Some Came Running

Against the grain

Sonny Bunch of The Washington Times, who interviewed me a while back on the subject of film grain and its place in video representations of cinema, has been blogging from the SIlverdocs documentary film festival. Where he met up with one of the giants of American documentaries, and put the grain question to him. The answer Bunch got might surprise you, and it just goes to show you can never really tell with these things. Find out here. 

Block that metaphor!

I understand that everybody's allowed their own interpretation of, like, stuff, but I have to admit I'm a little bemused by some of the reviewers who seem to believe that my casting as a rather unsavory internet escort reviewer in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience constitutes some kind of smackdown of the entire film criticism racket. "Is that what you really think of us, Steven?" asks Scott Collura at IGN. Kirk Honeycutt says my casting constitutes "a clear shot at the critical profession." And there's more.

Like I said, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I think Mr. Soderbergh himself is on to something when he calls such readings "a little narcissistic." (There's also the fact that, like, whaddya think I am, stupid? You think I would have participated in this project if I thought it was Soderbergh's elaborate payback for my panning The Good German?) Now it's true that many of the cast members of the film have roles therein which correspond to what they do in real life. Trainer, journalist, and so on. Now it's also true that there are really guys who review escorts on the internet. Now consider, for a moment, the reaction you might get, were you to dig up one of these guys, and ask him to play a particularly villainous version of himself in an somewhat major motion picture.

I bring this up largely because of a real-life case that I was directed to by New York magazine writer Vanessa Grigoriadis, which you can read about here. Given that GFE was shot last October, I almost feel like I have to pat myself, Steven, and screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien on the back a little bit. It appears we created a portrayal that was not only accurate, but somewhat prescient as well. 

A point, conceded, up to a point (Updated)

In the extremely contentious comments thread to the post "The Cinema of Contingency: Notes on Swanberg," Don Lewis of Film Threat, a Swanberg defender, states, "I think that Joe's point in a lot of ways...i[s] that the camera is only capable of capturing truth...[A]nd maybe the truth is, the camera makes you lie?" Don was addressing my criticism of a take in Swanberg's Hannah Takes The Stairs in which lead actress Greta Gerwig appeared to be staring at something which was clearly not part of the space in which her character was existing. Don continued, "Is it possible to NOT be conscious of the camera? I mean, isn't this the question posed by several people over the years?"

Well, yes, it is. And it is a question posed quite frequently in the work of Jean-Luc Godard. There are more than a few moments in his early films with then-wife Anna Karina in which she looks directly into the camera, as if in search of encouragement, succor, or some just plain answers. As in, for example this screen grab from Godard's 1964 Bande a Part. 

Do I believe that Swanberg's aims and methods in the here and now have much to do with Godard's aims and methods in the early '60s? That's actually a tough one, but I'm going to commit myself to "no." Nevertheless, I do see Lewis' point as one worth grappling with. So. Let's continue grappling. 

UPDATE: Tom Russell has posted his lengthy comment in response to "The Cinema of Contingency" on his Son of a Seahorse blog, and I recommend it highly. In other news...hey, Mom, I finally made it into The New Yorker. Sort of. The magazine's Richard Brody puts in his two cents on the Swanberg perplex in his New Yorker blog, and as it happens, he is firmly in the pro camp, which may well be a source of some...well, I won't presume precisely what, for Swanberg champion Craig Keller, who's no fan of Brody or his Godard biography. Strange bedfellows, indeed. In the meantime, over at Spout, Karina Longworth drew some analogies between Swanberg's work and Steven Soderbergh's upcoming Girlfriend Experience, which made this GFE cast member go all "What you say?"

Some e-mail correspondents have promised further commentary, although a couple wonder whether "it's not too late." Craig's prediction that the fiery comments thread on my initial Swanberg post would soon "euthanize itself" may be true, or may not be. In the meantime, I'm still making notes on the below-gushed-over Henry Cow box for a future post (sure to be a traffic builder!) and going through Watchmaker Films' wonderful DVD presentation of Eagle Penell's The Whole Shootin' Match for a piece for the Auteurs. So I'm a bit otherwise engaged. Brody's citation of Philippe Garrel—a filmmaker I worship—as a director "whose work Swanberg's resembles," in that "Garrel film[s] his own stories, starring himself, his families, and his friends" is extremely provocative. To my mind, it's an object lesson that seemingly similar methods can yield wildly different results. Also that the vision one ends up depends—not ultimately, but quite a bit—on the vision one begins with. I believe Garrel's conception is considerably more, er, profound than Swanberg's. But I might table the discussion, at least from my end, until about a month from now, when Swanberg's latest feature, Alexander The Last, premieres at SXSW and IFC's Video on Demand. Perhaps I shall be pleasantly surprised.