaculating penis — so I, personally, find the ‘spectacle’ supposedly inherent to the image pretty elusive. Your problem, and that of a few others here, as I understand it, is that you’re squeamish about naked male bodies, especially those belonging to someone who’s also the director, and double-espesh if the organs attached tumesce and release. (I also suspect some jealousy over JS’s distance, but we’ll let sleeping camels lay.) And that you take the scene as being particularly bad because it “advances the story in no way” I find to be an absolutely stupid thought, because it’s predicated on some conception of cinema as a story-machine that functions to advance a narrative, and to some culturally agreed-upon regularity of design. Which, yes, I reject. A film can stop, it can start, it can pause, it can be a comedy for 45 minutes, then turn into a Haneke-esque nightmare for the final 270 minutes. It can show three hours of a progressive theater-troupe in rehearsal, interspersed with the shaggy-dog pursuit of a secret society by a harmonica-playing would-be-deaf-mute, before doubling back on itself, and feigning a 25-minute end-whimper before repeating a particular shot from five hours earlier. A film can be a lattice, as much as a campfire tale. Really, I’m sorry Joe Swanberg didn’t keep you entertained — but that’s not his problem.
Of course, I would argue that the masturbation scene in the shower exists for at least two purposes:
(1) To ‘advance’ a good-hard-look at The Body in ways it’s not regularly filmed: not just the shower scene’s erect cock being masturbated to completion — (which, look, we’ve all seen in porn, or at least I presume; but not in a ‘narrative’ feature, and again not for any purpose around “money-shot” denigration of a female-recipient, to boot) — but also bare feet, and the way that hardwood-floor debris sticks to them; the way an ass looks when it belongs to a body which communicates both to the viewer AND to the very actor looking at it with a mirror in the same frame, that this figure won’t last forever, and contains a whole cycle of aging. (A topic around which there circulates a fair amount of anxiety inside of the film — note the complete absence of parents; note the sign on the steering wheel of the golf-cart that Winterich rides in the course of her weekend-job, which she attends by commuting back to her parents’ house; note the long, beautiful stretch of interviews that arrive on the soundtrack in voice-over, about parents and their marriages, which comes on all in the vicinity of that golf-cart scene.) And Swanberg makes these zones of the body discrete — not just with close-ups on tits, but hands, eyelashes, feet, fingertips, over and over — he’s using the lexicon of the “insert shot” (not too bad a reflexive pun on JS’s part for a film about the body and sex, huh?) to basically anchor the entire montage. And all of this is of a piece with a larger sense of TACTILITY that he conveys (really, the best, and ‘most tactile’ modern film I’ve seen since ‘La ciénaga’ by Lucrecia Martel) by way of the close-ups of the bric-à-brac on the roommates’ desks (fingernail clippers, tape, etc.), of the absent-minded wedging of a crumb of red candlewax left on a kitchen-table with a butterknife, of the way you suck at making eggs so you have to keep dipping your index-finger into the pan to remove the shards of eggshell.
Do you think I’m pulling this out of my ass? Why don’t you watch the film? Except, y’know, for “REAL” this time.
(2) The masturbation scene in the shower ALSO exists to cement Swanberg’s/Patrick’s sexual longing for the roommate (shown only via breasts, and dislocated portions, if I recall), via the “fantasy” cut-ins — a fact which becomes ‑somewhat complicated‑, however, by the larger number of cut-ins to the character played by Kris Swanberg (née Williams), shown with face/kissing/as a whole. Later, Swanberg/Patrick will tell the roommate he’s just not interested in her, in terms of having a, y’know, ‘thing’. But, she clearly fulfills a certain private sexual fantasy, or fetish, for Patrick. Nevertheless, he’s drawn toward Ellen/Winterich — the carpet-play goes nowhere (I can’t help recalling Moz’s “King Leer”: ‘I tried to surprise ya / I laid down beside ya / And nothing much happened.’), and the pas de deux of the ‘unspoken crush thing’ plays out elegantly and anxiously across the stage of the ‘why are you still sleeping with Chris/Pittman?’ thread. Patrick and Ellen never kiss, they never hook up before the film ends, but the make-up comes in the form of a big hug in the kitchen — sometimes that’s all any of us can wish for, with Girl-Crush X.
Given that this abundance of content exists within this single film, I can’t be anything but shocked that so many of the commenters here are dismissing him. But I have a feeling the Swanberg oeuvre “will out” in the end — Abel Ferrara has had to deal with a similar shape of critical detraction in the US
(at least up until recently) for thirty years.
Anyway, last night I wrote a draft of a piece about KISSING ON THE MOUTH, which I’ll be posting somewhere early in the week. It doesn’t repeat these thoughts on the shower-scene, but goes into other aspects, and sequences. (Also contains about twenty beautiful frames, to illustrate various points — which I didn’t have to contort my scrubber-finger into new angles to take either; they come from shots that last several seconds.) After KISSING ON THE MOUTH, I’ll be writing about each Y.A.B. season, LOL, HANNAH, BUTTERKNIFE, and hopefully NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS.
craig.
Just to ERRATUM-ize/clarify — when I wrote THIS:
“and again not for any purpose around “money-shot” denigration of a female-recipient, to boot”
— what I meant to say was the double-negative’d THIS:
“and we haven’t seen it [in a ‘narrative’ feature] NOT being used for the purpose of “money-shot”-denigration of a female-recipient — to boot.”
Craig, can’t you give the masses what they want and write about BUTTERKNIFE first?
If memory serves, a guy masturbates to fruition with a belt around his neck in Larry Clark’s KEN PARK (2002). And there’s a penis and semen. And he’s alone.
Point Clark?
Also, in sum:
Ozu
Pialat
Martel
Cassavettes
Swanberg.
Got it.
You’ll have to forgive me for not being able to respond at great length since wadding through the diarrhea of your syntax is giving me a concussion. However, we can agree when you write:
“No, no, but seriously, ZZZ! — whom I’m supposed to take seriously on account of an ‘argument’ such as filmed masturbated ejaculation = “juvenile indie spectacle.” No, ZZZ, I don’t think you (you) CAN “possibly criticize it.” But let’s look at this concretely. For one thing, I have to admit — being a male with functioning anatomy — I’m not shocked by the sight of an ejaculating penis — so I, personally, find the ‘spectacle’ supposedly inherent to the image pretty elusive.”
we can dismiss it on the grounds when you do articulate a defense of the scene you argue that it functions as spectacle rather a dramatic or narrative moment.
Yes, I agree with you that the scene works as “To ‘advance’ a good-hard-look at The Body in ways it’s not regularly filmed: not just the shower scene’s erect cock being masturbated to completion — (which, look, we’ve all seen in porn, or at least I presume; but not in a ‘narrative’ feature” My point is that I find this aesthetically juvenile. As I have no anxiety about watching penises, I need to scene to tell me something about sexuality either in of itself or for the characters otherwise it’s akin to watching a special effect on the grounds that it is somehow more realistic.
A simple definition of spectacle is “something to look at, esp. some strange or remarkable sight; unusual display.” So, yes, looking at him masturbate because this isn’t something shown in movies (and is therefore supposed to be somehow more REAL or authentic) is a form of juvenile indie spectacle: it carries no significance beyond supposedly showing me something I haven’t seen before in a narrative feature.
Navel-gazing to the Nth degree, brazenly under the guise of subtext. The “moments” are with a capital “M”, and are a largely fraudulent bore. The fact that it’s even being discussed if nothing else shows how prolific he is, so you have to give him credit for that. But quantity doesn’t equal quality. “Nights and Weekends” should’ve been called “I Watched Everyone Bump Uglies With Greta on ‘Hannah’ & Now It’s My Turn For a Piece: The Motion Picture”.
I. BIAS
Like Glenn, I’ll begin with full disclosure. As this story goes back a few years, and as it is somewhat intertwined with my own life as a filmmaker, it’s going to digress a bit and it’s going to take a while. So be forewarned.
I started work on my first feature film in 2000; it was my senior year of high school and I had just lost my father to lung cancer (he was thirty-eight). That film, which I finished in early 2001, was intended to deal with that death. It wasn’t very good– the wounds were too fresh and I really didn’t have anything more insightful to say then “it’s hard to deal with death” and “live for the moment” and some-such.
My father had worked in insurance and so his life insurance policy left us with a substantial amount, roughly a quarter of a million dollars. My mother spent it in less than a year, at one point buying three new cars in as many months. She started to use drugs heavily, and when my father’s insurance money ran out she emptied out my savings account. I moved out of my mother’s house just a couple of months before my high school graduation; I never went to college.
Instead, I worked. I paid rent and I made my own meals. I tried to educate myself the best that I could. And I made two films, one with borrowed equipment and one with my own. I sent them to festivals and I got rejected from every single one.
Along the way, I met Mary, who became my wife five years ago this Monday. And then we made a film together, and let me be unequivocal here: that film was good. While I see some problems with it now, looking back at it from a distance of five years, I’m still proud of it and I still remember the joy and the sense of accomplishment I had felt at its completion. This was the film, I said; this is the film that’s going to take off.
We sent it to festivals. Oh, so many festivals. And DVD distributors. And we got rejected from and ignored by every single one. (Hold onto this thought, as we’ll be coming back to it.)
Shortly after we had finished that film, Mary had introduced me to Roger Avary’s film “Killing Zoe”. Wanting to know more about the man, I stumbled across his website and began lurking. One of the thoughtful commentators on Avary’s sight was Joe Swanberg, who was, at the time, just finishing or had just finished his first feature. As I recall, Avary held digital video in great disdain and so he gave Swanberg a lot of crap. Swanberg seemed to defend digital video fairly ardently and intelligently, and since I was also a digital partisan I decided to drop him a line, asking in my awkward way if we could chat about film from time to time. He agreed.
We didn’t actually correspond all that much; I remember talking with him about solving video’s contrast ratio problem, and asking him why Avary had suddenly shut down his site (he had no idea either). Nothing really happened until he was making “LOL” and started asking people for the noise head videos. I submitted one, though I didn’t make the final cut; I think the video’s magnetic information got damaged in the mail. My name is in the end credits, though, underneath a blur that vaguely resembles me.
After that first film that Mary and I had made together, we went through a pretty bleak period together. We had bought a house and our mortgage company was, to put it lightly, less than scrupulous. We both had our share of medical bills without health insurance. Mary would find a job or a temp assignment and then lose it. I managed to find a job working with autistic people and, a year later, I managed to lose it. All this time, we were submitting the film to festivals, occasionally recutting it, and getting rejected. We spent more money on the festival fees than on the film itself.
This bad period reached an apex when I decided to run for political office, mostly as a lark. What I did not know when I made that decision was that my part-time employer would put me on a mandatory six week leave of absence; with my name already on the ballot, there was really no going back.
I was unemployed, which made me feel like a failure as a man; I was a failure as a politician, as a husband, as a filmmaker, as a human being. And in-between applying for jobs online, I was poking around the web and I found out that Joe Swanberg had a Wikipedia page, that “Kissing on the Mouth” was on DVD, that he had done all these interviews, even gotten a review for LOL in the New York Times, the Gray Motherfucking Lady. Here he was succeeding, and I was a failure, a dismal suicidal failure. I envied him. And I wrote him and said as such, if not in so many words.
And Joe said, “You know, I haven’t made a dime from filmmaking.” (At that time, he hadn’t.) “I have negative income and debt” (just like me). “We all get discouraged sometimes. I don’t make films because I want money or fame, I make films because I want to make films, because I like making films.”
His words, which of course I’m paraphrasing, had a tremendous impact on me. In perhaps the lowest point of my life, Joe Swanberg put things in perspective and reminded me why I was making films in the first place. Around that same time, Andrew Bujalski, who I had also been conversing with over the course of that bad period, saw that film Mary and I had made together and had some tremendously nice things to say about it.
The two of them, taken together, not only inspired me to make films again, but I can say without a hint of melodrama that they saved my life. I will always be grateful to both of them for that. After the election, I returned to my part-time job; Mary and I started working on our next film, “The Man Who Loved”, which we dedicated to Bujalski and to Swanberg.
Joe was kind enough to appear in the film we finished last year, “Son of a Seahorse”, in a part we had written specifically with him in mind. Because of his schedule, we had written the part so that he could shoot his portion and send it to us by mail. Not my ideal way of working with an actor, but we gave him some detailed notes on the script and the end result was exactly what we were looking for and so much more.
I was looking forward to finally meeting Joe and Andrew in person at this year’s SXSW, but alas we were once again rejected. For ten years now I’ve been making films and submitting them to festivals, and I’ve never gotten into a single one. But I’m optimistic, excited, and about to start work on my seventh feature. And I’ve got Joe Swanberg to thank for that.
Now, all this probably opens me up to the charge that I’m biased, that I can’t possibly comment on Swanberg’s work objectively. The same charge was leveled against Mr. Kenny; I think the balance of his essay proves that charge to be false and I hope the balance of mine does the same. While we might have wildly different takes on and experiences with Joe Swanberg the person, there are a few points about Swanberg the artist on which Mr. Kenny and I agree.
On the larger point of “Is Joe Swanberg the filmmaker worth my time and attention?”, my answer is “yes”; Joe’s a filmmaker who I respect and admire. Now, that doesn’t mean that I can’t have some reservations and qualms about his work. Film taste and criticism is not a zero-sum game. I think quite possibly the greatest film critic who ever lived is Charles Thomas Samuels, who in interviewing a filmmaker he admired greatly would not hesitate to call them to task. I still can’t quite believe he had the balls to tell Bresson that he should have held a particular shot in “Balthazar” a few seconds longer and that the scene in question didn’t really work as a result. (Incidentally: whatever happened to Charles Thomas Samuels?)
II. PARAMETERS
Glenn and Craig have me at a distinct disadvantage, because not only is my prose and my arguments not as precise as theirs, but they indeed have seen more Swanberg films than I have. I’ve not seen “Kissing on the Mouth”, and I’ll admit freely that that’s largely because I don’t have a great and burning desire to see Joe’s wiener more than I already have in “Young American Bodies”. Yes, we all have genitals and most of us have some form of a sex life, and, yes, this brings us around to that question, Why are people so hung up on sex?, which is probably Joe’s point. But if the adult film stars I’ve met at the Detroit Comicon are any indication, I think I’d have a great deal of difficultly meeting and talking with Joe in person without getting the mental image of his nuts-and-berries flashing before my eyes. (Which, again, might lead us to that question: Why are people so hung up on sex?)
I’ve also never seen “Nights and Weekends”, as it has not yet been released on DVD and I do not have access to any video on demand. I can only form my opinion based on the work I have seen: “LOL”, “Hannah Takes the Stairs”, “Young American Bodies”, “Butterknife”, and “The Stagg Party”. Which is still, I think, a large enough body of work to argue from.
In addition to establishing what I’ll be arguing from, I should establish also what it is, exactly, that I’m arguing. So let me be clear and let me be unequivocal: I think Joe Swanberg is a good and interesting filmmaker. He’s not a master filmmaker and none of his films are “masterworks”. He’s not Ozu, Scorsese, Cassavetes, Truffaut, Godard, or Laughlin. I will not be arguing for his inclusion amongst those greatest of the greats, but neither am I going to say that his films exist in some special class where they can’t be held up against their standards.
I wouldn’t say, as Craig Keller does, that the performances are “magnificent”, but I do find the performances on a whole to be “good”; I won’t say that Swanberg’s films are “incredibly beautiful” but I do find within them an element of beauty.
I enjoy Swanberg’s films; I’m going to try and explain why. I have my problems with them; I’m going to examine those. I’m going to set forth as best as I am able why I think he’s a filmmaker who is worth your time and interest. Perhaps not, at this stage in the game, an essential or epochal one, but one who is nonetheless worthy and interesting.
III. Sex and Art
Two themes that I see cropping up a lot in Joe’s work are sex and art. His films and web-series generally seem to center around “creative types”– web designers, musicians, writers, and, apparently, a video game designer– in various modes of undress. In fact, his recent web series “The Stagg Party”, a documentary about pornographer/erotic art photographer Ellen Stagg, puts these two themes squarely at the forefront of the work.
Let me say something that’s going to cause a bit of head-scratching, given the filmmaker under discussion: as both a viewer and a filmmaker myself I’m not particularly interested in either of these themes.
Works of art about art, artists, making art, the creative process, et al, almost always rub me the wrong way. With a few exceptions (Truffaut, W. Anderson, Rivette) they always seem too self-referential, a bit too meta. Instead of being art about love-hate-death-pain-joy-life it’s only about itself. I think the problem is that I’ve seen too many films from first-time filmmakers about first-time filmmakers making their first film. Also novels about novelists writing a novel (Wonder Boys: happy exception).
As for the other thing– sex– it’s not so much that I’m not interested in it, per se; I am, after all, a human being and male at that. Neither am I uncomfortable about seeing sexuality on the screen: erotic, disturbing, ordinary, ridiculous: it’s all fine by me. But, with puberty now several years behind me, I’m unlikely to seek out a film because of its sexual content. When I hear that so-and-so has made a Daring And Important Film that explores the extremes of human sexuality, the best I can offer up is a “meh”. This apathy, of course, has never stopped me from writing or seeking out dirty stories about Amish lesbians.
But maybe this all just proves Swanberg’s point. In an interview, he once said something along the lines of he was trying to reclaim sex from pornography, to make sex ordinary instead of sensational and fake and sleazy; that sex is just something that his characters do. And here I am, salivating over “and then her bonnet fell into the butter churn” and shrugging at films that try to elevate depictions of sex beyond mere spank material. Maybe I’m one of those Americans experiencing anxiety “over a perceived disparity in levels of commitment to the diegesis on the part of the filmmaker”, but I can’t be certain as I’m not exactly sure what all that means.
In any case, I’ve seldom found the sex scenes in “Young American Bodies” to be particularly sexy (exceptions: the standing-up-while-receiving-cunninglingus scene in season one, the boob massage in season… two? three?). They have, on occasion, struck me as funny and honest (trying and failing to construct an Alex Mack sex fantasy in season three). But mostly, it’s just something his characters do. Like talking about dreams, rolling one’s eyes at unwanted guests/roommates, proposing to a girlfriend, meeting new people.
From what I’ve seen, the sex in Joe’s work is pretty ordinary and it frankly doesn’t interest me as much as those scenes in which the characters communicate verbally. That said, again, I haven’t seen “Kissing on the Mouth” or its notorious masturbation scene.
As Glenn Kenny describes it, the scene features Swanberg’s character masturbating to completion while thinking about two different women to whom he feels different levels of attraction. It’s the only time, Kenny notes, that the film becomes subjective, taking us into the character’s mind as he fantasizes about each woman. This, he says, adds nothing to the film– we already know that the character is attracted to both women. While he acknowledges that Swanberg is asking what Keller calls the implicit question of what the cinema can or should show with regards to sex, he sees it as a “literally balls-out assertion of male privilege”.
And, I dunno, all this can be true. Like I said, I haven’t seen it. But, this being the internet, I am therefore perfectly qualified to comment on it.
Back in my crazy bachelor days, I had sex several times a week. Granted, my only partners were the palm of my hand and my imagination. Seldom was I able to complete the deed thinking about the same woman or scenario. No; I often had to summon a veritable harem of women in bonnets and plain hook dresses succumbing to the considerable charms of a swarthy Englisher. I think this is common. Well, not so much the Amish thing, but the whole thinking-about-lots-of-different-people-to-whom-one-feels-a-physical-attraction-while-masturbating thing, I think that is a common phenomenon for human beings in general but for men in particular.
Here’s the thing: you don’t see that phenomenon often presented in film. First of all, you don’t often see masturbation in the first place. Secondly, when characters do follow the advice of former Surgeon General Elders on the screen, it’s usually played for laughs (cf. “There’s Something About Mary”). Whether it’s taken seriously or not, the scene usually centers on one fantasy (perhaps presented in a subjective dream sequence) and one person, usually presented in some kind of chronological order. The human mind, as far as I’m aware, very seldom works in such an orderly and focused fashion, and that goes double for when someone’s got themselves worked up about something.
From the way Glenn describes it, it sounds like Swanberg’s presenting a masturbation scene that’s much closer to the way the human mind works, “alternating” fantasies. Perhaps Swanberg just thought, “Hey, I’ve never seen that in a film, it’s something that rings true, so maybe I’ll put it in.”
I am reminded of a scene from Paul Thomas Anderson’s charming “Punch-Drunk Love”, in which Sandler’s character Barry Egan, when asked about his work, says “Business is very food”. People make those sort of Freudian slips all the time, but they seldom show up in film; when they do, it’s almost always heightened and Full of Psychological Significance. It was nice to see a bit of ordinary reality reflected back at me from the screen. Indeed, Mary and I have tried to do stuff like that in our own work; in our film “The Man Who Loved”, there’s a scene in which one of the characters attempts to change the bedsheets while her two cats crawl all over the bed, bat at the sheets, and generally get in the way, as cats do. It was something that we didn’t recall seeing in other films, and as it was a sometimes irritating part of our day-to-day experience, we put it in our film.
Perhaps I’m right and the thinking behind that scene in “Kissing on the Mouth” is that we seldom see a realistic masturbation scene in the mainstream cinema; that still doesn’t make me want to actually watch it. Which is, come to think of it, probably why such scenes are so seldom in the first place.
Sure, people masturbate and people trim their pubic hair. Hey, people get diarrhea too. I’ve yet to see a film that graphically and realistically depicts an act of human defecation, and I frankly don’t want to. Yes, all that happens and all that is honest; I just don’t find it particularly interesting.
I’m more interested in seeing emotional and psychological places that filmmakers so seldomly traverse– in graphic and realistic depictions of mental nudity, of self-exposure. Lucky for me, the films of Swanberg have that, too. And that’s what I find *really* interesting.
IV. A Director of Moments
As Kenny reports, I said in an earlier comments thread that I thought the “best moment” in all of Swanberg’s work comes in “Hannah Takes the Stairs” in a scene between Gerwig and Kent Osborne. In describing it from memory I perhaps put too much emphasis on Osborne’s discussion of his depression medication; it wasn’t really Osborne’s moment that struck me as being particularly special.
The moment that I’m talking about is all Gerwig and it starts: “It sounds really stupid, because it sounds like what I’m saying is, ‘Now that I know you’re depressed and you have these things, I can no longer treat you with carelessness’. But that’s actually what I’m thinking. I tend to leave destruction in my wake.”
Over the next few bits of verbal placeholders, Gerwig’s Hannah gradually starts to break down and cry. Osborne grabs a tissue and, sputtering, she works her way to this: “No, you’re Good, and I’m using you to cover things up and, gee, I don’t know, you deserve more than that, and that’s the shittiest first thing to tell a person, because they know that they deserve more than whatever’s the person giving them… I don’t know, I feel like I was just trying to use you to make me feel good, and it’s like, ‘No, this is a person, and it’s a person with problems.’ Not that you only have problems, but it’s like—- I don’t want to use you.”
It’s that moment that moved me, that moment where I recognized some emotional honesty on the screen. I described it in my earlier comments as acute self-consciousness, but perhaps it would be more accurate to flip the two: that moment features an acute consciousness of self. In that moment, she acknowledges her narcissism, a narcissism that objectifies other people. She did not, prior to her suitor’s confession, think of him as a person with a life that extends beyond her own. She’s completely aware of this, or at any rate in this moment becomes completely aware of it, and hates herself, castigates herself for it. And still, of course, the scene is still in the end about _her_ and how _she_ reacts, and perhaps she’s only thinking of him in relation to how he makes her think about herself. She is a full-blown narcissist who is also full of self-loathing.
That moment rang true for me. Not the crying so much but those couple of lines– “this is a person” and “I don’t want to use you”. It was a moment that had some teeth, a moment that has (to my mind) some emotional complexity. And while there are other moments in “Hannah” and “LOL” and the web stuff that feel “real” and highlight something about the characters, I don’t think any of those moments approach that one in “Hannah”; that’s why I single it out as the best in Swanberg’s work.
Now, the question is raised: how much of that is Swanberg and how much is Gerwig? As we all know, Swanberg often doesn’t use a script. His actors improvise their dialogue and perhaps even the situations. One could argue, then, that the moment is really Gerwig’s: it’s Gerwig’s emotions, Gerwig’s words, and, who knows, perhaps even Gerwig’s personality. (Having never met Ms. Gerwig, and being generally unwilling to assign character flaws to actors and actresses I’ve never met based solely on the character flaws of roles they’ve performed, I will not be speculating along those lines.)
Assuming a ginormous chunk of that moment is due to Gerwig, let me put forth the following: an actor cannot create a moment like that in a vacuum. An environment must be created and a mood fostered that allows an actor to dig deeper and to reveal more. Unless you’ve got an onion handy, no one’s going to cry on camera unless they’re able to let down their emotional shields. No one’s going to go into uncomfortable territory, either emotionally or physically, unless the director has made them comfortable enough to do so.
Directing is: shot composition, cutting, scoring, blocking, dressing– certainly. But directing is also casting and it’s also creating an atmosphere that allows the actors to do their thing. There is no such thing as “an actor’s picture” without an actor’s director. There could be no moments like this one in “Hannah” unless Swanberg created the circumstances that allowed it to take place.
Watching that scene again so that I could get the dialogue jotted down, I realized that for the duration of that moment, the camera never leaves Gerwig’s face. Osborne is off-camera, he’s still talking, he occasionally moves into the frame– but the shot, the moment, is Gerwig’s. The camera stares without flinching as she lacerates herself. And, I have to say, in that moment she looks gorgeous: the white light on the side of her face, the pimples on her right cheek, the way she rubs her nose with her index finger. That’s where our attention should be and that’s where he keeps the camera: he focuses our attention on her: directing.
Now, I know what you’re going to say: “But he always keeps his camera on people’s faces!” Glenn spoke of Swanberg’s “claustrophobic world of close-ups and medium close-ups… his almost infantile refusal to ever use the camera to evoke a sense of space beyond the immediate proximity of his characters.”
From what I’ve seen, Glenn’s right in that Swanberg’s work seldom creates a palpable sense of space, of place, of time. Everything’s focused on this moment and these people and more specifically these faces. Partially, I think this is the result of his working methods/aims: if he seeks to capture moments– not construct them but to create a place where they can happen and snatch them up as they fleet on by– then of course his camera is going to be fixated on where those moments happen. But partially I think it’s also simply a matter of preference: I think Joe Swanberg is just madly in love with the human face. Male, female, they all look gorgeous and yet are all stripped of their glamour. He lights for faces and shoots for faces and edits for them.
Is this to his detriment? Honestly, I can’t say. I *would* like to get a better sense not just of physical space but of practical non-emotional reality (more on that in just a bit). At the same time, I do like those moments.
Glenn grants that those moments do exist. He says that they’re often awkward and stumbled across. And, yes, I can’t say I disagree with that; even that moment I cherish from “Hannah” feels like it’s been stumbled across, perhaps a bit clumsily. It did not, however, take me out of the movie the way that Gerwig-looking-away-from-camera did. It felt like I just witnessed something real, unexpected, unplanned– and I can’t help but wonder if that’s because its creators were groping for that hidden truth and happened to snatch it up.
Clumsy or not, Glenn states that there aren’t enough of those moments to “make Swanberg worth my time and faith”. And while I’ve never gone and counted up those moments, for me there have been enough to keep me wanting more. But I can certainly see where Glenn’s coming from, and the problem with making a film as a way of bottling up moments like emotional lightning is that, well, you can’t always succeed.
While I think that moment from “Hannah” is the best I’ve seen in Swanberg’s work so far, I will allow that I think there were more moments in “LOL”. “LOL” is, I think, a better film as a whole. And this might be because of the circumstances of its making. From what I understand, “LOL” was shot over the course of some eight months, whereas “Hannah” was shot during two or three weeks. Eight months gives you a lot more time to shoot and reshoot, think and rethink; eight months allows you to discard more material and you’re going to end up with a lot more great material.
V. The Tragic Smirk
I think Swanberg’s films also concern themselves with genuineness, though not in that silly film school “what is the meaning of reality and representation” way. Some of his characters can be narcissistic twits, but they’re not oblivious about it: they know they’re being twits but they do it anyway. Two examples:
In “LOL”: Tim asks his horny girlfriend for twenty more minutes with his computer; he knows she’s going to say no and he knows he might catch hell for asking but still he asks.
In “Young American Bodies”: Swanberg’s character and his older former paramour are studying. He knows that there’s to be no more fooling around between them. But still he brings it up. He does so with, well, a smirk: I know this is ridiculous but I’m going to do it anyway.
His characters live in a constant state of self-awareness. It’s almost crippling; they can’t be sincere because they’re always conscious of how silly, stupid, and immature they are. So, how can they “be who they are” if everything is finger-quotes? I am reminded of a Tom Tomorrow cartoon in which a couple breaks up because, so used to living in an age of wit and irony, they can’t say “I love you” without the other suspecting them of sarcasm.
I don’t think I’m reaching in detecting this theme, though I doubt it’s one that Joe has developed consciously. That is, I think it’s something more intuitive which is why it has never come to the fore in the same way Sex and Art have. I would certainly like to see him develop more along these lines, though, and I hope he does so in the future.
VI. Teeth
I’m sure anyone who is familiar with this Mumble-Thing has at least a passing familiarity with Boston University’s Ray Carney. He’s a big booster of Bujalski, Swanberg, Katz, Audley, Bronstein, et cetera. But anyone who knows Ray knows that he’s not one to just grab a couple of pom-poms and rah, rah, rah about how great someone is.
Recently, he took a look at this whole generation of young American independent filmmakers and decried the niceness of it all. Every character is polite and considerate of others. No one starts any fights or wants to argue. They’re all accommodating and sweet.
True, I haven’t seen much by way of yelling and screaming in Swanberg’s films, but his characters are not afraid to pick at each other passive-aggressively.
The best example I can think of is one that Glenn cited as an example of unreality in Swanberg’s series “Butterknife”. I’m talking about the scene in which Mary Bronstein’s character gets stuck under the bed and asks her husband for help; said husband instead fetches a camera and photographs her before pulling her out from under the bed by her feet. Glenn pointed out that Mr. Bronstein could easily have lifted up the bed and chalked it up as an attempt at an “I Love Lucy” homage.
But– maybe this is just me– I didn’t see it that way at all. It didn’t come across as “antics”; it came across as “disturbing”. Rather than help her, he prolongs her predicament. He’s having fun at her expense. I don’t think he’s doing it to be “cute”; I think he’s doing it to get back at her for something. Heck, maybe it’s nothing in particular– behaviour that’s common even in healthy marriages.
Then there’s the eponymous scene in the Butterknife episode “Bedroom Bully”, in which Mary is attempting to get to sleep and her husband chews loudly to get on her nerves, calls her a bedroom bully, and even sings her a song about her bulliness. They’re just little things, but again here we have a character who is pushing, needling, and irritating the other. There’s a tension in that relationship, and I often detect such tensions under the surface in other Swanberg characters.
There’s a scene in “LOL” in which Swanberg’s own character, Tim, refuses to get angry at his girlfriend for trying to make him angry thus making her more angry. He takes the audience through this process as he explains it to a friend over his cell phone. Of course, what he doesn’t mention is that this in and of itself is an act of anger.
In “LOL” and “Young American Bodies”, both of Swanberg’s characters deliberately get on people’s nerves. It was this quality that I tried to capitalize on in my own film, “Son of a Seahorse”, in which Swanberg plays a particularly unhelpful customer service rep working for a utility company.
VII. Practical Reality
I mentioned earlier that in addition to a sense of physical space, I wish Swanberg’s films also had a sense of non-emotional reality. What I mean by this is that why I find the performances, emotions, and certain moments of Swanberg films to be exceptionally realistic, I don’t think he does nearly as good of a job conjuring up or defining the practical physical details of everyday life.
Glenn cites a few examples of this in his essay: for example, the chair situated in front of a door in an office. Don Lewis pointed out that they worked for an advertising firm and they arranged the chairs thusly for a brainstorming session. Me? I didn’t know they worked for an advertising firm.
I know they were writing for something, and that Bujalski’s character was apparently a blogger of renown. What he blogged about, I had no idea. What they wrote for, I wasn’t quite sure. Apparently it was advertising.
I think Swanberg pays a lot of attention to his actors, to their characters, to the moments they create together; I’m not sure if he pays quite so much attention to anything outside of that. And more-so than the lack of a sense of physical space, I do think that is a detriment.
During the “Glenn Kenny Glenn Ross” affair, which I remember watching from the sidelines, I believe Joe brushed off the criticism about the lack of research into detective work for “Butterknife” because the job itself wasn’t relevant to the series (I am paraphrasing and I can’t seem to find the relevant page online). It was just a fun sort of job for him to have.
I kind of accepted that logic at the time, even if the detective portions weren’t nearly as interesting, fresh, or entertaining for me as the husband-and-wife sections. But it is emblematic of the Swanberg work that I’ve seen thus far (“The Stagg Party”, of course, being an exception). With the exception of the girls working in the doughnut shop in “Young American Bodies”, no one seems to have a real job; that is, a non-artist job that resembles reality as working people know it. Yet everyone seems, if not exactly affluent, certainly unworried about the cost of living.
The work space in “Hannah” doesn’t resemble any office I know of, but rather just seemed to be another place for the characters to hang out and entertain one another. The characters may have been co-workers but they were really just another gaggle of friends; the office might as well have been someone’s apartment. For me, those scenes at that office space work less well then the rest of the picture.
It’s always dangerous to be ascribing motives to other people, but I honestly think this sort of stuff isn’t as important to Joe as capturing those moments and exploring his characters. And, since that’s what (I think) he’s good at and since that’s really what his pictures are about, I can’t fault him completely for that.
But at the same time, such things can get in the way of someone enjoying a film; there is a sort of disconnect between the emotional realism and the lack of practical realism. I see one of two possible solutions.
One, most obviously, is that he finds ways to ground his pictures in practical things. Part of this, yes, is creating a sense of space but part of this is creating believable jobs, responsibilities, and biographies for his characters. This should not damage his improvisational style any but rather deepen it by creating a framework for his actors to use.
The other solution is to go completely in the other direction: to give his characters jobs and the like that are so absurd and ridiculous on their face that no one will stop to question whether they feel “real”. Recall Antoine Doinel’s job in “Bed and Board”, which involved driving toy boats around a lake. Though that film still pales next to “Stolen Kisses” (which, incidentally, *does* feature researched and accurate detective work), the silliness of the job does not detract from the very real emotions that the film is dealing with. By making those sort of practical details deliberately unreal, Joe could put the focus even more squarely on the things that matter to him.
VIII. Like, you know, um, like yeah.
For the record, some of the dialogue in all these Mumble-Grumble films drive me absolutely nuts. Yes, people in real life do at times use verbal placeholders and usually aren’t slinging bon-mots like they’re in a God-damn Kevin Smith film. But when those verbal placeholders and banalities metastasize into tics, it does damage the aim of realism. Plus, it makes me twitchy.
IX. Contingency?
So, let’s come around to the big question at last: is the cinema of Joe Swanberg the cinema of contingency? By his own admission, Joe doesn’t really plan or storyboard. In an early interview, he expressed a disdain of “plot” and said he was more interested in characters, in people. He gives his actors a lot of freedom in bringing those people to life and draws on their ideas and personalities. He uses what’s there, and I guess that would make it a cinema of contingency.
But what is “Salesman” but a collection of captured moments? Indeed, what is “Gimme Shelter” but one incredible moment examined and explored in endless variations?
Yes, these films are documentaries, some of the finest ever made. And no, I’m *not* putting Joe Swanberg on the same level as the Maysles brothers. But the classic documentary cinema must also be called a cinema of contingency. The Maysles, as far as I’m aware, did not “dress” their “sets” (of course, they also didn’t put a chair in front of a door…). They too drew on their “actors”.
But they are no less directors for it. In the editing, they shaped footage into film, reality into art. And during the shooting process, they created an environment in which their subjects were comfortable enough to reveal themselves.
And that’s what Swanberg does. So, I have no problem, in theory, with the cinema of contingency.
Now, the Maysles had a distinct advantage over Swanberg, in that they were really actually and truly capturing Life. There are no holes in their films, no areas that feel unrealistic, because it is all actually real. No one’s going to complain that the details of bible salesmanship are awry because we’re actually watching bible salesmanship going on before our eyes.
And, however much he might eschew traditional narrative, Swanberg is working in a narrative and not a documentary form. If a character looks into or looks away from a camera in a documentary, it is real as can be; in a narrative or fictional film, it can shatter the illusion and often does.
I think, however, it is wholly possible for the cinema of contingency to produce great narrative art without resorting to the mockumentary (shudder). And I think it’s wholly possible that Joe Swanberg will do that. Has he done it yet? Not as far as I’m aware. Not for an entire feature, anyway.
But there have been moments. For me, there have been enough moments to keep watching. Enough moments to hope that he continues to grow as an artist, that he’s able to smooth out some of the ruffles in his films without closing off his ability to stumble upon and recognize something true and beautiful.
Now, mind: this isn’t me saying that he can’t be held to the same standard as other artists because he’s still growing and developing. If one wants to reject his work so far, they are by all means entitled to do so. My piece is not intended to “win” anyone over to my “side”. I present my piece in the same spirit that Glenn presented his: to give a fuller accounting for and understand of my opinion as objectively as I am able.
I do hope some of the above makes sense, as I know I’m not nearly as articulate as I’d like to be.
Craig, you are very passionate and have some good points, but you’re a really bad writer. Do you know this?
Jennifer, I have to disagree with you. Perhaps Craig doesn’t write his most elegant prose when he’s very pissed-off, or leading from a defensive position, but I think he’s a terrific writer, and if you dig into his Cinemasparagus blog and its tendrils I think you’ll agree.
Craig, I hear your little violin. You can’t play it very well and the song is lousy anyway, so why not put it away? I’m just going to weigh in with a more detailed statement, because frankly I find your attitude tiresome. You probably won’t learn a damn thing, but maybe somebody reading who agrees with you will.
Let’s start with what you’re valuing; the artifice of these films (and they are profoundly artificial, make no mistake). The idea that how a film is shot somehow has some sort of effect on its ability to communicate emotional truth is, well, silly. The only way to represent an abstract is through a literal depiction of reality? I’m waiting for anybody to offer me proof that makes a lick of sense.
It doesn’t matter how the filmmaker shoots the film, as long as he or she can communicate their insight. Hopefully, their insight has some nuance and some actual connection to other people, instead of navel-gazing. I’ve been seeing “mumblecore” films well before Swanberg or the movement came along; self-involved twenty-somethings have been making movies about themselves, and other self-involved twenty-somethings think it’s profound pretty much since the ’60s. Which doesn’t make it profound, or the films interesting, which is my main problem with the mumblecore movement; I’ve heard this shit before, and I’ve seen it done better.
I do think there are talented filmmakers in the movement, but I don’t think they’ve made any genuinely interesting films yet. I do think that’ll happen, for some of them, but not until they’ve had a couple of really bad years. Then, we might see something.
Because my response was actually a bit longer than the essay it’s in response to, and because there’s a fair chance it might get lost in the context of this comments page, I’ve also posted it at http://sonofaseahorse.blogspot.com/2008/02/swanberg-essay.html .
Before this thread quietly euthanizes itself, let me give some public props to Tom Russell, for his thoughtful, lovely, astute, considered response.
(Sidenote: I’m a ‑huge- fan of ‘Bed and Board’! For me that’s a film that has gotten richer, and funnier, with every viewing. To the degree I think it’s truly LOLfunny, in fact maybe the funniest film I think I’ve ever seen…)
I’d really like to see Russell’s films, and hope that he makes them available on DVD or online some time soon (if they’re not already).
P.S.: I was a little inaccurate in my description of The Shower-Scene — Winterich’s face is shown at least briefly in the course of the ‘fantasy’ cut-ins. But I think my point still holds. Not, as I should realize, that this is the forum for such distinctions.
ck.
You’re not allowed to have the last word, Mr. Carney. I mean, Mr. Keller. I am.
Not that people were waiting on the edge of their seats for any response I have to all this, but I simply don’t have time to spend as much time as I need to on the Swanberg subject right now. I’d LOVE to as it would very nicely serve as a distraction to my thesis (on Hal Ashby! Woot!) and my final graduate class which is dripping with Kant/Lyotard/Kristeva and the grotesque.…literally. So, yeah.
Also, congrats to Greta Gerwig on scoring the co-lead (opposite Ben Stiller!) in the new Noah Baumbach film!
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/goingson/2009/02/go-west-young‑w.html
I heard Baumbach wanted Susan Buice but she was too busy and she was hesitant to take the role…or some such thing.
You act as if getting the lead opposite Alex the Lion in the new Baumbach joint is a good thing, Don. And who gets this happy hearing about casting news, anyway? What, does Greta need to pay off her student loans or something? The only problem I’ve ever had with Swanberg and his films is that they seem like low-rent Hollywood rom-com knock-offs produced and populated by a bunch of social climbers who would be brunching at Hugo’s if only given a chance. I have a feeling that it was correct to think this. Oooooh-la-la! The lead opposite Ben Stiller! Fuck Yeah! Hello L.A., Bye-bye Birmingham! I didn’t know mumblecore was considered to be the minor leagues, but judging from Old Donny’s reaction, it looks like Greta is being called up to the show. Hope she can hit a curveball.
Wait, now the New Yorker’s passing on casting news from Hollywood Reporter?
Weird.
I’ve only seen one Swanberg video – NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS – and one was enough. If this is supposed to be his most accomplished feature, then I have no desire to check out his other movies.
In the New Yorker blog, Richard Brody writes Swanberg presents “a crucial challenge to the artfulness of many other filmmakers’ work.” Really? Joe Swanberg and his cruddy, little relationship movies present A Crucial Challenge?
It seems more likely that Swanberg simply doesn’t have enough craft or interesting ideas to shoot a film, on film, with real actors.
I saw the late Sydney Pollack speak at the New School once. Not that I loved all of his over-blown Hollywood epics, but the man knew how to make a movie. A student asked him what he thought of all the new, cheap, digital technology, how it would enable anyone to make a film. Pollack said “you can teach anyone to play tennis. It’s simple – just take down the net.”
I feel like that’s what Swanberg and his pals are doing. Hitting balls back and forth with no net.
This is the best comments thread I’ve read – on this blog or any other. Congratulations, all, but especially Tom Russell. Fuck the festivals, Tom (and I – hypocritically, as I have work I’m not willing to show – concur with Craig: wither your movies, Tom?)
I have not yet seen any mumblecore though they sit atop my defunct Netflix queue. I have a weird, sneaking suspicion that I’m going to like them despite having a strong aversion to niche filmmaking, “indie” aesthetic, hipster navel-gazing, lazy visuals, and people who are getting laid more than me. My reactions to these first forays into mumbleland will be on my blog, probably in March.
I’m working on trying to attract a DVD distributor for my films. Until then, I’ll be happy to send discs of the last two films to interested parties if they drop me an line. My addy is milos_parker at yahoo dot com .
Are you eschewing online presentation in the mean time (I really don’t know anything about the business end of these things – is there a financial reason for doing so?)
And make that whither, not wither. Snark away, Glenn.
We haven’t quite gotten around to scoping out the various online options as of yet. We looked into it some time ago but found the image and sound quality of online presentation to be lacking– nice shadowy blacks become digitized splotches, brightly coloured and crisp shots become grainy-looking, dialogue that’s perfectly audible on television becomes garbled on a speaker. Now, it’s not like our films are visual or aural feasts or anything– they’re about people and focused on people– but we of course want to maintain the image and sound quality that we worked so hard to get. It’s my understanding that there have been better options made available since then (05 or 06) but we haven’t gotten around just yet to checking them out.
In theory however I’m a very strong supporter of online distribution and presentation and if things have improved as much as people have said they have, we might look at that option somewhere down the line.
Yeah! We made a movie! My friends and I made a movie! Fuck yeah! Don’t you think we’re great? We’re great, right? Say we’re great. You’re not allowed to criticize us, you know that, don’t you? It’s not nice to say means things to people when they’ve tried as hard as we have. It’s not fair. We tried really hard and now you have to be nice to us. We should try and do a better job? But we did the best job we could. And that’s all that’s important. That we tried. As a matter of fact, you should give us an award. Just for trying! Just because we did something! And we’re going to do it again. Are we going to try harder the second time? No way! We can’t try any harder than we already did. Get better? How can we get any better? We’re already the best! Fuck Sydney Pollack! He’s old! And dead! We’re not dead. We’re young and alive! Isn’t that enough? Just that we’re here and totally doing it? It should be. Call us twits with an overbearing sense of entitlement all you want. At least we’re trying! At least we’re participating! Maybe that wasn’t enough when you were young and alive, but it is now!
I think one of the biggest errors has been the categorization of the group in general. There is absolute varying degree’s of skill between the directors and the films being made.
The other bigger problem lies in the homogenization of the “lo-fi independent” scene and how it effects, “the rest of us”. What is let into the door, and what is not, largely influenced by the grand gatekeeper of the no-budget world, the film festival.
A few things might solve this equation, and the web being the first thing that truly comes to mind.
But nevertheless, resilient filmmakers have to continue, and especially the micro budget ones, and truly try to elevate the work, both in terms of content, form, and conception, without haphazardly moving forward knowing the press will follow.
Whereas some of us have had to work out our juvenilla without the support, others have thrived within the same juvenilla.
And as this pertains to myself, stuck with two new feature films this year, one, three years in the making (whale), i am scared that all micro-budget films will a)be given this label b) not given this label, a conundrum of sorts either way you look at it.
I don’t know if I want to poke my snoot too far into this discussion…but, on the subject of the beauty or ugliness of compositions, I’d like to point out that “beauty” and “realism” are opposed concepts, that they will always be defined by their relationship to each other. Realism is always relative to prevailing practices, and the energy and newness that it aspires to, the ability to revivify the mystery of the photographic image, is totally dependent upon tearing down or neglecting or violating something that we’ve come to expect. When Rossellini or de Toth decided to let the camera shake, they were a) consciously or unconsciously evoking the newsreel footage that came out of WWII; and b) inviting criticism for undermining the beauty of the composed image. Ditto Cassavetes finding inspiration in cutting that evoked the tension of live TV when the control room punches up the wrong camera for a second; ditto Kubrick shining lights at the camera as if he were a street photographer unable to control light sources; ditto countless other attempts to make the image seem alive again. In each case something nice-looking was destroyed; in each case a new generation of filmgoers learned to find the innovation nice-looking. Anyway, no one is going to stop today’s young filmmakers from using the peculiarities of digital life to change the way cinema looks.
Dan, i agree with your assessments to a point, but also want to set the question that the idea’s of aesthetics where a conceptual part in the film directing that you mentioned, a master change to the prevailing cinematic questions of the times with much far reaching implications. Those movies effected Cinema Internationally, not just a Zeitgeist change, but a change in arts purposefully by the hands of there creators. There was no aloofness involved.
Whereas when i point the camera on a white wall, with actors who i’ve grown up with, the question is not so much only about redifing realism, but about my own “real” production limitations as well. I point to the making of my own DV films shot with no-budgets. Part of the concept was a no-budget, amaturism aesthetic, built also out of necessity and just as important, by a certain fresh excitement, and marked, lack of technique. I started doing that with my first film in 2001, and have on and oft gone back to amaturism, but now, only as a conceptual method. Certainly, one can say, that some of my own short works are more cinematically beautiful(the argument being resources) then the features i’ve made recently(i would disagree, partly because because i should)
Not to say now, that M‑Core is technique less, but that enough time has passed to really asses whether we need to truly embrace the form, reject the form, or ask(demand) for a refinement of sorts. Since many others are left out of the “indie” scene, the rest are left in a conundrum trying to grapple there place in the history after all this.
Also, there can certainly be beauty within realism. Many Dogme 95 films can certainly be thought of as beautiful, and many of the films directly dealt with realism. But, largely the difference being the actual scope, craft and level of detail involved in those pictures. That to me, was a revolution on the Cinematic angle, none repeated since.
But whereas we collectively have taken a foot forward with the micro movie, the progression has been somewhat of a let down, considering the fact that we have had 10+ years of it in American Cinema.
Why has our filmmakers not created “The Celebration”, or “Breaking the Waves”.…
Its partly because of how self-absorbed some of us have become. We are in a Youtube mentality, and although very refreshing at first, has now become a sort of marked laziness, and ultra niche fuck.
I marvel at the fact that we have gone so far as to even have this debate, which is due in credit to M‑Core, and for all its worth, that might be its biggest undertaking, along with its willingness to celebrate an honest embrace of its own language, dealing with its own audience, and ultimately towards its own humanity.
I also want to go on record, again, that i don’t find these filmmakers the same, and its a shame that the discussions have a tone of linking them together. Some of the films have been moving, some have been an utter bore. It is directly proportional to the talent of the films respected directors and nothing else.
I feel like I’m coming into the discussion a little late, but so be it. I want to introduce an as of yet only tangentially mentioned component of the Swanberg Mumblecore set (which like a cancer continues to metastasize).
I find it fascinating that Swanberg has such a chorus of defenders in both the festival world and the film blog world (indiewire, Hammer to Nail, Spout Blog, etc.) and yet his films garner very little attention outside of these worlds, (Hannah Takes The Stairs cumulative box office: $22,000). But this seems to be for one reason: in order for the naked emperor to be able to walk around without anyone questioning it there must be a chorus that follows closely behind fervently shouting about the quality of his garments. Swanberg has this, amongst his friends and amongst the film blogging community – who are often made up of his friends. What makes this so interesting and troubling is that many of these defenders are vested both professionally and financially in Swanberg’s success.
The result is that we have an increasingly closed group of ‘indie’ filmmakers and bloggers who have become as tight-knit and status-protective as any high-school clique. This is nothing new, Hollywood is a club that you are either in or not in. But the effects of the mumblecore movement and the attention it pulls away from other, more deserving filmmakers is not only detrimental to the growth of good filmmaking, but it is dangerous. (“Dangerous?! C’mon!”) Yep. Dangerous. When we’re involved in two long wars, on the precipice of economic collapse and being led by the first black president in American history to pay attention to the relationship grumblings of an exclusively white, heterosexual and upper-middle class group; to go further and label this group the ‘Next Generation’ of American films, all of this validates a self-indulgent filmmaking style that is incapable of looking beyond the end of its nose. (And no Medicine for Melancholy is not mumblecore, nor more than A Woman Under the Influence is). What filmmakers have we been missing while we’ve been paying attention to Swanberg?
More on Swanberg in a second, namely the problem of him making his living as a pornographer, but we’ll get to that.
First I feel compelled to bring up the issue of the relationships between Swanberg and film programmers. I’m not going to comment on the quality of Swanberg’s filmmaking for three reasons: 1) I think it’s self evident 2) Amy Taubin already nailed it 3) I want to focus on something else.
The something else is the uncomfortably close relationship between Swanberg and film programmers.
First, Matt Dentler rode the Mumblecore hype to a job at Cinetic Rights Management and needed to continue to generate this hype in order to legitimize his hiring and raise his profile with companies like Amazon. This year his replacement, Janet Pierson, has programmed a film IN WHICH SHE IS AN ACTRESS. Bujalski’s Beeswax, which has already been torn-apart in Berlin. Now, can you imagine Geoff Gilmore programming a film in which he acts? No, you cannot. Why? Because he is a professional and above that sort of thing.
If that weren’t enough, Sarasota Film Programmer Holly Herrick, recently appeared literally naked and in bed with Swanberg for Young American Bodies (http://blog.spout.com/2007/11/14/young-american-bodies-preview/). Now, can you imagine Geoff Gilmore filming himself getting in bed with a filmmaker? No, you cannot. Why? Because he is a professional and above that sort of thing.
If you continue to look at the circle of indiewire, hammer to nail, Spout Blog, SXSW, etc. you begin to see the same names appearing again and again and again, as performers as reviewers as bloggers and as programmers. They sit in a circle, facing inward, and tell each other how great they are. They do it in a variety of ways and over and over again. Any dissenting opinion – like Amy Taubin – is drowned out with attacks that the criticism is (somehow) personal. Meanwhile, good films go unnoticed and the larger public struggles to understand what all that chatter is about. The further from the world-at-large the group drifts the worse the films get and the further detached they become… but they never know it, because their only mirrors are each other, and their friend’s blog said it was great, so keep going… and all the while we wonder where the great filmmakers are.
*** I’ll end there, but the Swanberg pornography question needs to be raised. He has stated that he makes his money from the web work which consists of Young American Bodies, and the far more problematic Stagg Party (http://www.ifc.com/film/indie-eye/2008/10/the-stagg-party.php) Which to my eye – is porn plain & simple couched against some paper thin “Is it art?” question.
Swanberg is fat and his films are fluff. SXSW sux without Dentler. And Mrs. Pierson is lost in the 70s but dreaming of being hip. All the filmmakers at SXSW know each other, fuck each other, look at each other, and remain in a bubble. I know, because I’m there… I know for a FACT that Swanberg helped program SXSW this year… I know for a fact that Mrs. Janet Pierson didn’t even see nearly 50% of Kris Swanberg’s movie… I know exactly how and why it got in… Believe, you don’t want to know. Dentler’s gone and SXSW is lost. It’ll collapse inward in the next two years.
“Bujalski’s Beeswax, which has already been torn-apart in Berlin.”
— At this point I’m only skimming the comments that begin with “Mumblecore set … cancer … metastasize,” but with regard to —
“Bujalski’s Beeswax, which has already been torn-apart in Berlin.”
— I guess I’m a little confused about who’re the big critics doing the tearing. I’m sure there will be some lemon-suckers out there to heap scorn on every film made now and on into perpetuity by any ‘m‑core associate’, on sheer principle. For the present, I note that the film has received very positive notices so far from both Daniel Kasman and Kevin Lee at The Auteurs’ Notebook, David Hudson at IFC’s The Daily, and Mike Goodridge at Screen. I see it got a pan in Variety. I personally haven’t cared what a Variety writer has thought about a film in, ever.
Anyway, this is getting CriterionForum’y. Life must go on.
Sorry about the accidental double-paste of the “torn-apart” quote in the above comment. To make up for it, and this boring erratum post, please enjoy this clip from Armando Iannucci’s THICK OF IT — the tenor of which strikes me as about right for this discussion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_7pyktzpY8
ck.
AlexJones – While I wish these comments had stuck to the merits of Swanberg’s work, or possible lack thereof, I think you’re either ignorant or delusional when discussing the relationships between Swanberg and film programmers. Matt Dentler may have been a pretty tireless advocate of mumblecore, but in promoting the cause, he gave a group of filmmakers a way to market their movies, particularly then-Austinites the Duplass Brothers and Andrew Bujalski, who were able to get the most out of their hometown fest, and he wasn’t doing this with the primary intention of raising his own profile in order to leave, but to raise the profile of the filmmakers and yes, the festival so he could get better movies. (You can blame him for helping to launch the careers of others though by doing a canny marketing job.) As for Janet Pierson, are you really going to pull the unprofessional card? Looking past her considerable resume, considering Bujalski’s first two films made it into SXSW before Pierson ever came to Austin, it’s not unreasonable to believe his third feature would make it in as well, regardless of who was in it. Then considering half the Austin filmmaking community is in Beeswax, wouldn’t it make sense that the festival, with or without Pierson doing the programming, might want to play that film? (Louis Black, who’s still in charge of the festival, seems to appear in a movie every year, and I don’t see you bitching about any of the docs or Linklater movies he’s been in that have played the fest.) But if you’re dealing in the ethics of film festival programming particularly in regards to Geoff Gilmore, you might want to ask yourself whether Amy Redford’s “The Guitar” got into Sundance solely on its merits? Or how about her dad’s “The Clearing”? I agree that film festivals are an incestuous world, but to single out Dentler and Pierson as being somehow unethical when they’ve only spent their careers helping filmmakers they believe in is pretty low. Swanberg may be one of the recipients of their help, but there are plenty of other filmmakers, some of whom you might actually like, that might not be making movies now without them.
I love how, at the end of a spirited and insightful debate, the anonymous web a‑holes come out to feast on the carcass. No proof whatsoever in ANYTHING “AlexJones” says and he’s (she’s?) sorely behind in his gossipy rant. That’s like.…2007’s rant.
Alex-what are some of these overlooked films? Who are these sad, overlooked, depraved filmmakers? Cuz I guarantee if they made a movie that played SXSW, we reviewed it at Film Threat. I mean, I know you on’t answer that because that would make your rant hold a teeny bit of water, but still, thought I’d throw that out there. Bring it.
I think Alex Jones hit a nerve. What he said is what I wish I could’ve said.
The title of the next Swanberg/Bujalski/Duplass/Mumblcoretullykellerbronsteinlonhworth movie should be: Circle Jerk.
And to answer your question, Don: Travis Wilkerson is a filmmaker who deserves as much hoopla as someone like Swanberg. An Injury to One and Who Killed Cock Robin? are everything that Swanberg’s movies are and much more: they’re actually about something.
Face it, guys. No one likes a clique. And that’s what you guys are.
And Wilkersons movies have both been at Sundance which Swanbergs films never have. What’s your point, “Al Joad?” Because people aren’t raving about Wilkerson’s films it’s now the fault of Joe Swanberg? Excellent analogy.
And “AlexJones” is also clearly just a bitter Betty, frustrated nobody. His post contradicts itself too. Matt Dentler “rode” Mumblecore to a job at Cinetic yet, as “AlexJones” points out, Joe’s “Hannah Takes the Stairs” made a measly $20 g’s. That’s who I want to headhunt for my new cinematic endeavor, the guy who spearheaded the buzz about a movie that grossed $20 grand.
For the bitter and angry there’s simply no way anybody did anything (got into festivals, got press coverage, go a new, higher profile job) on their own merit. There’s simply some force of hip nepotism at work. Sigh. Have fun with your generic bottle of whiskey, 7 cats and DVD’s of filmmakers-who-are-way-better-than-so-and-so this weekend.
Moon Molson, Alex Rivera, Lee Kazimir are three off the top of my head. And I can hear the protest, ‘But Sleep Dealer won an award at Sundance!’ But it did not get a full page spread on the front of the Weekender section of the NY Times and it has not been blogged about ad nauseum at Spout or Hammer to Nail or IndieWire. And it has not been released.
But I do not want to get caught up in petty details. I’m asking for a macro-view on this. I don’t care if I got the gossip right. “That’s so 2007, pssh, how can you not know what’s going on? Egads.” Please. I’m making a point: Mumblecore exists and thrives in an echo chamber. That echo chamber drowns out the very legitimate criticism of it and weakens the overall state of independent film.
Like it or not, SXSW, is a validating force in the independent film world and the coziness with which they’ve coddled their mumblecore friends needs to be brought to light and questioned. Especially given the weak response to these films by the public at large.
Lastly, I find it interesting that no one has responded to the post suggesting that Kris Swanberg’s film got in on her relationships alone. Not hard to imagine considering most of us know it was still being shot in December and January (and the SXSW deadline is when? At the end of November? Not sure, but you understand my point).
Don, do you hear me taking this to a personal level? With name calling?
You’re illustrating my point over and over and over.
Dear AlexnoroomforspacesJones,
Perhaps the reason Sleep Dealer has not been released is that it is scheduled to come out April 17th from Maya Entertainment. But I wouldn’t want to distract you with petty details or anything.
“AlexJones” whoever you may be.…
If you’re so concerned about who’s being treated which way and which films aren’t being championed that should be.….start a blog. Start writing somewhere. Program a festival. Be part of the solution. But then you’d have to, you know, kind of show your face and own up and be accountable up to unfounded accusations.
And I had never really heard of “Sleep Dealer” so I looked it up. It has 4 reviews from MAJOR (Hollywood Reporter, Variety, NY Magazine) publications but only 4 reviews period. Maybe the producers of “Sleep Dealer” should have been better about getting screeners to press or publicizing their movie. Making films and getting them seen is a team sport and it seems like the reviews the film got were from some pretty big hitters. Why is it *my* fault I haven’t seen it which may have given me reason to champion it? Furthermore, that Moon Molson person has a TON of press out there.
What’s your angle anyway? Moreover, your point?
And my name calling was only slightly pointed at you…moreso to “ecceercer.”
It really doesn’t matter if the film is by Swanberg or any of the other mumblecore filmmakers. The real problem with these films seems to be that the characters in them – mid-20s, floundering hipsters caught up in romantic ‘dilemmas’, trying to ‘make it’ – have to be among the most boring characters put on screen in recent memories.
Great movie characters, who truly connect with audiences and make an impact, are the ones who believe in something, fight for something, and care about their place in the outside world. None of these characters seem to realize there is an outside world, and who knows what they’re fighting for, other than some minor emotional victory.
I think the reason these films are so disposable has little to do with Swanberg’s intent or lackthereof. No, the reason these films are so disposable is that the people whom they’re about offer so little inspiration to the people sitting in the audience.
Yeah, what Don said. Everyone here is a nobody and a loser, and Joe Swanberg is a winner, and by proxy, so are Don and Craig Keller. They were allowed to sit with the cool kids and you weren’t and now you’re just jealous.
The only thing I have learned from reading this comments thread is that a lot of people don’t like Joe Swanberg’s movies and that Don Lewis and Craig Keller are tools and devoid of either humor or anything interesting to say about anything, except Swanberg rules and all of you suck. Good job, you guys. I look forward to never reading anything that either of you ever write. You have totally alienated at least one person, and while that might not be a big deal to you, it should be, seeing as how the two of you are most definitely not setting the world on fire. Maybe you should be the ones using pseudonyms.
Don’t have time to read the other comments here, but I agree with the article author. I just tried watching Nights and Weekends and was shocked at how off putting it was (and not in an interesting way). I didn’t realize this was the same director as Hannah, but I had similar qualms with it and its Bujalski and Osborne characters. (FWIW, I’ve been working my way through these movies after discovering and loving the Duplass brothers’ output.)