Closing the Curtain
Or, a final indulgence as the lights go up
If you’re here for recommendations: THE MOLE AGENT, PIG, and COMING HOME IN THE DARK. All in NZ cinemas now or soon, all 4.5/5 stars. See ‘em.
Otherwise, pull up a chair and a cup of coffee. I’ve got a lot to say, and this is the last of these for the foreseeable future.
I didn’t grow up loving cinema. I grew up loving books.
But sometime around 1996, I had a revelation that, even with most of my life ahead of me, I would never conquer literature. Too much had been written, in too many countries, it was too sprawling, and I had to content myself to the fact that I could never get more than a few core samples of this giant, sprawling field of creation.
At the same time, I’d started getting into movies. My local video store in Houston (viva Cactus!) had a “foreign films” section that totalled, maybe, 300 video tapes? There were a couple new films that came out a week, some of which “didn’t matter” because they “weren’t important” (this being how I thought at the time, the valuable being directly correlated to the highest esteemed).
If I threw myself into cinema, I could keep up with what came out that mattered and work through the past simultaneously, and over the course of a life, master this world of film.
As with most things in life that become compulsions, obsessions, whatever you want to call them, over the years the original impulse fades, to be replaced, simply, by a manner of being. We know now, as we did not know then, how our brains actively rewire, where rewards systems that short-circuit conscious reasoning introduce themselves.
Four things happened since 1996 that dramatically impact the terms under which I made this rash declaration to myself. The first is that the future did not expand linearly, but geometrically. Many factors, most notably the democratization of filmmaking tools, led to this profusion. Scroll briefly through a list of New York City theatrical releases in 1996, then in 2019 - then keep in mind that 2019 list doesn’t include releases direct to Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu or that go “straight to video”.
The second thing that happened: the past also expanded geometrically. Those three hundred films in the foreign section seemed like the body of world cinema to date; in point of fact, they were barely a fingernail clipping. The number of “world cinemas” that were long represented by a single auteur - maybe two, if you’re Japan, or a few more if you’re France or Italy - is kind of reprehensible. And even then, we only had a fleeting glimpse of the bodies of work of those filmmakers who did make it past that stringent gatekeeping - Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu, R.W. Fassbinder, and so on, three directors whose combined filmographies probably adds up to 100 films alone. (Just checked Letterboxd. I was low. 38+54+45=137.) DVD, Blu-ray, streaming, etc, etc. Even if you put a stop on the future, coming to terms with the past of cinema as a whole no longer seems like a tenable exercise for a single person.
The third thing that happened: my taste exploded. Just one example: I thought horror was a prurient and unworthy genre, then Night of the Living Dead and Kill, Baby … Kill! blew my mind as to the political and aesthetic possibilities of the genre. I started realising the expressive power of cinema went well beyond communicating narratives with pretty pictures. I saw Leprechaun in Space and Troll 2 and discovered the mindblowing power of cinema unconstrained by good taste or logic. And this is just one of a hundred frontiers where new lands I once considered unworthy of exploration - if I considered them open - spilled open to me. I’ve just started watching Bollywood films, which not only have a decades-long history I’ve barely scratched, are also three hours apiece.
The fourth thing that happened: movies toppled from their tower. Many of my close friends who I made through movies now spend more time watching television or playing video games. The notion that either of those could routinely provide an aesthetic experience to compete with the cinema was once absurd; now, it’s equally absurd to deny it. To commit to keeping up with films but skipping Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad or David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return - as I have to date - is beyond stubbornness. (To be precise, it’s the mental gatekeeping equivalent of holding one’s finger in a dam that is already overflowing, especially that I’ve watched/been watching Ozark, Watchmen, How To With John Wilson, Creamerie and so on.)
I’ve been aware of all of this, but reading Dennis Bartok’s A Thousand Cuts recently shifted something inside of me. It’s a portrait of the world of underground film collectors - people who spent their lives accumulating expensive and cumbersome 16mm or 35mm prints of movies, only to have their hobby become suddenly and comprehensively obsolete, and become burdened with a lumbering mountain of treasures and/or trash that nobody wants. As someone who has invested in thousands of DVDs that have long since been superseded by Blu-rays that are starting to be superseded by UHD releases, I relate. I felt seen.
And I didn’t like how it felt.
As a filmmaker and a film critic/reviewer/cinephile/film geek, I’ve always kept a foot in both ponds, without ever firmly committing to either. After my first feature, I could have kept going, but stepped back for reasons that sounded good at the time, whilst maintaining and/or expanding my filmwatching passions, most recently with the Ludicrously Specific podcast, writing for the NZIFF programme, creating the NTIFF challenge on Letterboxd, and my new YouTube series with my wife Sarah Watt, Critics In Cars Getting Home.
And, of course, there’s this, this intermittent, constantly reinventing newsletter, the latest of many variations of some impulse in me to direct this overinvestment in the world of cinema into something that can somehow be to the benefit of others, be they the filmmakers of movies I adore or people searching something to watch that will speak to them in some way.
Film has, outside of work, kind of become my life, and yet life beats on the doors, and in this past year there’s been a lot of death in my life and the lives of people I care about. Thankfully, those I love in America are still safe, but with the uncertainty around international travel, I have no idea when I will see them again, just one of many uncertainties.
Film is certain. It gives you a contract, a durational length, and generally a reputation. If you’ve seen it before, it’s even more certain, but regardless, it can be a repository for one’s attention for a couple hours.
But film isn’t life. Life is messy and uncertain and we have no idea how long it lasts. All we can do is be present to everyone we share it with while it’s here.
Because, also unlike movies, we can, at least to some degree, control what comes next.
Tomorrow, I’m officially starting phase one of production on my long-gestating self-funded second feature, Gut Instinct. It’s been in development for several years, and I’ve been gathering materials, researching, building lightboxes, making test trailers, recruiting music and animation collaborators.
The impetus to finally pull finger and get to work comes in part off the back of having a short film I made off the cuff during the first Covid lockdown, You Could Have Seen The Mona Lisa, get into the recently-completed DocEdge festival. It won’t be fully public until I see if it gets into any international festivals (zero luck so far), but since I’m amongst friends, you can watch it here with the password m0nalisa if you are so inclined. It’s only five minutes.
You Could Have Seen The Mona Lisa was as gestural and simple as filmmaking gets. It was a reminder that it doesn’t have to be hard. It was a reminder that my creative viewpoint interests people. And it was a reminder that I have a project sitting right here that’s ready to go, even if it is exponentially more complicated.
I’ll keep podcasting, YouTubeing, and Letterboxding. But 2021 in particular has been marked by a compulsion to watch, buy Blu-rays, keep up with a sudden profusion of incredible retro screenings in Auckland cinemas, and I think it’s been my way of dealing with the chaos and ambient trauma of the world.
Which is a better coping strategy than some other options.
But now that I’ve identified that’s what it is, at a time that coincides with a window between paid editing jobs, I need to simplify and focus. And it’s not like anybody has been demanding the next instalment of this.
So: fare thee well, check out Critics In Cars Coming Home if you want my opinions on new releases and/or Ludicrously Specific for deep-cut viewing, trawl my “likes” on Letterboxd for recommendations, and if you want more personalised suggestions, drop me a line. Because I really do love connecting people with films that they would love, which is why I’ve been writing about cinema for free in blogs and newsletters in many different formats over the years, from An Incomplete Education to Auckland Cinephile to Monster Lookout to Cultural Offset to Operation: Kino and probably more I forgot (plus contributing to publications like The Lumière Reader, The Pantograph Punch, and so on). And I’ll never stop helping people find awesome films, but for the moment, apart from those aforementioned outlets and the stray social media post, it’ll be on a one-to-one level, not one-to-many.
And the next time you see an update from this Substack, which will probably not be for many months, it’ll be to update about a film: not one someone else made, but my own. Barring wildly unexpected developments, Gut Instinct won’t be complete until 2022 at the earliest - I’ll have a second phase of production next year, once I’ve had a break to earn more and also let it gestate - but when it is, you’ll be among the first to know.
Go well,
Doug