Kentucker Audley's No Budge

No Budge is a website run by Kentucker Audley, director of Team Picture, Open Five, and Holy Land. He's got some interesting looking films uploaded for free viewing on the site, including his own Holy Land, which I just watched and found to be his strongest yet. I have to admit, I'm a bit burnt out by the whole aimless twenty-something genre of so many independent films of the last few years, but Kentucker really does something fresh with it. It's even self reflexive at one point, something that might not have worked so well if Cole Weintraub (the film's main actor) wasn't so hilarious. I'll be checking out more of the website soon.

9@Night #2: Used (Rob Nilsson, 2007)

Whereas the first film in the series seemed to deal with the fractured memories and experiences of its main character, Used finds that character dealing with his uncertain prospects for the present and future, and even finds him abandoning his past altogether. The film again introduces us to Ben Malifide, now living with the woman who befriended him in the previous film. That woman, St. Tre, is the owner of a strip club, and she's seemingly well off -- she owns a house with a great view in the hills, and she takes Malifide to her high-stakes poker games, where she loses and ends up owing Kenny, a photographer played by Nilsson, 90 grand. Thus, the smallest semblance of a plot is set in motion: Tre ends up taking Malifide's counterfeit money plates (a significant item in the last film) and making her own copy, after which Malifide suspects ill of her and ends up leaving for Nevada to find an old friend he knew in prison.

If Noise was an experimental film with a skeletal narrative, Used is very nearly a genre film, a mixture of crime drama and road movie (the slide guitar soundtrack recalls Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas). As always with Nilsson films, matters of plot don't quite matter so much as the emotional lives of the characters, and nothing is resolved, or even even left unresolved, in the way one might expect. So while film's story arc might seem weak to anyone who thinks film is primarily for telling stories, it's the emotional arcs that are the film's strength. If I mention plot (or lack thereof) often, it is because I think it is central that art film, independent film -- call it what you want -- abandons plot, the idea that a film's ultimate purpose is storytelling, in order to get down to what really matters. This is nothing new, of course. (Any of my anti-plot diatribes can probably be blamed on film school, but that's another story.)

When the film begins, Malafide is bathing outside Tre's house, proclaiming that he's on a vision quest. It's a half-serious joke, and when the time comes for him to leave, he sets out to meet up with an actual mystic, People T. It's unclear how much time has passed between this film and the last, but Malafide is nearly a different character; he has a different haircut, has grown a full beard, and at times seems psychologically unhinged, if only slightly. After leaving Tre's he tries to get rid of his bag, and even begins talking to it. It seems to have been with him quite a while, but it's clear that he would like to be rid of it and his past altogether. After having experienced some luxury for once in his life, he's trying his hand at the life of a tramp, the kind who hops trains. And he does just that, after meet Johnny, played by Edwin Johnson. It's unclear why Johnny is sleeping on railroad tracks when Ben meets him, and we're given few details about his life, but his is another recurring character in the series, and so far one of its strongest performers.

Meanwhile Tre convinces Kenny, to whom she owes the 90 grand, to go to Reno with her where perhaps her nephew will know how to turn her templates into counterfeit bills. I think that's the plan, anyway -- I've watched the movie twice and I'm still a little unclear on the details during these scenes. It's here that Used resembles a more conventinal crime drama -- Tre's nephew is even involved with some shady neo-nazi types who own the bar where he works. His plan to deliver them some free cigarettes via a freght train car fails to come through, and he crosses paths with Malafide and company at the freight station. It is here that Malafide meets an Aldo Modisco, played by David Hess, and over campfire in a homeless encampment they decide to trade identities. Malafide becomes Modisco and hands over the bag, which also contains a package addressed to the Parkway Theater in Oakland. I presume this is an important puzzle piece in the series.

In the end, no one really accomplishes what they had set out to do. Certainly Malafide hoped for something more with People T, who takes him and Johnny to his old spot in the Nevada desert, where he gives them some of his old horse riding mementos, including a chain whose purpose is unclear. Shortly thereafter, People T commits suicide by jumping off the train heading back to California -- it's this that finally pushes Malafide to give up his past for good. Tre's situation, on the other hand, concludes in a less-than-spectacular fashion, with Kenny cancelling the debt but admitting feelings for Tre, who doesn't feel the same. Malafide returns to Tre's, where they reconcile, and there's a montage of People T on his horse that gives emotional closure to Malafide's journey. A shot of the chain that locks the horses pen is a subtle and poetic touch: we recognize it as the chain he gave to Malafide.

Used concludes with us knowing that Malafide will soon be living under an assumed identity. However, the series' next film, Attitude, features Malafide as himself. As such, it is very possible that Attitude occurs within the events of Used. More on that next time.

Absurdist Video Art

Via Dangerous Minds, here is a link to Absurdist Video Art, which looks to be an awesome website dedicated to "the new cinematic absurdism movement." I just discovered the site, so I haven't had time to go over it yet, but I do hope there actually is an absurdism movement out there. They're fans of Shaye Saint John, who I've posted about before (and who they designate as the "godmother of the movement"), and Ryan Trecartin, whose films I've seen via youtube, although not in their entirty -- they're a bit of an overload. I'm sure I'll be posting more about this site and these filmmakers in the future.

9@Night #1: Noise (Rob Nilsson, 2002)

As I noted a few posts back, I've been planning on purchasing a set of Rob Nilsson's 9@Night film series and writing about each film individually. I'd been wanting to buy the set since late 2008, when I caught a couple of the films from the series at SF's Roxie. Well, I finally took the plunge, and my set arrived a few days ago. Here is a description of the series on Nilsson's website, and here is a pdf of the 2009 Film Comment article on the series.

The first film from the set, Noise, caught me completely off guard. Having previously seen both Need and Go Together, I knew that Nilsson's series contained moments of lyricism (one might even be inclined to use the term "magical realism") in addition to the rawness that characterizes his approach. But Noise is something else entirely, a film that blends those two elements until they're inseparable, resulting in a nearly backwards-told narrative related through the use of split-screen, text, and multiple audio tracks, sometimes all at once. It could all be such a mess, and indeed on some level it is, yet it's absolutely compelling. What's more impressive is that there was no traditional script to provide any kind of predetermined structure. In addition to the performances, the film's construction in the editing room was also improvised; we are informed at the beginning of each film that "the editor frees the genie from the bottle." Out of the five films of Nilsson's that I've seen so far, this is the most stylish, yet it still feels as grounded and tethered to the here-and-now of human experience as any of his others -- to not be would betray his sensibility. The style never overpowers the actors and their performances.

The film begins and ends with a spinning, box-like object which contains seemingly thousands of black-and-white images, the audio and visuals all playing against each other and creating a near white noise as a percussive beat plays on the soundtrack. Most of the time I'm at a loss to tag a meaning on this sort of thing, but about two or three ideas ran through my head: perhaps it's a visual representation of the film's title, or the world its characters inhabit (or both). Or maybe it's a visual way of representing the stories of the series as a whole, jumbled together, playing all at once, like some sort of cosmic hologram. I may be going overboard here, but knowing that the series does share characters and intertwines in various ways, it doesn't seem so much of a stretch.

Ben Malafide, the film's main character, has just been released from prison and makes his way into San Francisco via the ferry. He's introduced to the confusion and cacophony of the modern information age, and it becomes apparent that the film's style is also a reflection of his psyche's response to this new world. In addition to that, it is as though the film's narrative, which takes place out of order, is Ben's memories of these events, his attempt to make sense out of them. It's a memory haunted by the past: at various points we're shown an ethereal image of Ben with a woman, someone he presumably once knew. We know he carries guilt over someone named Julie. It makes for a more interesting film (and character) that we never learn why. The film ends with Ben seeming to have a brief epiphany -- if nowhere else, he finds meaning in a moment shared by him and a dancing panhandler.

Nilsson's work is as DIY as it gets, and yet he is so far ahead of most of the current generation of no-budget filmmakers, who would do well to take a look these films. Whereas the current generation is often accused of self-absorption and narcissism, Nilsson humanizes his characters, the types of figures that are most often marginalized, on screen and off. Noise is pretty masterful, as far as I'm concerned, and sets the bar high. I'm hoping the rest of the series is at least almost as good.

Balancing Script and Improvisation

I've recently discovered that the Filmmaker Magazine blog features a regular column called The Microbudget Conversation. I just read this piece written back in August by guest writer Nicole Elmer about the limitations of scripting micro-budget films and the avenues opened up by using improvisation:

It was a creative choice as much as a budgeting choice. Because of the specificity involved, a script would have required the costly fabrication I mentioned earlier. Instead, the writer created a very basic outline that was broken down into scenes. Locations were replaceable and everything could be moved as needed, as long as the general symbol of the moment was still expressed. A script would have also forced us to shove dialogue in the actors’ mouths. Instead, we gave the actors their goals, they developed their characters WITH the writer, and we gave them responsibility for their dialogue, a creative choice normally made by a screenwriter.

Of course, many filmmakers from Mike Leigh to Rob Nilsson to Terrence Malick work by balancing structure and improvisation. Elmer says that it was a creative and budgetary choice, but I know if one were to ask any of the filmmakers listed above, they would reply that their choice was purely aesthetic. Nilsson even has a brief manifesto on his website ("Create a poetic cinema based not on writing but on observing. Mistrust your ideas and trust your experiences. Discover, don’t prescribe"). Personally, I think films made in such a fashion are, at their best, some of the most profound in cinema. They show life happening and us happening back, to paraphrase Nilsson's manifesto.

It all goes back to what I said about meaning in my last post. And this is not to say that I reject scriptwriting out of hand, of course. All of this is too much for a brief post, and I've been planning an essay-length post on it all sometime in the near future. And also, if that Nilsson manifesto is too brief, there's always The Path of the Artist by Ray Carney.

The "M" Word, and Meaning in Independent Film

Here's an article from the film journal Cine Action on the "mumblecore" movement of the last few years. I'm glad the author is in support of DIY cinema, but it's always frustrating to me that these types of articles always stay within the confines of what has been deemed as "mumblecore" and all but ignore the larger independent, digital, no-budget movement out there. The title of this particular article is, after all "Micro-Budgeting, Micro-Drama, and the 'Mumblecore' Movement," The "m" word being only one of those three terms. Perhaps I'm being too harsh. One can only write about so much in the space of an article, of course. I guess I just wish American independent film was a little more unified and a certain section of it not fenced off and given a funny name. And although the author does not do it here, the part is often mistaken for the whole.

Also to her credit, the author does try to fit the movement within a larger context she dubs "slow film." I'm not quite sure it works. It's much too broad a descriptor, but it touches upon what I think is central to independent film, which is how these films create meaning, and how much richer, more complex they often are in that regard than middle-minded masterpieces. In other words, termite art versus white-elephant art, to paraphrase Manny Farber. And to paraphrase Ray Carney, whom I regard as the authority par excellence on this subject, these films take away the aboutness of experience and force the viewer to undergo the experience. That's why independent film (and indeed all "art film") is important. Film should nourish the soul. Anything less is a diversion.

Trailer for Frank V. Ross's Tiger Tail in Blue

Via David Lowery and the film's own Facebook page, here's the trailer for Frank V. Ross's new film Tiger Tail in Blue. I recently purchased Frank's four previous films from him directly, and each one is an uncommonly nuanced, emotionally simple yet complex slice of daily American life the likes of which is rarely achieved in contemporary independent film. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little; all I know is that I loved them. Anyway: