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.
Posted by: bill | February 05, 2009 at 03:44 PM
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.
Posted by: Tom Russell | February 05, 2009 at 03:51 PM
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.
Posted by: Joe P | February 05, 2009 at 04:19 PM
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.
Posted by: Moviezzz | February 05, 2009 at 04:40 PM
@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.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | February 05, 2009 at 05:31 PM
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?
Posted by: Tony Dayoub | February 05, 2009 at 09:09 PM
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.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | February 05, 2009 at 09:35 PM
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.
Posted by: Keith Gow | February 05, 2009 at 11:45 PM
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.
Posted by: Tom Russell | February 06, 2009 at 12:07 AM
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.
Posted by: Keith Gow | February 06, 2009 at 12:46 AM
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).
Posted by: Claire K. | February 06, 2009 at 01:05 AM
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!"
Posted by: John M | February 06, 2009 at 03:21 AM
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?)
Posted by: John M | February 06, 2009 at 03:32 AM
Amen.
Posted by: Joe Bowman | February 06, 2009 at 03:55 AM
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.)
Posted by: John M | February 06, 2009 at 03:58 AM
"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."
Posted by: Dan | February 06, 2009 at 08:12 AM
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.
Posted by: John Felice | February 06, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Joe Swanberg is the Goyim Eric Schaeffer.
Posted by: Rabbi Lutz | February 06, 2009 at 12:08 PM
At least Mr. Swanberg doesn't habitually abuse the word "putative", Mr. Kenny.
Posted by: Herb Birch | February 06, 2009 at 12:27 PM
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?
Posted by: Natalie Norton | February 06, 2009 at 12:28 PM
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.
Posted by: LLI | February 06, 2009 at 12:32 PM
@ 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.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | February 06, 2009 at 12:40 PM
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.
Posted by: don lewis | February 06, 2009 at 01:12 PM
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?
Posted by: Tom Russell | February 06, 2009 at 01:36 PM
@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.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | February 06, 2009 at 01:53 PM
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.
Posted by: Tom Russell | February 06, 2009 at 01:59 PM
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."
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | February 06, 2009 at 02:09 PM
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.
Posted by: Claire K. | February 06, 2009 at 02:12 PM
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.
Posted by: Jette Kernion | February 06, 2009 at 02:26 PM
@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.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | February 06, 2009 at 02:35 PM