The Bayside Club

by Ryland Walker Knight

Viewing Log #47: Eliminate the laminate [6/14/10 - 6/20/10]

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Must love dogs

• Bell Book and Candle [Richard Quine, 1958] Fun to think of how Hitchcock must have seen this, after his perfect picture with this pair, and how he might've dug it if only for how much sexier Novak is in this flick. Novak's got more to go on, here, and gets to play a person instead of an idea, but it's more than just an "arc" that makes her radiate (and she radiates green a few times); there's a sense of true wounds getting fingered like buttons; and who doesn't like "ironic" reversals when it comes to romance? Worth noting, too, that this is a film for any lover of New York—Old New York, New York as haunted, New York as a nest or as pregnant—as a place for lovers. I'm not so sure I still hold that same esteem of that great city, but I cannot deny my affection for it and its odd promise of aches and pains to go sidelong with dreams.
  
• Caddyshack [Harold Ramis, 1980] # Basically: I want to, at some point, tell a big crowd of people gathered on a deck, "Hey, everybody! We're all gonna get laid!" Failing that, I'd like to adopt some of Chevy Chase's glib tactics with the ladies. Weird that Bill Murray's something of a weak link.
  
  
• To Have and To Have Not [Howard Hawks, 1944] # I've never taken a film production course at a university level before so I'm curious: do any smart profs teach Hawks? Because his model of economy is instructive for anybody with meager means hoping to make movies. There's about six sets, maybe seven, used in this movie. And all Hawks pictures move forward without asides or flashbacks—true continuity—so there's plenty to learn on a storytelling level. Then you get to the idea of acting that's all over this film and covers nearly his entire filmography: get the characters to actually perform things for other characters as a way to indicate their own character; then comment on it, slightly, in the dialog to show these are thoughtful/aware people with plenty of intention behind every play; with a decent distraction story, you've got a tight little structure to build dramatic significance. And, maybe, you can get some friends to charm the pants of the camera. Bacall's little dance out of the saloon always kills me. Bogey's masculinity is sometimes a bore but his physical posture's so bad, the whole bit gladdens me.
  
  
• L'enfance nue [Maurice Pialat, 1968] Funny that Truffaut presents this film, as the credits read, but it's just about the opposite kind of sensibility as that of that calling card about a boy he made first (which I still enjoy, but cannot love save a few choice moments). This one, though, only gets things right. Things like anger. But it's not a psychological film; it's all actions. What you do. What you do doesn't define you but it sure does indicate a lot. Great to see Pialat had the same impulse to shear away plot this early. I'd love to know how he wrote: did he film forever, or write forever, and then delete/edit? Or was his brain so strong that he simply trusted his storytelling enough to jump so often and sometimes so far?

Last Lost: "Dr. Linus"

by Ryland Walker Knight

This week's episode would be nothing but cheese were it not for Michael Emerson as Ben, or Dr. Linus, and his skills to invest every little gesture with character. I'm sure our history with the character plays a part in his performance (we know how his face has changed, or what happens when we watch it change), but there's a lot going on in Ben in this episode. Emerson gets to flex all kinds of adjectives: plain sad, indignant, obsequious, desperate, dismay, righteous, sorrowful, ashamed, and sheepish. It's just the right amount of showy to get all kinds of attention. And it's deserved. After all, it's a redemption episode that hinges on a confession.

Again, you couldn't believe the promos' hint that Ben would actually meet his demise. Or did they say face his demise? Either way, it didn't shock me that he got his redemption both on the island and off. In fact, it pleased me. Aside from Locke, Ben's the most interesting character on the show by far. A lot of it is due to Emerson, yes, but it's also because he's one of the few whose trajectory has been yanked around in compelling ways. Not all signs pointed to an episode like this one, though, again, it doesn't surprise me. Ben's gone from plain evil to halfway sympathetic to full on audience surrogate at different moments. In this episode, though he tries to lie as is his wont, he's mostly on the right side of things.

What's troubling about all this, and the overall tone of this episode, is just how sweet the show can get. I don't want everything to turn out okay. That's why last week's mayhem was so exhilarating. Lindelof and Cuse seem to really believe in evil as much as in goodness. The stakes, here, really do matter. Which is why Charles Widmore appearing in a submarine off the coast is so cool. (Also, hilarious. The music underneath that periscope's surfacing was great.) Now we'll see if Widmore really is on the side of evil, or if he only saw the evil in Ben that Jacob had hoped would abate, or prove wrong. There are plenty of reasons why Widmore would side with The Man In Black (such as the interest in Locke, among others, as the perfect surrogate) but, as far as I remember, it has yet to be made explicit.

So I'm hoping, given the tone of the promos this week and that this episode was more ground work than actual plot, things get sadder before they get sweeter. It'll be refreshing, almost, to see what this band of Dark Locke followers will do, or be bullied/inspired to do. For that matter, it'll be interesting to see just how Claire versus Kate plays out given that Kate's not a candidate and Claire's clearly off the dark deep end of things. (Does the show have the balls to kill of Kate? Or, if not now, ever?) But back in the camp we were just in, it'll also be interesting to see if they all embrace this new, humble Ben—if he's let into the circle or not. Because he was certainly left out of the requisite slow motion hug and hand shake festival. (Which also gave us the biggest laugh of the season: seeing Hurley and Sun run at one another.) In fact, it was nice to see Jack size up Ben from a distance. Perhaps there will be a few more bad choices between them. And who in the hell knows what's up with Richard at this point. Did Jack make a new believer of him? I kind of hope so, and I hope to see more of his story aboard the Black Rock.


The point is, as with all the set-up episodes (funny that this is reflected in the beach camp setting up camp, starting over again), I'm left with more speculation than concrete evidence. Which is why we keep watching, of course: the beyond brilliant baiting that these dudes have devised.

Here's a few other talking points:

• Tania Raymonde is beautiful and I'm sad we likely won't see her as Alex again.
  
• Ken Leung has been underutilized until this episode, in which he had two great moments. The first being his vision of Jacob's death; the second his confrontation of Ben under Ilana's eye. He's a prime target to get offed but I'm pulling for him to stick it out, to not Faraday his way out of things and stick to Hugo like glue.
  
• Cuz Hurley can't die, can he?
  
• Sawyer's talking to Kate in the promo, right? Do you think they're gonna wind up together after all? I'd prefer that to her standing by Jack, but I still want her to die most of all. And I sure as shit don't want Sawyer to stay on the island any longer.
  
• Touching. I think Jacob physically touched all the Oceanic Six, but maybe he didn't touch Kate? Does this mean they're all immortal like Richard? Didn't Jacob touch Ben right before Ben stabbed him?
  
• All this and more, ahead. Adios.

We Live OK: 9 Selections, 09.09

by Ryland Walker Knight

(i)

—blame blur

(ii)


—rocks right sides

(iII)



—bling

(iv)

—hot on the cobb

(v)


—patch'd, deck'd + gass'd

We Live OK: 5 Selections, 08.09

by Ryland Walker Knight

(i)

—big top

(ii)

—who's left?

(iii)


—wrapping route

(iv)

—hours unto hours

Taste the cloud: 35 Rhums Rendez-vous #3

by Ryland Walker Knight

Tried to tackle a lot with this new piece on Denis' new film. You can read it here. It may be a little abstract, but, then again, when you're talking Denis, that seems unavoidable. One of the ideas I did not explore quite fully therein is one that came to me riding a train: riding a train often feels like floating, or hovering, as trains are not ever quite connected to their tracks—or they are, but briefly, forever connecting to a new space. And, sure enough, from the first shot in 35 Rhums, Denis has us hovering on a train. What struck me further about the hovering metaphor to describe her "cloud style" (as I name it in the linked-to piece) is how this suggests the feeling of the diffuse nature that typifies her ability to surround an event, to envelop a feeling, without much concretion and yet less explication. Somehow, here, she turns this into an invitation to think about tactics over against the denial of L'intrus and its globular and, agreed, baffling-yet-beautiful arrangement.

Though most shows are sold out, do click here to buy your tickets to see the film. If you see me there, feel free to say, "Hi." I guarantee I'll be in a good mood.

Run into a swim, sleep by a beach. Rendez-vous #1

by Ryland Walker Knight

I will say more soon (for a different outlet), but I wanted to say right now that, yes yes yes, I am predictable: this new Claire Denis film, 35 rhums, is lovely. Walking around in the rain this afternoon I continually thought, "Perfect; one hundred percent." This endorsement is assured hyperbole but, please, let me tell you: there is nothing else around as easy to love for all the right reasons as this film. It plays four times in mid-March as part of this year's Rendez-vous with French Cinema series programmed by the fine folks at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The film opened in France today, as the no-subs trailer attests below, but because I cannot give an additional link to some kind of release schedule here in the States, I should like to encourage all those who can to see this thing while they can, to hop uptown and soak up that big and bright screen that the Walter Reade offers.

Also, this gives me a no-embedding-allowed opportunity to link to The Commodores' only Grammy-sanctioned hit, "Nightshift" (some already know this is a personal favorite of mine), as, once again, Mme Denis' taste is impeccable and her timing better than perfect and the use of this song in the film is well past sublime.

UPDATE: More from Martha at What Is This Light. Read it!

Two Thousand Weight? #4: So long!

Gonna go get my life on! It starts like this!

Merry Christmas

— A found fact. From Ryland and his family's tree to you and yours, and your family trees, here's some light:

A Christmas Tale. A house is an outfit. [part one]

by Ryland Walker Knight

Weird: the title of my recent essay about a (possible) Desplechin double bill almost describes this new film. Except, of course, that this house, if it is baggy, is the kind of baggy you see a big man wearing; the kind that you can tell is full of body, full of flesh and torsion and not-quite hidden (not even silent) liquids. The house is the thing in A Christmas Tale, which, in a way, operates as a sequel to La Vie Des Morts, as it was shot in the same house in the same Northern cold in the same giveaway sumptuousness. Were my memory more reliable I might could say something else about the divergences but (suffice to say?) for now, at the least, I can offer that the maximal new film fulfills the precipitate preview-promise of the debut: there will be drama. And—hey, get this!—blood! The focus on blood here is, let's be real, a bald-faced joke. But it's the kind of joke that hides behind the joke that masks another joke; jokes everywhere, always, going in every direction, just like this narrative (if we want to call it that), just like this family sprawls, just like this house opens its hiding places and unmasks the world.

The house is the cinema, too, we gather. It holds histories and stages opportunities for new life, and new love, all kinds of desires and passions. Desplechin's cinema revels in these possibilities. Hoberman writes: "Expansive but cozy, convoluted yet circular, at once avant and retro, and contradictory down to its last scene, the movie ends with a new myth—if not a new cosmology—articulated by the writer Elizabeth." It's easy to point to the quotes in a Desplechin film (they abound) but it's often harder to secure their significance, much less their relevance, in tidy equations; his constellation of associations splays. The most pronounced quotations in A Christmas Tale (amidst the swirl of Funny Face and The Ten Commandments, Cecil Taylor and beat juggling, Emerson, Vertigo and Bergman; hell, Woody Allen and Wes Anderson) are, as is fitting, from two masters of the reversal: the opening of Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morals and multiple scenes and motifs and themes from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and an "of course!" nod to A Winter's Tale. This cosmology Hoberman hints at—I cannot but spoil his delicious hints—is Elizabeth's appropriation of Puck's final address in her own final address (via voiceover crossing into diegetic speech, "la parole" as she would say) that reminds us, yes, tomorrow is another day in the world of our choosing. Of course, although some try and some do succeed (adoption), on a basic level it remains unavoidable that we do not choose our family. We build the house about the family and we foster it, nurture it, as best we may in those walls; but we cannot renege our stock in the world. Or, that aim goes nowhere, gets nowhere. And there's nowhere but here.


Committed to contradiction as a form of life as much as a form of cinema (isn't the cinema a form of life?), Desplechin's films are often rightly described as "too much" but I'd like to claim that not as a derision; I'd rather say that most other films are "too little." Of course, don't get me wrong, I dig purity, too: Bresson is, is, like, totally—are you kidding me? And yet, I've always been attracted to the baroque, the proliferating and the layering of the image-and-sound. And, of course—are you kidding me?—Bresson is a king of layering sensations; but austerity is after a different endgame. Maybe that's just it: there's no endgame with Desplechin. Films end but, like all great storytellers, it's easy—hell, it's desirable, luxurious, seductive—to imagine the characters living forward, finding the world and building it again every day. I saw A Christmas Tale twice in two days. The first experience was dictated by my fatigue: lots of silent smiling tears. The second was directed by my exuberant enjoyment: a serious front-row grin. We contain multitudes, right?

Gushing on the phone, I told my friend, "It's a reminder that you can make art about yourself and not be an asshole." What I forgot to add is that, well, even if you are an asshole (it seems pretty unavoidable given enough time), you can aim for grace with the right kind of joke. But then we remember that, no matter how sumptuous the right kind of laugh can feel across our bodies, some jokes hurt. What separates A Christmas Tale from its decidedly more affable cousins, Kings and Queen and My Sex Life... (if not exactly reaching Esther Kahn), is the frightfully simple-looking plait of melodrama and comedy Desplechin mounts here. It's a film of reversals but it's not about simultaneity. It's this and that but those things are neither here nor there nor everywhere but anywhere what so ever as long as its bonds are not severed; the ties do bind; celluloid remains a strip; for all the cubist fades, this is not a film as network; I'm afraid to see Desplechin's digital brain if only because I adore this emulsion and this bleeding so; strands bounce against and into one another but the limits reign in the will to sovereignty. Indeed: as soon as Matthieu Amalric's typically dervish Henri climbs out a window and down the side of the house, he re-enters through the back door—only to leave through the front—we might say, through the mouth—to attend midnight mass with his mother, Junon (the rather-perfect, still-vibrant Catherine Deneuve), whom he hours before called "Le Con Capitain."


—And I think, "masculine?"

Meet me at the water.

by J.D. Knight

Found Facts. August 2008.

by Ryland Walker Knight

I really had to work to make this fit. The final edit I was set on at first was 11:30, which is too long for YouTube, apparently, so I went in and played with stuff. I think it still works, just different. And, twice as long as the previous installment means twice as many jokes. That means the quality suffers again, unfortunately, and this one really does look better on my HD as it has more "natural" spaces and light. Still a series of naive love letters, this one is elevated from pure nostalgia, I hope/trust, by all the goofy stuff thrown in -- like all those rocks.

SITES SEEN =CZ, Berkeley =The Trappist, Oakland =Cuy's car, Berkeley =Cam+Mego's pad, San Francisco =Berkeley streets =Yuba River, 20 minutes west of Nevada City =Rach's dad's backyard, Sonoma =all thrown together

Sing seeing, sing.

by Ryland Walker Knight

I visited Daniel in class yesterday and made some images; then I cut them up. Since my internet is so slow I uploaded a smaller file, which combs. And yet, again, I'm thrilled by the "failure" of this camera. It's another announcement, another event. I love how this version is different than the 700MB file I exported from iMovie, how both those are different than the raw file I uploaded onto my hard drive, how different all those are from when I was sitting there. Something I thought while sitting there, sweating in that plastic bucket next to the window: this adventure of perception continues to interrupt itself. Every blink is a cut, every step a zoom, every gesture made makes spaces different and the effects play like affects across the face. So what happens when you don't see Daniel's face here? Wait: we see his profile, his hands; his body to begin and end the clip. But it's dark. Where is the face? Behind Daniel, on the wall? That's not his face; it's his boy's face. His face is this pacing, this boiling gesticulation. As he would say, this style, this way of going. Style, of course, being a performance—of one's multitudes, of every angle brought to bear, of every memory made flesh. Things get tricky, then, when all he's doing is talking about seeing and all you want to do is look at the boy and his chocolate, not that flitting figure below.* But, of course, his figure forms the geometry of gazes, too. He even sneaks a peak at me twice, creating yet another announcement-event, and his language gets dizzy, too, there at the end, as he falls into-through that word: seeing. Seeing sounds like being, sure, but it sounds like sing, too. His waterfall of "seeings" sounds like an imperative to sing, sing seeing, sing. Live this seeing.

[If the veoh video above doesn't load for you, you can watch this on youtube: click here. The veoh looks better, and sounds better, but youtube is, well, damn reliable; what's weird is the youtube compression makes this feel more analog (warmer) than the veoh player, which still holds onto the cold of the digital comb.]

[Looks like veoh is just wrong, or too fussy. So I went ahead and embedded the youtube clip. If you want to try the veoh clip, and get irked, click here. Also, you can track Dsee's class via its dedicated blog, which is called -- you'd never have guessed it -- Seeing Seeing.]

*Try to note the lift before the first edit.

Found Facts. June 2008.

by Ryland Walker Knight

[I could probably make this a higher quality file but it's such an abject little thing as it is that, hell, it doesn't need any modicum of sheen. That might be dishonest. So, this is offered with humility and a little embarrassment on behalf of everybody. Although, to be fair, we all know who the star is...]

New Narrative. Excerpt from Harry, Zelda and Antoinette

by Marc Lafia

During the course of working on my Permutations project, I became fascinated with the idea of narration, where it happens and how. I had for some time been thinking about rules-based art, algorithms; a database cinema which I had been using in varied projects. But I wanted to proceed with these ideas in an internalized way, procedurally, not literally. I wanted to engage these strategies as approaches to shape and perform narrative. I had written a film scenario for Harry, Zelda and Antoinette and knew the dramaturgy very well. I wasn't getting any where raising money. So I thought how I can create an event of recording in with the permutations approach which become an event of narration with those things around me, folding them into a narrative, within which I was narrating and orchestrating the recording to such an end. The work consists of six parts each composed of some twelve to twenty multi-screen films. Here's an excerpt.

[Note: we understand that a youtube clip posted on a blog is not as striking as seeing the film/s projected on a white wall or a silver screen but we do hope you indulge our offer. Marc may try to upload this to imeem.com for a better quality image. Until then, here's this. --RWK]

Permutation 13 Permutation 304 Permutation 12

by Marc Lafia

Life is full, life is funny. An appetite for Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited.

____________________
[Editor's Note: This is a slightly-edited email conversation between Steven Boone and Ryland Walker Knight. Clearly a lot was discussed. But as descendants of another Whitman, we contain multitudes, much like this film, and there was plenty more to talk about. But two call-and-responses seemed like a good enough jump off. Please help us continue the conversation in the comments. As Steve says, it's kind of sloppy but it's cool. It's good enough for now.]
____________________


____________________

Ry,

“We're all sensitive people/with so much to give.” Marvin Gaye may have been singing that just to get into a girl's drawers, but those two phrases also inadvertently define the great film directors: Sensitivity and generosity. It takes an audience of similar temperament to get into their films. Wes Anderson is one of the greats.

I had punkass tears leaking out of my eyes from the moment Owen Wilson stood up and said the first thing he thought about when he came to (after a near-death experience) was his brothers, and they all hugged a little awkwardly. Why is this moment so great, or special? We've seen brothers bonding like this in 10,000 other flicks. Actually, looking back at my description of it, it sounds like some TV movie shit. What sells it (other than Anderson's (or maybe Jason Schwartzman's or Roman Coppola's) dialogue writing, which lays out torturous, hilarious roadblocks of cynicism and petty grievances on the path to true understanding) is Anderson's camera eye. (That's the other thing that makes a great director: Gotta know what shots and cuts can really do.) Owen declares his love to his brothers in a kind of wobbly, sloppy shot taken from a long lens way down the train car. In a film of rock-solid compositions and tense pinpong cutting, this image is a fuzzy anomaly. It's like a little kid scribbling “I Luv Yoo” in crayon on his daddy's manuscript. Even if Wes Anderson is an asshole in real life, shots like that one assure me there's something better buried in his soul.

The camera is everything. Anderson knows that his selection of lenses and camera movements are as critical to conveying his wiseass charm and humanist worldview as his casting, dialogue, music and production design. (Those latter four are what most critics choose to fixate upon.) Like, why does he use lateral dolly shots to do the job normally left for pans? Because they bear a certain weight that offsets the loopy/mopey, boyish/world-weary comedic atmosphere in his compositions. These shots have their soul mates in the hollow, heartbroken eyes of his three male leads.

All of this to conjure up a miracle: A big, splashy widescreen film about three obnoxious rich shits... that made me, a working stiff, feel for them. Let's face it: Wes makes movies about spoiled rich kids, about white adults suffering abrasions to their sense of entitlement. I love Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, but the sense of elitist angst and preciousness in The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic pushed me away in their first acts. Darjeeling reached out to me. It was a personal breakthrough because I arrived at the simple understanding that nobody can help what they were born into; essence is everything. These little snotty punks are used to being waited on and catered to, but they are not bad people. Yes, there are sociopaths, tyrants and American psychos out in the world, but there are so many more decent folk wearing an asshole's uniform only for survival's sake.

There's too much to share about this movie. Any conversation we have about it is doomed to be random and sloppy. Cool.

--Steve
____________________


____________________

My fellow fun-lover,

"The camera is everything." Perhaps nothing else needs to be said to understand the joy of this film. Still a prop in The Life Aquatic, and working more as a detached omniscience than as a personality in the three films prior, the camera in Wes Anderson films has always been conspicuous, and distinctive; but in The Darjeeling Limited it becomes a member of the cast as much as instrument of the crew. More specifically, the camera is a (non-) member of the trinity of brothers. Each of the brothers addresses the camera, and by consequence the audience. The camera takes a spot among the lineup of the brothers when they are seen from behind: two brothers to the left, one to the right, with a spot just off-center for the camera to push in among the fraternity. Reverse shots of the brothers eclipse this space, placing the three side-by-side without the gap, but the visual discontinuity makes sense, oddly, because Wes Anderson's camera is not here to document: it is here to make pretty pictures to tell a sometimes-silly, sometimes-somber story from a perspective that marries the know-it-all style of his earlier films with the on-the-edge style of The Life Aquatic. Surrendering to this hilarious tension of contrivance is, perhaps (again), the first step to enjoying The Darjeeling Limited, or any movie Wes has made (or may make).

What I find most frustrating reading negative reviews of the picture is that each writer of such essays seems determined not to enjoy him or herself. Which is not to say I prize an essay where it's all about the writer and his or her reaction to the film. Rather, I wish more writers spent a little more time reflecting upon their reactions in as generous a manner as possible. Suppose there might be a reason, within the rubric of the film, that Wes Anderson choses to shoot scenes the way he does. Where the hell is this odd, almost-fish-eyed camera? Is it a point-of-view? Is it not? What's with all the tacky zooms? Why is the camera moving laterally, or panning 180, or 360, degrees? Why all this slow-motion? Why is the camera everything? The easiest answer to that summation-question would be: the camera is not a tool, really, for Wes Anderson, but another set of eyes. What complicates this notion is how we in the audience are continually confronted in Darjeeling by the eyes of the characters: the camera becomes not just another set of Wes-eys but, at the same time, audience-eyes. You there in your seat -- yeah, you -- you're here, too, onscreen (and in the page) -- you are at once audience member, brother, absent father, absent mother, a businessman, a girlfriend, a wife, a steward, a man-eating tiger. And, to echo something I've written before, they are all happening, always (and already).

This is why I find myself welling up: it's beautiful, this present tense. To invoke the present tense is a little redundant, I know, given we don't necessarily live in the past (though we carry it) or the future (though we reach for it) right here and now. However, all those slow-motion shots are the elongated present, a delicious unveiling of (almost) every detail of right here and now, of every plane of activity. (Maybe, in as general a sense as possible, that's simply what movies are?) And what happens at the end of one of these slo-mo scenes?! We match-cut back in time! All because of a look! (These exclamation points are to signify my delight that something as simple as looking at your brother can spur a story. And to make this paragraph as silly as it needs to be to get you to care about what I felt while looking at the movie.)

Adrien Brody's look across Jason Schwartzman at Owen Wilson (as brothers Peter, Jack and Francis Whitman) triggers a memory, which is a mini-movie unto itself, wrapped up inside the bigger, whole movie. We know from earlier in the film that this memory also serves as material for a short story Schwartzman's Jack has written, and shown to Peter, about the day of their father's funeral. Later, Jack will read to his brothers the ending of a new short story he has begun writing, without knowing the beginning; the lines of dialogue are direct quotes from Darjeeling's companion "Part 1" film, Hotel Chevalier. Jack insists throughout that all his characters are fictional until this moment, when he accepts his brother's compliment (Peter says he likes how mean Jack is in the story), which is more validation than if they simply said it was well written, as Francis does earlier.

I think the best “commercial” review of the picture thus far has been from Glenn Kenny, of Premiere. His last two grafs seem apt here:

This movie is as much, if not more, about the construction of fictions as it is about its ostensible plot. Wilson's Francis, trying to put his life back together after a suicide attempt, constructs the India trip, with its laminated itineraries, as a potential happy ending to his family saga. Brody's Peter seeks a continuance of the narrative of his late father (the last time the brothers all saw each other was at his funeral) by furtively, obsessively, hanging on to the patriarch's old possessions. Schwartzman's Jack is a writer of short stories — stories he insists are "entirely fictional." Much of the film's subtext is devoted to both peeling away and reinforcing that claim.

But The Darjeeling Limited is as much about fiction as it is about family. That it succeeds so well and so slyly even while dealing with these topics in its own stylish but unsparing way is reason for moviegoers to rejoice.

Of course, this quote echoes a few things for me, including my own dealings with Wes Anderson's beguiling, and delightful, films. I think you can make this argument about storytelling with any of his films: it is as major a theme as family or death or theatricality are for Anderson. Think of Dignan's fiction about Mr. Henry, and vice-versa. Or Max Fischer's dad-as-doctor lie. Or all the books in The Royal Tenenbaums. Or, hell, all of The Life Aquatic and its constant movie set setting. Think of his TV ads. Think of how Schwartzman prepares his room for Natalie Portman's entrance in Hotel Chevalier. The effectiveness of these offerings, while propelled more by dialogue than visuals the earlier you go in his filmography, is tied, at least partially, into how Anderson uses his camera. He's not making a representation of a world -- he makes the world as he would have it, as a movie. (No d'uh, right?) Complaints about his films as contrived are as wrong-headed as can be: to invent a fiction, in any medium, is a contrivance, an artifice from the get-go. To tether it to some kind of “reality” is a limitation not of scope or imagination (that's tough work to make "real" humanist stories) but of understanding.

(This is similar to what makes Werner Herzog so interesting: he does not delineate between "fiction" and "non-fiction" films. He simply makes films. He understands that even a "documentary" is a fiction. It has its own rules, sure, but the documentary in Herzog's hands is not about actually documenting the events. In The White Diamond, maybe his greatest film, he does not show the balloon when it is first dubbed such, he lets a man sitting on an inflatable chair smoking a joint call it a “white diamond.” A lesser filmmaker would have cut immediately to the balloon. Herzog simply holds on the man as he soaks in the scene. The fiction of the object is as important as the object itself.)

For Wes Anderson, he makes sure his films are fake-ish (or overtly self-reflexive) by, among other things, stuffing them with these details and whip-pans and sudden narrative tangents. He does not write three-act structures. He writes happenings, constant happenings, constant unravelings. Things don't add up as they would in a “traditional narrative.” Things just keep happening. They go left, they go right, they go up the mountain (via a staircase?), their train gets lost, there is a death, there is another train, the movie starts over again.

I saw the movie two times in as many days and I could see it again right now. In lieu, may the sun shine bright on us all. Let's get into it!

later, ryland.
____________________


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Ry,

No, the camera's not the whole show, but the objects and Anderson's dollhouse placement of them are largely about "subjectivity" as well. Critics have already sucked their teeth at the literal "baggage" that trails the brothers everywhere they go. Well, the obviousness that they're so up in arms about is what fleshes these characters out. The props and bric-a-brac convey plot/character/backstory nuggets (like Bill Murray's family portrait in Rushmore) not just for efficiency's sake. They trouble and redirect some of our less charitable tendencies. Wes has a crucial understanding about people: We size each other up, from head to toe, mercilessly. We make instant judgments. Ry, you mention that he makes his own worlds. Yes, and in his worlds, people are exactly what they wear, eat, carry or cast off. It's plain to see who's up to what in Wesworld, even though the characters are mostly flying blind as if they're in our prismatic, deceitful world. (And, of course, psychologically, they are.) Owen's bandages, Schwartzman's cheesy ‘stache and Brody's shades tell us up front what these guys are dealing with. Their journey in the film is toward seeing each other the way Anderson presents them to us -- as lost boys.

Oh, brother, right? I don't know too many people who would put up with such preciousness. I'm picturing Darjeeling playing on Comedy Central in the day room at Rikers Island a few years from now. Not much of a draw. But on the big, wide screen, this movie smashes prejudices against creampuff elites by the sheer force of gravity (the mise-en-scene) and inertia (the camera movement). In real life you can probably knock these dudes over with a light shove (well, probably not Brody) but Anderson's compositions ain't laying down for nobody. They are imposing, and yet nimble and feathery as needed. Athletes train forever to get this combination of power and grace.

Which brings me to Satyajit Ray. You haven't seen too much (or any?) of his stuff, and it is absolutely not necessary for blissing out on this flick. But having watched Ray's Apu trilogy as many times as you are bound to see Darjeeling, I can say that Ray is Mr. Power and Grace. Anderson pays him tribute throughout this film, mostly by using film music composed by Ray and Ravi Shankar. However, the scene where the brothers take a whiff of the perfume and the joke about trains in the distance will both become even prettier when you see how affectionately they bow to Ray. I can't wait to send you these Apu films, along with his Devi, from 1960. I'm in the middle of that one right now, and it has all the rapture of that overhead baby shot in Darjeeling--arguably--no, no argument here: In-damn-disputably the most wondrous shot of an infant ever presented in a film. Those feet in the margins of the frame.

But that's all side stuff. The real fun of looking back on Darjeeling is how Anderson cleared that tightrope of silliness, reflexivity, grave seriousness and irony without a sweat. Let's get into that.

--Steve
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My man,

During our exchange I was directed to Carina Chocano's positive review of Darjeeling, which opens with a remarkably smart paragraph that summarizes some of the problems of the criticism of Wes Anderson and echoes some of what you were getting into at the start of your last missive:

It's hard to approach a new film by Wes Anderson without feeling like you've walked into an argument. There's something about his dollhouse aesthetic, his storybook formality, his miniaturist's attention to detail and his dogged belief in the power of objects to elicit the most oblique and recondite emotions that seriously sets people off. Why is a question for another paragraph, but needless to say it's exactly this staunch commitment to artificiality that makes his work what it is.

In addition to the surface-as-essence approach to dressing characters and scenes in Wesworld, there's something about how that subjective camera shoots those objects that imbues them with character. How things are arranged, perhaps staged, to echo myself again, matters, because this new film, like all his others, is still “cluttered” with detail, for all its acclaimed “maturity” (from its supporters). How the details accrue in the picture is probably a good indicator of how Wes “clears the tightrope” of storytelling. As a practice, storytelling relies on affective details that trigger a response. If we can agree that art is about life, why shouldn't something this artful (and artificial) be as resonant as a piece of art that is artful in its artlessness? Is it just a matter of taste at that point? To argue aesthetics seems a silly dead end, especially since I don't know much about it outside thinking, “Well, that sure is pretty and it looks like it was a thoughtful choice -- on the part of the artist and consistent with the rest of the work of art.” Plus, “aesthetics” is such a broad topic to whittle down to film style. We can table that. What I'm curious about is why Wes Anderson's rhetoric ticks people off. Because I can eat it all day. His world is full of things. Even in slow motion the world is alive with motion and speed.

The idea that objects (including people) can "elicit the most oblique and recondite emotions" in and of themselves and their appearance should be a delight, not something to harp on: it is an offering. Walking out of the film on Friday my friend said, “I feel like I've been given a thoughtful gift.” I think this kind of reaction is what Wes is aiming for in how he shoots objects with his camera. The objects carry history that can produce associations. Opening this film with Bill Murray's Businessman missing the train in slow motion, while a young man, Adrian Brody's Peter, runs past him, is not meant as an inciting incident in some kind of narrative but simply to trigger a response and tell you how things are arranged in this movie (this world): it's all about the train. The train is the name of the movie. The train is the movie. So when Bill Murray can't catch the train, Anderson is showing you, in as simple terms as possible, this movie is also all about youth. That is, as much as a movie so fearful of death can be about youth, and vigor. When the brothers chuck their, ahem, luggage at the end (to catch the train), the act is not simply some metaphor about mourning sons finally getting rid of their fatherly baggage. Rather, the film is saying that it is more important to watch the movie (to catch the train) than to hold on to things; those things (or their ephemeral essence?) stay with you no matter what, forever. Owen Wilson's Francis says, “Dad's luggage isn't going to make it” and the three brothers smile, and they run faster. Just like his missing loafer, the luggage doesn't matter, in the end. Those things are just distractions anyways. This both calls attention to the objects and tells you not to get hung up on them. I guess what I'm trying to say is: sure, you can read the scene as a blatant metaphor for “growth” or something but that belittles what happens, and the things that matter are those characters and their actions. Besides, the characters are still covered with details, they still carry a lot on their faces and bodies. And having seen them through a whole film with those suitcases and handbags you know that they're more mnemonics than anything. And if we understand that memories are forever inside us then we realize that we don't need mnemonic aids. (Think of the funeral within the funeral: lives within lives and stories within stories.)

Still, Wes Anderson is of a tradition of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino (or the French New Wave that so inspires both artists' work) that metabolize cinema. They take it up (all the time, from everywhere), digest it, and reproduce new films. This is perhaps most apparent in Darjeeling in the musical cues Anderson borrows from Satyajit Ray. (But the only reason I know that this music is from those films is because I was told ahead of time. I look forward to understanding the homage better, and I thank you for the offering.) What's funny is I can also understand the music as a signifier for this odd Western ideal of India the boys are seeking. The music in Wes Anderson is an object weighted with (and by) history as much as things like suitcases. Think of the British Invasion tunes, too: in a story about youthful brothers on a journey into the spiritual unknown, the first song with lyrics in the film is by The Kinks (a band comprised of brothers), called “This Time Tomorrow.” It's all about not knowing where the journey will take the passengers. The song, like Peter catching the train in slow motion, knows that to get anywhere you simply have to start going.

Which brings me back to thinking about how well the movie works. Most importantly, I think it's wicked smart: it understands movies, and stories, and how they work (internally as well as on an audience); the philosophy of the film is affirmative; it does not overplay its hand, or shoot for too big; every detail has a purpose (for story or for its affective resonance); it's fucking funny. However, one could argue I'm a biased party. I feel I “get” Wes Anderson movies. They “speak” to me. But what I've come to realize is that this affection I feel for them is not about identifying with the characters (the way I thought I did with Max in Rushmore back when I first saw it). More so that, in as much as art is about life, I find my life affirmed in these films: my dreams, my loves, my fears, and my understanding of all that -- my understanding and enjoyment of life. One might argue this is all we ever look for in films and that is not a criteria but I would also like to posit, in as uncontroversial a stance as possible, I hope, that as much as art is about life, so is philosophy about life -- and in that film is a work of art, film can be a work of philosophy. So when I say Wes Anderson films speak to me, perhaps I mean that I am attuned to his brand of philosophy (pace Cavell). Perhaps I've realized that life is never fixable, or able to be fixed, even in narrative; that life refuses itineraries, even if it is good to plan some things, or at least be prepared to deal with the unexpected turns in the night; that life keeps going, for everybody, always, before and after them, and especially during the present (no d’uh); that life is weighted but fast; that life can surprise and delight; that life is worth it, even if it's scary, and dangerous; and that life is funny.

Laugh with me,
Ry
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