“Show business kids making movies of themselves/you know they don’t give a fuck about anybody else”—Steely Dan, “Show Biz Kids,” 1973
“Not an untalented man, by the way.”—Christopher Lee, referring to director Jess Franco, interview with the author, 1993
“Art people are assholes.”—Charlotte, played by Jemima Kirk, in Tiny Furniture, written and directed by Lena Dunham, 2010
If I at first choose to describe Lena Dunham as “not untalented” rather than “promising,” it’s because of my vestigial irritation with her debut feature, Tiny Furniture, a largely adroit film concerning largely insufferable people. I’ve got nothing against films about insufferable people, but the extent to which I engage with them more often than not is determined by the filmmaker’s perspective on/distance from these characters, and while much commentary has been expended on the blurry lines Dunham draws between life and art here, those don’t bother me as much as an incoherence of tone that a more seasoned, or if I wanna be stern, better artist could have avoided even while using the exact same method as Dunham. That method, in case you’re not aware, includes the 22-or-so year-old writer/director Dunham casting herself in the film’s lead role, that of Aura, a 22-year-old recent college graduate who, upon returning to the domestic nest, just doesn’t know what to do with herself. It also includes Dunham casting her mother, artist Laurie Simmons in the role of Aura’s mother, Siri, and her younger sister, Grace Dunham, in the role of Aura’s high-school sister Nadine, and shooting much of Tiny Furniture in the rather enviable lower Manhattan apartment/photo studio in which the three of them, from what I understand, still reside (a portion of said apartment is seen in the still at the top of this post). You probably don’t need me to point out that if this is the sort of thing that makes you throw up your hands and say “Jesus H. Christ, not another one of these…”, then Tiny Furniture is likely not a film for you.
And yet… Only, wait…there’s a little more equivocating before I can get to the “and yet” part. In being a certain age (in my own case, just a hiar over fifty) and dealing with material by and ostensibly for people in their uncertain twenties, one must be ever-wary of falling into the “they are scum” trap that ensnared Somerset Maugham when he assessed a seminal work by and about a then-younger generation, Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim. One must be also mindful that there’s really not much new about the type that Dunham herself represents, and she depicts in Tiny Furniture. One merely has to remember. I myself used to meet aimless overprivileged Manhattan semi-drips of this ilk all the time at the Mudd Club back in the early ’80s. I think I myself might have slept with one or two of them, even. Thing was, back in the early ’80s, these types weren’t so much into making movies or any other kind of art, for the most part; they were mostly patrons-in-training, a.k.a. hangers-on. (For an interesting window into the kind of interactions that took place between such types and actual artists, most of whom tended to be musicians, see the sections of Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk pertaining to Duncan Hannah and Tom Verlaine.)
It is also true, however, that Tiny Furniture is not Lucky Jim. That book’s title character may be Amis’ representative, and certainly carries a number of what those familiar with Amis’ biography will recognize as his traits, but Amis was able to create a sufficient amount of distance between himself and Jim Dixon to create a dispassionate portrait that the reader can approach with no compunction. Dunham’s depiction of Aura has an insufficient amount of distance, and this is detectable, I think, even if you know nothing about Dunham or the circumstances under which she made the movie. This creates a situation in which one watches the movie not so much engaging with the characters and what they’re going through, but constantly trying to second-guess the movie’s own attitude towards its characters. Aura is such a weirdly lumpy sad-sack at the film’s opening that one tends to take pleasure in her humiliations; for a while I was particularly delighted by the acerbic putdowns delivered to Aura by the precocious younger sister Nadine; this movie ought to be about her, I remember thinking. One also finds one rolling one’s eyes at Aura’s taste in men, if you can call them that (if nothing else, the film provided me with an insight as to why Dunham, in real-life interviews, tends to refer to the individuals she dates as “boys”); she’s rather inexplicably drawn to a smarmy creep named Jed (Alex Karpovsky, who I hear through the grapevine is a bit of a micro-indie heartthrob, yeesh) who makes videos of himself philosophizing on a rocking horse under the rubric “The Nietschean Cowboy,” and also to a sleazy self-described “chef” (David Call) who will “date” Aura if Aura can score some pills from the eclectic medicine cabinet of her glam unsupervised artist’s-daughter friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirk). One is rather used to men being awful in Manhattan-set films concerning the romantic travails of young women, but man, if these two guys are really representative of the dating pool these days, ladies, you have my utmost sympathy. But within the context of the film, sympathy is not likely to emerge; one is rather more likely to ask what the hell is Aura’s glitch that she’s drawn to such quasi-monsters. There’s a difference between observing abhorrent individuals via a prism of artful contrivance—as in, say, Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaum’s—and feeling as if you’re actually trapped in a room with those people. That Tiny Furniture feels too often like the latter and not often enough like the former is its biggest problem. (And incidentally, watching Karpovsky spin out Jed’s pompous schtick, I was increasingly reminded of another predatory asshole character I’d seen in a film recently…who was that guy? And then when Jed told Aura he was staying in “Hell…perhaps you’ve heard of it?” it hit me: of course, The Erotic Connoisseur in Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, who as it happens asks of Sasha Grey’s Chelsea: “Dubai…maybe you’ve heard of it?” I look forward to having a nice long talk with Mr. Karpovsky some time.)
A good deal of the film’s content that’s supposed to be commendably frank is merely vaguely unsettling, as in the “art” video or YouTube piece—it’s so hard to tell the difference these days—of a bikini-clad Aura not-quite cavorting by a fountain—that generates a lot of “user comments” about how unattractive and dumpy Aura is. Of which Charlotte says “you can’t possibly take that seriously.” Right. (For myself, I was reminded of Robert Christgau’s rejoinder to the complaint of Janis Ian in her hit song “At Seventeen,” about being picked last in gym class by those “choosing sides for basketball:” “Face it, Ms. Ian—you’re short.” The critic Amy Taubin, who’s a longtime habitué of the New York art world that Dunham’s film unfolds on the periphery of, dug further into certain of the film’s tendencies to articulate her suspicions about it: “[…] stickier still, [Dunham] courts our rejection by walking around the house in nothing more than a T‑shirt, flaunting her ass and thighs for anyone who’s looking—and we can’t help but look—as if daring us to pass judgment on her body. It’s a game I dislike being roped into, just as I dislike being roped into speculating about whether Simmons knew she was playing an art-world Mommie Dearest, and whether she worried that her daughter really thought she was a monster, or whether the audience would think that, and was this movie meant to be a satire or a psychodrama.” Game or no game aside, Taubin’s concerns also tie in to the fact that Dunham herself gives arguably the weakest performance in a picture that’s filled with what are undeniably, erm, vivid characterizations. And this tends to undercut her sometimes excellent dialogue. At one point Aura explains to a nosy neighbor that her college boyfriend dumped her to hie to the Burning Man festival: “Something about having to build a shrine to his ancestors out of an ancient tree.” That’s a great absurdist line, real Woody Allen stuff (Allen’s an acknowledged influence here, as Jed is often seen reading the former’s collection Without Feathers, and not laughing) but Dunham’s reading of the line really undersells it. Of course it could just be that she distrusts the notion of actually going for a big laugh line. But why would she?
And yet: I think Taubin’s being a bit stingy, because there are scene in which Tiny Furniture comes close to succeeding as both satire and psychodrama. A scene in which Aura and Charlotte childishly usurp a loft party Nadine throws for a raftful of her younger friends is at first funny, then painful, then painfully funny; it’s almost as good as a similar generational-clash party scene in Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg. And the picture has a fleet, fluent visual style; one is tempted to ascribe this quality to the protean young cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (who shot the thing in digital video with a Canon7D camera, a rig that would seem to have very fine optics indeed) and editor Lance Edmands; but of course part of being a good filmmaker, and particularly a good indie filmmaker, is recognizing talented people and getting them to work with you, so Dunham ought not be slighted in this respect. As I mentioned before, the writing is quite good; I don’t know to what extent the dialogue was improvised, but the slight story has a pretty tight structure and Dunham seems to have a knack for purposefully deploying conventional devices of dramaturgy; there’s a little sub-theme here involving Aura discovering and reading her mother’s journal from when the mother was Aura’s age that Dunham makes just enough of; it works. And even at its most queasy-making, Tiny Furniture never registers as genuinely hateful in the way that gets cranks such as myself so worked up about when we’re faced with what we take as blinkered hipster solipsism; rather, I sensed that Dunham herself is too young and too confused to be able to distinguish between showing compassion for her characters and slathering her own self with masochistic love. Tiny Furniture finally shows sufficient promise to make me hope she grows out of that.
On a side note: I saw this film with an L.A.-based pal who was interested in checking it out because, as he put it, “We don’t have mumblecore in Hollywood.” Looking at the running time in the press notes and seeing it was 98 minutes, I joked, “I bet about eight of those minutes will be taken up with the ‘Special Thanks’ in the end credits.” It wasn’t eight minutes, but it’s not as if I didn’t have a point. (And what’s with that Early McSweeney’s credit design, anyway?) Oh, the predictability.
Nice review Glenn. While I agree that the writing was a notch above other films in the “genre”, I still feel it’s all a bit too self-satisfied.
“Dunham’s depiction of Aura has an insufficient amount of distance…” – Yes, and this is precisely my problem with it.
Several months back I got into an argument with somebody about the film, and after an exasperating back and forth he simply said, “It isn’t made for people your age.” If that’s the best defense, well.…
Seems to be a glitch in that big paragraph (the second one after the quotes). Great review though.
Thanks, Filmbrain. Not to sound overly dyspeptic, but anybody who seriously defends anything by saying “It isn’t made for people your age” doesn’t deserve to live long enough to have that bullshit thrown back in his or her face thirty years from now. And also deserves a quick, and hard, punch to the face in the here and now. I commend your restraint in this manner. I also invite whoever said that to actually explain how that’s any kind of valid argument. I don’t expect to be hearing anything any time soon.
@ D. Cairns: Glitch found, and fixed. Many thanks.
Nice bookshelves.
Loved this, Glenn. Actually was commenting lengthily on it as soon as the post went up, but off my comment went into Typepad limbo, never to be seen again. Ah well.
Anyway, in short – abso-freakin’-lutely magisterial. And about a tricky, but incredibly important topic, which is the artist’s attitude towards the work. A difficult thing to assess with any accuracy, but necessary.
Like you, I’m happy to watch terrible people on screen. I don’t even need the artist to point out just how terrible they are. But I really can’t stand it when I’m presented with whiny, vain, self-involved, apathetic or otherwise annoying characters and somehow told I’m supposed to feel SORRY for them.
It reminds me of all those godawful short stories people used to read out in freshman creative-writing class, where the protagonist was just this sort of put-upon, pathetic victim. And you realized very quickly as the author read it aloud that it was painfully autobiographical, and really just a naked plea for sympathy.
Well, I’m sorry, to me these sort of things aren’t really art – no conflict, no character, no language. They’re just masturbatory pity parties. And I decline the invitation, thanks.
I would say, though, that there IS something to the fact that stories like this really aren’t made for people over 30 – only because this kind of solipsism has always found its fondest home in teens and twentysomethings (and probably always has, since at least “This Side of Paradise.”) I won’t say I was completely immune to it at the time, either.
But the smartest young artists were always able to make something more of characters like this than just a double-helping of white whine. And the smartest young audiences were always able to recognize the artists who weren’t.
Thanks, Stephen.
@ Bill: Aren’t they, though? I thought the SCR readership would admire them.
Except I can’t read the spines of any of the books. This is very frustrating.
By the way, Stephen’s point here:
“And about a tricky, but incredibly important topic, which is the artist’s attitude towards the work. A difficult thing to assess with any accuracy, but necessary.
Like you, I’m happy to watch terrible people on screen. I don’t even need the artist to point out just how terrible they are. But I really can’t stand it when I’m presented with whiny, vain, self-involved, apathetic or otherwise annoying characters and somehow told I’m supposed to feel SORRY for them.”
– and your approach to it all in the piece, Glenn, is precisely what I’m talking about when I bring up a particular beloved film from the late ’60s that I don’t care for, and which I shan’t name here.
@ Bill: Aw, come on, man! You can’t do THAT! Name, name! I promise I won’t let anybody here hurt you…
Is Bill talking about TWO FOR THE ROAD?
I’m guessing “The Graduate.”
I’m also guessing, given Glenn’s review, that the reason we can’t read the titles on those book spines is because they’re all diaries.
No, no, it’s BONNIE & CLYDE. Come on, Glenn, you remember the last time that movie was the topic of discussion. Who wants THAT again??
And clearly the film is not so much related to TINY FURNITURE in its, I guess, social focus. I’m talking about the artist’s attitude towards the characters.
@ bill: You don’t like BONNIE & CLYDE?! Why you neocon capitalist lapdog! Why I oughta… I kid, of course. Just thought I’d give you a quick trip down memory lane.
@ Stephen Whitty: great line re: diaries. Though I believe such folks eschew diaries in favor of “journalling one’s truth”.
This movie sounds gross. Another example of a genre I have always detested, narcicinema. Yes, everything is autobiographical, in a sense, but some people have manners, and they try and distance themselves as much as possible from the material so that it isn’t about them. Just like the difference between memoir and fiction: memoir wants you to identify and care about the author; fiction wants you to identify and care about the characters. My guess is that this young lady will find her way to ‘Hollywood’ and will be directing a Jennifer Aniston vehicle in no time.
One way to tell you’re old is seeing youth movies you liked in your youth and not being able to stand them. I call this phenomenon Sterile Cuckoo Syndrome.
@ Mr. Lawrence: Your prediction concerning an Aniston vehicle may be more on the money than you realize. If I recall correctly, Dunham has expressed, with some slight guilt, an enthusiasm for latter-day rom-coms such as “The Proposal” and expressed interest in at least writing Hollywood films in that vein. I imagine the only thing inhibiting her is the potential disapproval of her mom and fear of losing “indie” or art cred. And I say fuck that; she should go for it. She might be able to spruce up the genre. Indie’s “loss” would be the Hollywood rom-coms gain, and as Robin Wood said, with “guilty pleasures” it would stand to reason one ought to renounce the one or the other, and renouncing the guilt is the preferable option. And with Lena leading the way, we can only hope that other posers (or “poseurs”) in realms both cinematic and film-critical, would be inspired to find career options that suit them better than what they’re currently up to. And I’m gonna let that lie there…
@ Michael Adams: Isn’t there a correlative syndrome to that, involving people who never outgrow “King of Hearts?”
@ Bill: Oh yes. “Bonnie and Clyde.” Totally different kettle of fish here, really. The only thing that dies in “Tiny Furniture” is…oh, wait, this angel just popped up over my shoulder and is wagging her finger at me…sorry…
Oh, I realize that. It’s just the broader topic I’m referring to. Unlikable characters are one thing, but expecting me or anyone to like those unlikable characters is something else. That’s been my issue with that movie from the beginning.
So, it indeed looks better than your average mumblecore movie? What was the frequency of needless zooms? Any gratuitous lack of tripod usage? (Not to be snarky, but just because something’s low-budget…)
“The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than “The Metamorphosis”.”-Jonathan Franzen.
@bill: Honest, I’m not trying to start a fight, the more so as BONNIE & CLYDE is a movie I don’t feel that passionate about. But I do think the script and direction make it clear that these are pretty stupid, limited people – at best touching rather than admirable. Even so, I can see how you might want to fault Beatty (as producer) for casting himself and Faye Dunaway, since that does change the equation.
@Tom – Even if I were to concede your point (and I’d have to watch the movie again before I could say, as it’s been awhile), as far as I’m concerned “touching” is bad enough.
I was starting to get excited that the mumblecore generation may have finally found it’s anti-Slaves of New York, but then I read the mention of the “Nietschean Cowboy” bit. Having just hung myself in disgust, I will no longer be able to see this in the flesh, and will have to now wait for it to show up on Netflix on demand in heaven.
@ Chris O: It looks very good indeed. Tripod use seemed almost constant; handheld deployed judiciously. No needless zooms. Overall a fluid, unobtrusive visual storytelling style. The colors were nice, too. And my little dig notwithstanding, the credits are, like Paul’s grandfather in “A Hard Day’s Night,” very clean.
I believe it was shot with a 7D. This would, almost by definition, rule out unmotivated zooms, as they’d be more likely using 35mm primes.
@ Castle Bravo: A 7D it was, indeed, and good call.
Whereas, as I’ve noted before, it’s pretty clear that whatever it is that those Duplass fellas shoot with, it’s totally got a zoom toggle on the back of the handgrip.
You could easily use a zoom lens with the 7D. Just sayin’.
And did we mention how VERSATILE the 7D camera is?
Just to clarify, nobody’s saying zooms aren’t possible, or even easy, with the 7D and/or 35mm primes. Just that one tends to be more mindful of them, because the physical process of zooming will be different than with a camcorder-type device that has, say, a thumb-toggle zoom. Right, Castle Bravo?
Also:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOBafREui‑A
“Just to clarify, nobody’s saying zooms aren’t possible, or even easy, with the 7D and/or 35mm primes”
I am saying zooms aren’t possible with a prime lens. I am saying that.
And the lesson here is don’t chime in on a comments thread at 7 in the morning, particularly if there are technical issues involved. [Yaaaawnnnn…]
Anyway. No zooms in “Tiny Furniture,” is the point. None. Zero. Nada. That I can remember.
Indeed. You can use a zoom lens on a 7D, but assuming it’s a DSLR lens, you’ll have a hard time both creating a smooth maneuver and also maintaining focus.
Of course, CSC (Arriflex) rents out a modified 7D that’s dedicated solely to using movie lenses. But that’s another story.
@Chris O. and various other posters, re: mumblecore. I skimmed this post because I haven’t seen Tiny Furniture yet, though I plan to as soon as I can.
But it seems several posters have a problem with mumblecore – a tag I find about as annoying as the filmmakers who get called that probably do. So, the last thing I wish to do is defend it as a movement, but I think that people who have a knee jerk reaction against it are missing some very strong, interesting work. Foremost in my mind is Andrew Bujalski, who makes beautiful, carefully crafted films in what, on a superficial level, may seem in a similar vein with what Tiny Furniture appears to be doing – but are probably pretty different.
I’ve actually never seen a Joe Swanberg film. I didn’t really bite for Greenberg, though I guess I “got it” (see Jim Emerson’s recent, fun post on the incredible “Headless Woman”), I was surprised by how moved I was by “Cyrus,” ditto with “Humpday” (which was one of the strongest films I saw last year). So, it’s a mixed bag – but no one is the wiser for lumping a bunch of filmmakers and films under a meaningless moniker and blithely dismissing something that seems in that mold.
Finally, though I can’t speak to his performance/character in Tiny Furniture, Alex Karpovsky is quite wonderful in Bujalski’s “Beeswax” – it is probably his best film to date, though I also really enjoyed Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation.
Does GREENBERG count as mumblecore? I’m honestly asking, because I didn’t think it did, despite the presence of Greta Gerwig. What, exactly, is the criteria?
If GREENBERG is mumblecore, then I guess I’ve now seen one of those movies, and liked it, even.
Greenberg is not mumblecore.
Jeez. Like the Catskills comedian, or maybe Jake LaMotta, once said, “These are the jokes, folks.” The dropping of the M‑word by my buddy was clearly meant to be jocular. As it happens, I think the term “mumblecore” has lost whatever scant usefulness it once had, and while I won’t vow to never use it again, I’m reasonably sure I’ll only ever use it again frivolously/flippantly. Or maybe not.
Anyway. No. “Greenberg”≠mumblecore in any event. Bujalski: Yes, his films are intelligent and well-made. Were I assessing them as a professional critic, I would embrace and approve of them, and provisionally recommend them. Strictly personally, though, I’ll take second-tier Mario Bava instead, any day of the week. I’m weird that way. Karpovsky was fine in “Beeswax.” “Wonderful?” I imagine some of his relatives think so. I prefer to keep my powder drier. You know who’s “wonderful?” Ralph Richardson in “The Fallen Idol.” And so on.
I didn’t think so.
“You know who’s ‘wonderful?’ Ralph Richardson in ‘The Fallen Idol.’ ”
You and I park our cars in the same garage, you outlaw biker poet, or whatever.
Glenn, I don’t suppose there’s any way for me not to sound defensive here… But first, it sounded like Chris O. was something other than “jocular” in his remarks about “mumblecore.” I’d be curious to hear what he himself thinks.
Also, I don’t think of Greenberg as a “mumblecore” film either – but you can’t deny that Greta Gerwig’s presence and acting in that film (which I’ll allow adds something interesting to Ben Stiller’s performance) makes it something of a hybrid. In the same way that “Cyrus” probably draws from the Duplass brothers’ earlier work (which I have yet to see), but is undoubtedly changed somehow by their use of stars… And of course, that’s my whole point of how misleading or useless such terms as “mumblecore” finally are. It reminds me of when people refer to foreign films as a genre.
Finally, I didn’t think calling a performance “wonderful” would be held up to such scrutiny – but I do think it is quite fine. Do I think it’s Marie-Rivière-in-Summer(Le Rayon Vert) wonderful? No… and yes, maybe you meant your final remarks as a joke, you were being jocular. But somehow it seemed of a piece with the tone of the original post and a lot of the comments afterward. There’s a lot of bitterness here about a 20 year old girl’s first feature that I just can’t get my head around.
I mean, the bite in your response to Filmbrain’s first comment really startled me. I’ve always thought that, unless it’s apt to grow or result in real harm, ignorance is best ignored. I know, I know, maybe the heat of this reply was also a joke, irony of sorts… but it sure seemed unaccountably mean. Just one reader and occasional commenter’s thoughts…
@ Donald: First let me say that I do appreciate your feedback. Okay, lest I be thoroughly misunderstood, let me be as straight and unjocular as possible. I don’t have anything against young artists in film or any other medium. Hell, Rimbaud, who renounced poetry at 19, is one of my favorites. I got to know my friend Tom Bissell back when he was still a wunderkind. I got to know David Foster Wallace as he was crossing out of wunderkind-hood into something more potentially parlous. And so on. If I seemed mean in my comment to Filmbrain, I meant to be, because it is infuriating that any young person gets to fall back on the “it wasn’t made for people your age” argument concerning a work of art. It’s an evasion, and not a privilege of youth. Sorry if you’re offended. But I still have yet to find, on this thread or any other, a coherent, acceptable defense of that argument. Because there isn’t any.
As for Karpovsky and “wonderful,” yes, I’m being “funny,” but there is also, I admit, a real irritation being expressed there, and it has to do, I’m afraid, with stuff that I ought not air in this forum or ever, really.
“There’s a lot of bitterness here about a 20 year old girl’s first feature…” you say. And some might say there’s also a lot of sexism in your description of “Tiny Furniture” as “a 20 year old girl’s first feature.” Look, she’s either in the arena or she’s not, no special pleading allowed. What bitterness I may or may not have isn’t prompted by her age but by her narcissism and sense of entitlement. And I tried very hard to see past that and find the talent at work, which I hopefully am not begrudging in describing.
I hope this clears some stuff up. And again, I do appreciate the feedback, although I may not immediately seem to. Thanks.
“Hell…perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“Dubai…maybe you’ve heard of it?”
Ha. That’s some low hanging fruit your picking there. I mean, the line was a recycled-to-death sitcom cliché when you used it.
And here one begins to wonder if “These are the jokes, folks,” needs to be replaced with “No shit, Sherlock.”
James P., you just don’t “get” me.
If you say so, laughingboy. But there’s a palpable, and admitted, “irritation” lurking just beneath the surface of this particular “joke”.
Despite the fact that you strike me as having major dick potential, you do get points in my book for “laughingboy,” although I believe for the correct Bugs Bunny inflection the two words ought not be smushed together like that. And like I said, I’m not gonna get into my irritation. And for the record—Christ—no, I don’t think that the Thrifty, Brave, Clean And Reverent Alex Karpovsky (may we all aspire to be as “wonderful” as he), actually “ripped off” my “Girlfriend Experience” character. Are we clear? Jesus. Remind me to bring a fucking book next time I have to sit in front of the computer cleaning out iTunes.
Glenn, you might as well post a picture of Stacy Keach in BREWSTER McCLOUD and give up.
Re: Karpovsky, I would recommend everyone track down his first film as director, “The Hole Story,” which blurs the lines between documentary and fiction as fascinatingly as any film I’ve seen, and is really, really hilarious to boot. It was on Netflix Instant at one point; not sure if that’s still the case. I watched it on the recommendation of Matt Zoller Seitz, who compared it quite rightly to the work of both Albert Brooks and Ross McElwee. One of the great unsung/unreleased Amerindies of the ’00s, really.
@Donald – It was indeed jocular – merely a throwback to the CYRUS zoom comments earlier this year. I’ve nothing against mumblecore, really, and I haven’t seen that much of it, to be honest, but I do believe, as I said earlier, that just because something is low- or no-budget, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t eschew certain formal ethics in favor of contrived “guerrilla” experimentation (or “caffeinated zoom thumb”, whatever the case may be). If I seemed like I was making an unfair generalization, then “my bad” as they say.
As a matter of fact, when Eric Rohmer passed and Glenn mentioned being a little bothered by writers referring to him as a “father of mumblecore” I defended, at least (and with all due respect), the idea that, if by doing so, some mumblecore fans were turned on to Rohmer’s work as a result, then no harm, no foul.
I also remember reading an interview by Bob Mould, who was slagging Green Day after they had said in interviews they were influenced by him. When, at the end of the day, Green Day is helping Bob Mould out by doing so, turning on lots of their fans to his music. I don’t believe “punk” and “gratitude” are mutually exclusive. Somebody likes something you’ve done, is it hard to simply say “thank you”? But anyway…
Chris O. writes: “When, at the end of the day, Green Day is helping Bob Mould out by doing so, turning on lots of their fans to his music. I don’t believe “punk” and “gratitude” are mutually exclusive. Somebody likes something you’ve done, is it hard to simply say “thank you”? But anyway…”
Maybe, maybe not. Probably the most gracious thing Mould could have done when Green Day came up would have been to say nothing. But if Bob Mould were all that gracious, it’s possible Husker Du might never have existed. Questions of manners aside, Bob Mould owes Green Day precisely nothing. And I seriously doubt his residuals statement was much affected by Green Day’s recommendations in any event. Kurt Cobain didn’t end up making millionaires out of the Vaselines, either, if my recollection is correct. And they all liked each other!
“…if, by doing so, some mumblecore fans were turned on to Rohmer’s work as a result, then no harm, no foul.” Salutary practical results deriving from critical fallacies don’t actually validate critical fallacies. So I’m gonna maintain my objection. And, while I’m at it, have a good smirk over the mental picture of Joe Swanberg trying to come to grips with “Catherine of Heilbronn.”
Maybe I’m too idealistic. I think a lot of people check out Woody Guthrie because of Dylan. I’m eager to see PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE because it was mentioned in SCOTT PILGRIM reviews. If someone comes up to me and says WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… is their favorite movie of all time but they’ve never seen a Woody Allen film, I’m going to recommend ANNIE HALL, etc. That’s part of the fun of it all. “If you like us/this, then check out this.” I’m not saying the Rohmer/mumblecore bit is not a critical fallacy, but that something good can come from it. I hardly think it’s going besmirch Rohmer’s legacy nor lend egregious credence to bad mumblecore movies. Maybe that’s naïve. Although I do realize that the vast majority of one’s audience probably doesn’t give a rat’s balls about the artist’s influences and, sure, probably doesn’t send an extra check in the mail. And as far as Mould owing Green Day anything, you’re right, he can absolutely say whatever he wants. But as you say above, it strikes me as having major dick potential. (Again, no animosity here, this kind of topic interests me.)
@ Chris: No animosity taken, or meant, here, either. I also think the topic is interesting, and I admire your idealism. I hope my own hasn’t disappeared, but merely been tempered with some experience. When I was starting out as a critic, I had this idea that all one had to do was put the word out on a great obscure artist, and this would get the ball rolling and that artist would eventually find exposure, and thus critics and artists could together enhance the culture. I remember writing my Village Voice review of Peter Blegvad’s “The Naked Shakespeare” with this very goal in mind back in 1984. the piece did get some word out, sure, but Blegvad never wound up topping the charts. And still. When PB’s pal and peer Loudon Wainwright covered Blegvad’s “Daughter” for the end credits song in “Knocked Up,” I thought, “this is gonna do SOMETHING!” but Blegvad remains a cult figure whose musical activities are somewhat sporadic, as he lives his life (which last I heard from him was going pretty well, which is wonderful). So there you have it. But still! You gotta keep the faith, right?
An interesting sort-of inversion of what we’re talking about: In GQ a couple of years ago there was a pretty funny, and interestingly self-aware, piece by Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas, about the fact that despite having sold millions of records, he’s still persona non grata in the unofficial celebrity cool club (he details several snubs, including one from DiCaprio, I think). because his multi-platinum music is so, well, transparently popular and uncool (he doesn’t quite put it that way, of course). All the while the celebrity cool kids earn some their cool cred by slathering praise in interviews on musicians who will never, ever, ever come within swinging distance of their tax brackets.
Interesting. Yeah, there are countless examples like Blegvad’s. I was just thinking about the (deceased) Texas songwriter named Blaze Foley who was recently re-discovered by John Prine and Merle Haggard, but who’ll probably not be a household name. I suppose the art world has the popular examples of once-forgotten artists “enjoying” heydays many decades after their passing.
In terms of gratitude/good manners, the converse (inverse?) annoys me as well: when a younger generation filmmaker talkin’ smack about an older filmmaker. Vampire Weekend making fun of Tom Petty lyrics, or Dunham’s comments on Nicholas Ray’s BIGGER THAN LIFE, for example. Not that reverence should hold court always, that’d be boring. But how many young aspiring cinephiles (or fans of hers) may come to this movie with a hipster chip on their shoulder? Who knows? (Of course, imagine someone now telling an older filmmaker “We’re going to BURY you” à la Hopper to Cukor. We’d be aghast! Though that wasn’t in an interview and I don’t think Cukor’s legacy took a hit – at least, in the long run.)
Green Day might not’ve helped Husker Du, but they definitely turned a lot of people onto Op Ivy. Of course, Rancid helped, too.
At least now we can rejoice in knowing that Dunham will (very likely) get a weekly opportunity to plumb her SoHO existence for Judd Apatow and HBO.
Bored to Death, Flight of the Concords, Hung, Eastbound and Down.
HBO: lazy niche humor that doesn’t make you laugh.
EASTBOUND AND DOWN is a great show. You take that back.
Sorry, can’t take that back.
EASTBOUND AND DOWN is a limp, one-note snooze. Great? No.
But I do get it. I do. He says “fag” and “fuck” a lot. And he has a mullet. And he’s a trashy piece of southern shit. Got it–he’s offensive, and the fact that the offensiveness isn’t “judged” is supposed to be somehow both very funny and very daring.
I mean, it’s a series, and I see no reason to stick with a bunch of warmed-over caricatures week after week. Maybe I would if they gave me some goddamn jokes.
Even in these coarsened times, gotta cling to some standards of wit.
Oh, please. I was stating a preference. No need to get so smug about it. And don’t assume you know why I think it’s a great show.
Alex Karpovsky’s film “Woodpecker” is also an outstanding and funny doc hybrid that you should seek out. I think it just hit DVD.
Wasn’t being smug, really. Was being angry. At the show, not you–tonally, that’s not clear, so sorry about that. But yeah, the show’s badness kind of pisses me off. It makes Kevin Smith look witty, indeed.
And I wasn’t assuming your reasons for thinking it “great”–though I am curious about what you like so much in it. I watched every episode of the first season, looking for something, and finding nothing but goof.
And, man, lay off “Flight of the Conchords”. Seriously, if you can’t rock out to a clever Pet Shops Boys pastiche like “Inner City Pressure” or find Jemaine Clement funny, then there is no pleasing you.
@Craig – Apology accepted. But I still don’t get your problems with the show. For one thing, he IS judged. Repeatedly. Second, you say that Kenny Powers is a piece of Southern trash, as if he alone represented the South, and that his very Southerness is what makes him funny (in a way that allows us to look down on him?). But everybody on the show is from the South, including his brother and sister-in-law, both of who are presented as very decent and intelligent people (who are Christians, and not mocked for it, which in itself is the complete opposite of the kind of stereotype I’m used to seeing these days).
And you say there are no jokes. Well, I don’t have my “Jokes I Heard on EASTBOUND AND DOWN” list with me, but I don’t see why this (paraphrased):
KENNY’S SISTER-IN-LAW: Her name is Rose, after the character played by Kate Winslet in TITANIC.
KENNY: You named your kid after a fuckin’ movie? [Gesturing to nephew] What’s his name, Shrek?
…doesn’t count as a joke.
Also, Craig D, you conveniently left Curb Your Enthusiasm out of your “lazy niche humor” list, despite that being HBO’s most popular and longest-running comedy. If you can’t appreciate Curb at its best (and the latter seasons haven’t always been the show at its best, though the Seinfeld reunion stuff was brilliant) then you can’t really appreciate comedy, at all.
Wow, so, which is the true test of whether or not I can ever appreciate comedy? Is it CURB or CONCHORDS?
I’ll do you one better on the hyperbole: if you don’t laugh at TWO AND A HALF MEN, you have no idea what comedy really is. If you don’t appreciate TWO AND A HALF MEN, you can never appreciate what makes most people laugh.
Ridiculous, of course, but no more ridiculous than using CURB as the litmus test of “whether one can ever appreciate comedy…AT ALL.”
I didn’t include CURB, that’s true, mainly because I was focusing on HBO’s more recent stuff, and its general direction in comedy, which doesn’t seem to be toward more things like CURB or MR. SHOW. (And I will say that I think CURB is sometimes really funny but also, gasp, overrated.) I also left out ENTOURAGE and its NY spinoff, but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Maybe because ENTOURAGE generally sucks?
FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS, yes, has never really made me laugh. Buried under layers of twee and quirk and reference. While I can admire a Pet Shop Boys spoof as a sort of formal exercise, I don’t think the very act of DOING a Pet Shop Boys pastiche is “funny,” as I understand that word. And I do find Jemaine Clement funny, but not on CONCHORDS.
I mean, it’d of course be easier to have a discussion about whether or not these shows work on a narrative level–trying to reach consensus on what “is funny” or “makes us laugh” is like tunneling through a brick wall with a collective spoon. This stuff is so subjective.
HBO’s post-CURB output just strikes me as narrow and narratively arid. It seems reasonable to think HBO could produce something on the level of the original OFFICE, which had twelve episodes total…but they seem more concerned with sniffing out flavor-of-the-month names. BORED TO DEATH has no reason to exist, but hey: Jonathan Lethem! Jason Schwartzmann! And now we have…Lena Dunham…starring in her own pilot about herself. I’m not sure if you can get narrower.
And to Bill: don’t know what to tell you. The joke you cite, which I agree is a good example of the show’s wit, kind of works, I guess, but it works on a pretty damn low level. It’d barely get a titter from a stand-up audience. Nothing builds on EASTBOUND the way things build with, say, the Seinfeld storyline on CURB. The construction is so shoddy.
And I don’t think Jody Hill’s the Antichrist, but I also don’t like his game: offensiveness is not a reason in itself. Watching a bunch of oafs just rattle off profanities and sexisms and homophobisms and etc–the writers, having cake, eating it too. What seems like, “Hey, look at these idiots,” eventually morphs into, “Hey, these idiots say the shitty things you wish you could say.” Comedy as pissing contest. The whole exercise is hollow, and incredibly dependent on a one-note actor with very little range. I’ve certainly laughed at Danny McBride from time to time, but the guy has no depth.
I do suspect Jody Hill will make something really good some day. But to do that, he’d have to conjure up a little patience.
Different strokes, I guess.
We found that query search time increased along with segment count while query-less filter search time decreased along with segment size. An increase in query search time of almost a full second is not an acceptable hit to performance so we are sticking with the 8 segment arrangement.
Rashad Horsley
Muchos Gracias for your article. Great.