Ghosts Are Us: Charlie Kaufman’s new film is difficult and unique, but is it any good?

Charlie Kaufman’s having a busy summer: his debut novel, Antkind was released in July and his latest directorial effort comes to Netflix this Friday. Kaufman adapted I’m Thinking of Ending Things from lain Reid’s novel of the same name. Kaufman is best known for his surreal screenplays for films like Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Kaufman’s directorial debut came with Synecdoche, New York (2008), a film the late great Roger Ebert called “the best movie of the decade.” I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an emblematic of Kaufmanesque filmmaking: meta contextualizing of stories-within-stories; characters breaking the fourth wall; characters aware of their own narratives; non-linear storylines, to say the least. I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a difficult, complex movie, but is it any good?

I was taken aback when I saw that Kaufman’s new movie was being released as a “psychological horror” film. The movie is ultra-weird and often creepy, but I wouldn’t call it scary. You could say that I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a haunted house film, but the house is time itself and the ghosts are us. The whole plot of this film revolves around a Young Woman (Jessie Buckley) on a road trip with her newish, almost-boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons). They’re on their way to a remote Oklahoma farmhouse where the Young Woman will meet Jakes parents (Toni Collette, David Thewlis) for the first time. Here’s the problem: the Young Woman is already thinking of ending things with Jake.
A horror film, after all.

Of course, this is a Charlie Kaufman movie where simple ideas are given free reign to spin into ever more complex webs of philosophical questions and cultural allusions – everyday reality is undermined, and travelers stop for milkshakes in the middle of a blizzard. Viewers watch Kaufman’s film through the lens of the Young Woman’s ennui over her own lack of self-determination. But before we’re even through the first act character identities begin to shift, circumstances begin to repeat themselves, and the Young Woman looks directly into the camera to recite a poem to the audience. She’s a poet. Or she was a poet. Or she will be.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a Kaufmaneque film from Charlie Kaufman, which is exactly what I was hoping to see. That said, this movie’s value only equals the sum of its sometimes outstanding parts: Lukasz Zal captures an otherworldly lensing of the bleak Oklahoma winter-scape that perfectly frames the characters’ dislocated experiences. Collette’s performance alone is worth streaming this film for, and I’ve grown to appreciate Thewlis’ recent roles having never enjoyed his earlier work. Plemons does a lot with a little to bring the brooding Jake to life, making him relatable despite his awkwardness and angry outbursts. Buckley, not so much. She’s a game actor, but she’s in the unenviable position of playing an unsympathetic character in a lead role. The Young Woman’s decision to meet Jake’s family even though she knows she’s leaving him creates the whole plot of the film. But how can a viewer connect to such a weak, unmotivated character? To make matters worse, Kaufman gives the Young Woman reams of pretentious dialog and a torrent of internal narration which spools out in endless droning voice-over. Many people have made the bad decision to take a step forward in a relationship they knew was over. And almost everybody was smart enough not to make a movie about it.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things streams on Netflix beginning this Friday, September 4

Over the October season of horror I was watching lots of classic monsters and murder flicks and my wife and I also binged on old YouTube videos from the various Joe Bob Briggs’ movie series which featured the eponymous Joe Bob presenting films like a 1990s version of classic horror hosts of the 1960s and 1970s. The best thing about Joe Bob’s shows is that his redneck persona was tempered by his Vanderbilt University education and his obviously deep and broad knowledge about cinema history. Briggs’ shows made lots of teenagers into accidental cinephiles, but he wasn’t the only smarty celebrating American trash in the grunge era.

We also stumbled across this chestnut from the same era, Reel Wild Cinema hosted by the great Sandra Bernhard. Bernhard is currently appearing as a Satanic priestess on American Horror Story: Apocalypse, but she’s never been better than she was in her turn as a whacked-out kidnapper in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy.

Here’s a whopping playlist of Bernhard and the weird and wild film series she hosted when Beck was still a loser…

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The Defy Film Festival returns to Studio 615 in East Nashville this weekend. With that in mind I wrote this primer on experimental film for this week’s The Contributor. Pick up a paper from your neighborhood vendor!

What we talk about when we talk about experimental film

In the most general sense the term “experimental film” might apply to any movie lacking narrative. Cinematic storytelling is so ingrained in movie culture that even loose plots or slow scenes can find critics reaching for the “e” word. Of course, most experimental films ditch storytelling along with accepted limits on length and/or a radical re-imagining of editing, performance or use of effects etc.

If you want to watch experimental films in a theater setting they usually garner a few slots in film festivals where they can be divided up into categories like “experimental shorts” or “experimental animation.” The third annual Defy Film Festival happening this weekend in Nashville is like those weird little subcategories of movie programming blown-up into an entire two-day event all its own. This year’s festival includes movies by filmmakers from around the world, and it’s a great chance to see what’s happening at the far edges of cinema across the globe.

Anticipating this weekend’s festival I wrote these notes about what experimental cinema can be, and why you should care about it if you care about movies:

Size Matters

One of the biggest differences between experimental and narrative films can be length. Of course, many director’s early works are narrative shorts, but there are a number of reasons – including budgets and subject matter – why experimental movies are often short films. For example, Stan Brakhage created his “The Dante Quartet” (1987) by hand-painting every individual frame of his film. It took 6 years to create the movie which has a running time of 8 minutes. That said, experimental movies might also be extremely long: Andy Warhol’s “Empire” (1965) features one uninterrupted shot of the top of the Empire State Building. The movie runs for 8 hours and 5 minutes. You can expect 70 shorts screening at the Defy fest this weekend, but you’ll also find the chance to deep dive into 8 full length features as well.

Subjecting Cinema

When a filmmaker isn’t bound to storytelling there is nearly no limit to which subjects they might choose to film. Experimental moviemakers who are interested in exploring new techniques and effects might pick nearly anything or anyone to point their cameras at. Michael Snow’s “Wavelength” (1967) starts as a wide shot of a loft apartment that almost imperceptibly zooms-in over the course of 45 minutes on a photograph of the sea hanging on a wall. There’s more to it than that, but this movie is admired more for what it is more than what it’s about. Experimental films like “Wavelength” can make viewers call into question whether a film even has to have a traditional subject at all. This is one way that experimental films can open our eyes to the dogmas and assumptions that may inform mainstream narrative filmmaking. The result is that experimental film audiences are more literate viewers of moving images of all kinds.

Boundary Breaking

When filmmakers push their frames to the accepted edges of cinema they often find their efforts spilling over into other disciplines, resulting in works that are half movie and half something else. Chris Marker’s classic “La Jetée” (1962) was the inspiration behind 12 Monkeys (1995). Marker’s movie is almost entirely made-up of black-and-white still photographs, and I’d imagine it’s inspired just as many shutterbugs as movie directors. Hugh Welchman’s Loving Vincent (2017) is the first feature length film composed entirely of animated oil paintings. Audiences who’ve seen this Vincent van Goh biopic might leave the theater feeling they’ve spent the evening at an art museum. William K.L. Dickson and William Heise’s “Annabelle Serpentine Dance” (1895) is an early American silent short featuring a performer engaging in the eponymous dance wearing a voluminous, flowing skirt that shifts through a palette of colors thanks to the filmmakers’ pioneering hand-tinting effects. The film made for a thrilling theater experience before the 20th century, but today it reads like the kind of performance art document you’d find in a video installation in a gallery space. Watching experimental films often results in being exposed to the wider spectrum of the arts, and becoming more aware of the landscape of a culture as a whole.

The Defy Film Festival happens August 24 and 25 at Studio 615 in East Nashville. Go to www.defyfilmfest.com for a full schedule and tickets.

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Now that the new IT film has become a huge hit I thought I’d follow-up on my post about the movie last week. I’m not surprised that the film has done as well as it has, and I’m also not surprised to hear that the movie’s success has lead to another King property getting snatched-up for the silver screen treatment. Here’s io9 with the word…

Announced mere hours after the huge box office numbers for It were reported, King’s 1972 short story Suffer the Little Children is the first one off the board. Sean Carter will write and direct an adaptation for Bread & Circuses Entertainment.

“The Stephen King aesthetic has been imprinted into my psyche since I was a teenager, and Suffer the Little Children fits right into that classic King paradigm: a tragically flawed lead character put into a shockingly unimaginable scenario,” Carter told Deadline. “It’s a tiny peek into a mythology that I can’t wait to expand into a full-length movie.”

First published in 1972 but more widely distributed in King’s 1993 collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Suffer the Little Children flips the It idea. In this, the kids are the potential villains and a teacher is the hero. She spends the story trying to figure out if her students are human or not.

Here’s an audiobook version of the story. It’s only about a half hour long so just listen in the background while you’re working or playing, and get the background on the next hit King film…

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I saw a preview of the new screen version of Stephen King’s IT tonight. I’d have to think about it a little more to write a full review as I just got home and I need to stop working for the night and watch some hurricane news which has been really scary. Hurricane Irma is a real life monster bearing down on Florida, but there are plenty of reasons to be wary of going to see IT: it’s very scary, very gory, and even a bit questionable in terms of how far the onscreen violence goes in scenes where little kids are concerned. Obviously the vulnerability of children is a huge part of what makes IT terrifying, but there are at least a few sequences I’d have preferred to keep off-camera.

That said, most of the scares are right on point and feature great set-ups and killer make-up and digital effects. This Pennywise is an amazing monster and I’m sure IT will make a great showing in the technical categories come awards season. But the best part is that this flick is also funny and it features an amazing cast of kids. The masterstroke is that this version of the story only features the kids’ experiences with the monster and not their second confrontation as adults. This splitting of the story makes this condensed version super intense, and this movie is going to be so successful that there is no doubt that there will be a sequel. Get your scary movie season started right away by springing to see this one in the theater. In the meantime here’s Biography’s 2002 take on King and the weird worlds he creates…

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This year we celebrate the 75th birthday of British filmmaker Derek Jarman. Jarman was born on January 31, 1942. I’m always discovering and then keeping tabs on these timely anniversaries of our countercultural forebears, and I’m happy to highlight this one even if I’m getting to it about 7 months too late. The good news is that now we’ve got 4 more months to celebrate the groundbreaking filmmaker and his intense, chromatic, radical cinema. Jarman died of an AIDS-related illness in London in 1994, but not before creating a body of work that has only grown its audience since the filmmaker’s death.

Here are Open Culture’s words on Jarman’s 1978 punk rock film, Jubilee…

Derek Jarman was too old and too accomplished to be a punk. By 1977, the openly gay filmmaker and artist was already 36 and had an impressive CV that included doing set design for Ken Russell’s The Devils and directing Sebastiane, a landmark in gay cinema, notable for not only its frank depiction of the male body but also for its dialogue which was entirely in Latin. Nonetheless, Jarman gathered together notables from London’s burgeoning punk scene, including a young, lithe Adam Ant, to create Jubilee –the first and, arguably best, punk movie ever. You can watch it above.

The plot, as such, centers on Queen Elizabeth I who, with the help of court occultist John Dee (played by Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Richard O’Brien), sees her land 400 years into the future. It’s a Britain filled with garbage and plagued with crime. Queen Elizabeth II, for instance, was killed in a mugging. As Queen Elizabeth I wanders around the wreckage of the British Empire, she encounters a bunch of leather-clad toughs including Amyl Nitrite (played by Malcolm McLaren protégé Jordan), Crabs (Little Nell, also from Rocky Horror) and Mad (Toyah Willcox, who would later go on to delight a generation of toddlers by voicing The Teletubbies). The highpoint of the movie is, without a doubt, is when Jordan performs a risqué dance to a glammed up version of Rule Britannia.

Jarman tapped into the same feelings of anger, disillusionment, and nihilism that the Sex Pistols articulated. As Jarman told The Guardian in 1978, “We have now seen all established authority, all political systems, fail to provide any solution – they no longer ring true.” Jubilee feels like a John Waters movie without the gross-out gags. A Paul Morrissey movie but with a clear sense of political purpose. It’s giddy, uninhibited, violent and occasionally quite disturbing.

Here’s Jarman’s Jubilee…

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I love a tense spy story, and there’s always another take on the genre in the next book on the shelf or the next film on the screen. Of course, many of these books and films are based on real life heroes whose spycraft outed enemy spies, uncovered covert plans or even “eliminated” human targets. That said, one part of this story has remained all but untold: In my latest post celebrating Black History Month here’s the fascinating story of the black spies who helped to win America’s freedom from Britain, and who helped defeat Southern slavery during the American Civil War.

From the International Spy Museum check out Anonymous Heroes – African American Spies of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War…