Quick Notes
Hello all, I am sure you were all shocked to have witnessed on September 15th at 12pm (GMT) the lack of a substack notification gracing your phone. You have my most sincere apologies. Simply put; I am but a man. A man who has made mistakes, makes mistakes and will, indefinitely, continue to make mistakes. I found myself stretched pretty thin in the middle of the month and was unable to publish. Instead of doubling down, I have decided to just stick to monthly Bob Blog Issues while I finish up college and write for my university paper. I have a couple new reviews up on The Observer but in the coming month pieces on Sing Sing, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Substance, If Beale Street Could Talk, and The Outrun (And hopefully many more) should all be uploaded!
In the meantime please enjoy these pieces. I write about Leos Carax whose work I really connected with over September, and I also wrote a piece about my personal experience as a consistent moviegoer with Misophonia. Its getting a little harder to find stuff to review for Bob Blog but I fit in a small review for Will and Harper !
Pure Ecstasy: How Leos Carax reinterprets Cinematic Language
Some of the most fun I had over the course of September (apart from seeing Megalopolis) was finally getting around to watching more of Leos Carax’s filmography. I didn’t get around to everything but I saw “the hits”. I had seen Annette the day of its release and, like many people who went to see it, was left feeling quite astounded; for better or worse. I quite enjoyed it for the most part and still remember my walk home from the cinema afterward, mainly thinking of it in terms of its compositions. Carax is one of the most visually expressionistic directors in my mind and I would argue that anyone who sees a Carax film would remember its images for years after. I wouldn’t be able to summarise to you the plot of Annette having not see it in over three years. However, without being hyperbolic, I certainly could describe it to you in terms of a sequence of images.
To say that you could not give a brief outline of a film but that you could “describe it in terms of a sequence of images” is a very easy way to tell people that they would be better off punching you in the face than listening to you. But, to my own misfortune, I’m being serious. After watching what I believe to be his most accomplished work, The Lovers on the Bridge, I was surprised to witness the degree of verisimilitude that Carax evidently sought to capture. Annette is so artificial and stylised, but the two films share a great deal of similarities. The musical and operatic sequences in Annette lend themselves quite easily to the language of a Golden age Hollywood musical; The Lovers on the Bridge should not, and yet it does.
To give a brief synopsis, Carax’s unconventional love story concerns itself with Michèle (Juliette Binoche) and Alex (Denis Lavant). Both unhoused and struggling to return to their former lives, they meet on the oldest bridge in Paris, the Pont Neuf. It’s a story about the responsibility that we have to make changes in our own lives while also working as harsh and veridical social commentary. The main set piece in the film is, of course, the Pont Neuf. There’s not a lot of geography for Carax to explore on this stretch of infrastructure. Always an inventive director, Carax doesn’t fail to find a way to frame the space in an unexpected manner.
On a night of immense celebration across the city of Paris, Alex and Michèle find themselves well soused on the bridge. Fireworks explode and scatter sparkles over the heads of buildings and between narrow alleyways, producing images of spectacle fit for a Busby Berkeley film. Carax shoots our couple in wide shots across the bridge as if it were a soundstage. He uses crane shoots, swooping from a mid shot into a towering frame that overlooks the two lovers on the bridge. They do a drunken waltz and run the length of the bridge while the camera tracks at a rapid speed alongside them.
It feels as though that Carax’s idea of the height of exhilaration is a golden era musical. It’s an odd comparison considering that many would sooner compare him to Godard than to Stanley Donen or Vincente Minneli. It feels apropos of Carax’s interests as a filmmaker to suggest that he would so consciously use, or reinterpret, these Hollywood trademarks. In Holy Motors, a film focused on the creative process, he often intersperses moments of archaic silent film footage. It’s the medium in its most pure form; colourless and without sound. I feel like this relates to Carax’s obsession with motion in his films. Everything is on the move, his camera cannot help but run ahead of the audience and crash into unexpected scenes. A Leos Carax film cannot exist without a high degree of motion and, to that extreme, there must then exist stillness, which he also uses to bring his films to a halt and to sit and confront his characters.
This relationship is repeated across all of the films that I watched last month. In Holy Motors there is a sudden musical sequence that uses much of the same filmic language already described. This same scenes take place in a building that overlooks the Pont Neuf. It’s an obvious reference to Lovers on The Bridge and its an incredibly esoteric and unusual choice to recognise your previous works in your film. A choice I can only compare to the ending of Satoshi Kon’s Paprika. It presents an interesting idea that I feel persists through his work. How films all relate to each other and how each decision creates new avenues. In its simplest form, a certain camera move could be used to express an array of situations; we shouldn't limit ideas to genres or movements. Feeling like Godard one minute and Donen the next is what makes Carax one of the most vividly weird and adventurous directors currently working.
Misophonia at the Movies
Last semester at college I took a creative writing elective. I wrote short stories when I was younger but I never deliberately sat down to write a piece of fiction or try to articulate an anecdote since then. I feared that it would be quite the challenge considering that but as it progressed I began to enjoy the process. As the mantra goes; “Write what you know” and that I did. A lot of my pieces revolved around cultural figures or film references; I wrote a story about Spalding Gray trying to use his apple wallet, a story which confounded my professor. For one of the final assignments we had to write an instructional piece that was a numbered step by step guide on how to complete a task. I wrote mine about how I go about going to the movies; a neurotic and over-anxious affair.
I embellished and used verbose language for the sake of comedy but every event and action was rooted in my reality. After my professor had graded it she mentioned that I had “created quite an amusing character” which left me with a scintilla of embarrassment. In a moment of self awareness, I can often treat the act of going to the cinema as an elaborate operation. I have a preferred seat in every screening room and I make sure to get there at least 30 minutes beforehand so that I can assure myself that I can get the “correct” seat. This is the root of a lot of my anxiety when I go to the cinema and that’s what I focused my piece on.
When going to see things with family or friends I’m able to put these things at the back of my mind. After all, It’s entirely within my own control. What I cannot control is the behaviour and habits of other cinema-goers. This frequently triggers my misophonia. I always struggle to describe my experience with misophonia and generalise it by referring to it as “this weird sensory issues thing”. “Sensory” and “weird” are not unusual epithets to use when describing it. It relates to my sight, smell, touch and vision. Certain sounds, smells, textures or repetitive actions can trigger my misophonia and cause me to feel irrationally irritated. As you’re probably aware, a packed cinema is a circus of sounds, smells, textures and actions.
A packed cinema has given me some of my most exciting and impressionable memories. On one of my fist solo outings to an arthouse cinema, I waited in line in the cold to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire months before it was released. It was a moment in my life where I was becoming obsessed with seeing festival releases and eventually getting into the likes of Fellini and Antonioni. It was so impactful to witness an audience gasp at such minute details that were the result of subtle directorial choices. I remember people flooding out of the room and the level of discussion hitting a resounding volume. To have shared that experience with strangers was particularly remarkable to me.
Conversely, it’s also given me some of my most headache inducing experiences at the cinema. At the start of this year when I was making a point to see all of the Oscar nominees I went to see The Zone of Interest. I was excited because it was labeled as a slow, meditative experience that haunted you with its display of the banality of evil. It has minimal dialogue and you largely just sit its characters. The person beside me, and his partner, decided to buy 2 large boxes of popcorn; the essential and percussive cinema snack. I cannot admonish somebody for eating popcorn in a movie theatre. However, if you were at home and your friend said “Hey, let’s make a load of popcorn and watch The Zone of Interest” you might worry for their wellbeing.
Chewing is perhaps my worst trigger and popcorn is by far the worst offender. During the films reflective bouts of silence, it was underscored by an obnoxious sound of the grinding and gnashing of teeth trying to squash each morsel of popcorn. I’m, of course, being dramatic but this was wholeheartedly my experience while watching the film. I cannot help but hear and react to small details, especially as I’m trying to focus and/or immerse myself in something. I cannot think of The Zone of Interest without feeling frustrated.
It’s a real conundrum, one which I cannot come up with a prophetic answer to. I often try to remind myself of Tsai Ming-Liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn whenever my misophonia acts up during a film. It is set entirely in a cinema where its showing its last ever film, Dragon Inn, before it closes forever. Its a film about the death of the cinema going experience, made 2003, well before the invasion of streaming platforms. Within the cinema screens we see an eclectic group of people dispersed around the seats. Some chew too loudly, upsetting other viewers. This is all funny to Ming-Liang and its all part of the experience. Without the collective experience, there is no experience to be had at all.
Re-introductions and Road trips: Will and Harper Film Review
A road trip is usually used to demonstrate a journey of self discovery or self actualisation in film. Films that traverse the American landscape will often analyse the politics of the country or aim to show parts of the US that we’d often neglect to remember. What if the journey of self discovery has already happened? What if our characters are already familiar with America, and America aware of them? These were my two leading questions going into Will and Harper. It’s not a very complicated documentary but that’s exactly what it needs to be.
The new Netflix documentary tells the story of Harper Steele and her close friend and former co-worker Will Ferrell. Having announced to her friends over a heartfelt email during Lockdown that she was transitioning, Harper began to live her life as a woman as she headed into her 60s. It’s an incredibly brave step to decide to live your life irregardless of others prejudices and preconceptions of yourself at this stage in your life; a step which took Harper lots of time and courage. Ferrell is supportive of Harper without even having to be reintroduced. But, as many sixtysomething American men do, he has questions. Their road trip is used as a way for Harper and Will to clear the air and somewhat re-introduce themselves to one another. It’s also a way to explore how America responds to Harper’s transition.
The strongest aspect of Will and Harper is how plainly it handles representing trans issues. It’s shot very conventionally and Harper and Will’s dynamic, their comfort and familiarity with one another is very approachable. They discuss how Harper chose her new name, how she feels she is being treated now as a woman, and her journey in finally deciding to transition. Ferrell works as an audience surrogate, a close familiar friend who asks a lot of questions, both for his own sake and for Harper. This is all done without the need to explain themselves or to elaborate on each talking point. It’s not about telling America what being transgender means, its about showing the humanity and courage that exists within the trans experience.
It’s quite a usual documentary; emotional cues in the music and editing, very focused on sentimentality. For this reason, it can often feel generic. It’s normalcy is what makes this documentary such an imperative however. Released on Netflix, it is clearly intended for a wide American audience to educate themselves with. It deals with hot button issues with interspersed Ferrell humour and iconic SNL figures. It’s not afraid to be itself at any point and makes an interesting choice to never take itself too seriously. Harper makes the point that she is just one of millions of people who are having the same experience as herself. Before such a consequential US election, it’s important that something so progressive exists so confidently and so comfortably.
Making mistakes is essential for learning. Mistakes allow us to gain new perspectives and to develop new skills!
nice work. could you dumb it down. idk what cinema is