by Joel Bocko
Nights and Weekends, 2008, dir. Greta Gerwig and Joe Swanberg, released on DVD Aug. 25, 2009
Most of the conversations in Nights and Weekends have a random feel, but one in particular is random with a purpose. Mattie (Greta Gerwig) is returning from a photo shoot with James (Joe Swanberg), her long-distance still-sorta boyfriend. At the shoot, the photographer coaxed the couple into playing cute for the camera, cooing “That’s adorable,” when an embarrassed Mattie cringed or looked at James with uncertainty. Sure enough, her snapshots transform the awkward into the semi-iconic and when the two look at them later on a computer screen, it’s almost enough to convince them they’re a real couple (they start making out, in the most genuinely sensual moment of the film, after viewing the uncomfortable kiss captured on camera hours earlier.) “They’re like present us,” James tells Mattie before leaning in for the kiss, “only acting out past us.” Cue future us.
But that’s not the conversation I had in mind. The purposefully random dialogue arrives earlier, when Mattie and James are just entering the room, discussing embarrassing dances of adolescent past. Mattie begins to eagerly relate an anecdote to James, describing her off-kilter dance with a boy named Matteo years ago: “We were…our rhythms were off, like, I was swinging this way but he was swinging the other way, so our knees kept knocking…it was just all wrong, and then, um, and then…” She can’t finish the story, and when an amused James prompts her, all she can offer is, “I guess the end of the story is I still feel embarrassed when I think about it. We danced a whole song with the rhythm off. Anyway, I should go wash my face or something.” And so she does.
It’s obvious on a rather elementary level that Mattie and Matteo’s dance bears more than a passing resemblance to the romantic misfires of Mattie and James’ dying relationship. Yet there’s a further parallel to be observed here. I should note here that it feels strange to write “Mattie” and “James” when the characters’ names are seldom spoken, and those familiar with the other no-budget relationship films of Swanberg, Gerwig, and their mumblecore cohorts – not to mention their penchant for improvisatory overlaps between reality and performance – will more likely think of “Joe” or “Greta” when watching the movie. Hence, the most striking metaphor for that dance is not the tense and awkward relationship of the fictional characters, but rather the genuinely weird and often ineffective arrhythmic work of the actors themselves.
Which is to say that as Gerwig and Swanberg attempt not only to portray lovers struggling with the effects of distance and time on their relationship, but also to chart said relationship as co-writers and co-directors, their knees keep knocking. Much of the time, the combination just doesn’t work. It’s hard to say why, exactly; Gerwig made sparks with all three of her male co-stars in Hannah Takes the Stairs, which Swanberg directed, and Swanberg himself (despite an unwelcome penchant for dick-displaying and a smugness which repels many critics, like Glenn Kenny) has a charismatic on-screen presence. Yet the two of them together never really convince as boyfriend and girlfriend, even in the early scenes when their dissolution is still supposed to be over the horizon. We can see why they’re drifting apart, all right, but not what brought them together in the first place: yes, the film is about the struggles of a relationship, but I never believed in the characters as a couple, except as a couple of actors/filmmakers who wanted to work together.
Both Swanberg and Gerwig are intelligent actors and filmmakers, and as they appear to have shot in sequence, they must have noticed this awkwardness and decided to make it their subject. The awkwardness probably has its root in the way their personalities are manifested on camera. Joe has a smirking passivity which easily shades over into passive aggressiveness; his features display an interesting interplay between soulful unease and smug confidence (a tension which he openly describes, albeit “in character,” within the movie). Greta exhibits an extroverted, self-conscious playfulness. With her big moody eyes, jagged hair, and simultaneously pouting and smiling lips she gives the impression of an especially adorable Muppet. Ultimately, Joe’s passive-aggressiveness is perhaps best served when he’s on the opposite end of the camera from Greta, while her flightiness is more charming when bouncing off a more rooted partner.
And so these two distinctive presences continually rub each other the wrong way. Greta wants to play under a spherical structure while Joe stands to the side with his umbrella, trying to act bemused (he’s most honest – hence satisfying – when his benevolent facade falls away and he acts like a jerk, dancing sarcastically to mock Greta’s twee enthusiasm). Joe eats a banana and Greta tries to pass off her disgust as playful, when in fact there is something rather repellent about the spectacle. A million conversations wander off into pseudo-“deep” dissertations, the navel-gazing but slight cover for the fact that these characters have nothing to say to each other. Occasionally, after one of these exchanges, Greta will politely ask Joe to leave the room and then begin to sob, or else silently scream at her mirror before dissolving into frustrated laughter. Eventually, the two achieve a convincing intimacy (not in the first scene, in which their instantaneous stripping and coupling seems forced, the camera uncomfortably distanced from the action). Yet even in this “climax” their excited foreplay gives way to an argument over who’s to give pleasure to whom first and in what fashion; even sex falls prey to their arrhythmic unease.
Nights and Weekends is, as its pleasingly poetic title may suggest (compare to Kissing on the Mouth or Hannah Takes the Stairs), Swanberg’s best-looking feature to date – though I have not seen his latest, Alexander the Last. One of the cinematographers, Matthias Grunsky, worked on Andrew Bujalski’s masterful mumblecore films Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation (the best of the bunch); for the first time, Swanberg’s video takes on a luminous quality. This is the clearest and cleanest Swanberg yet, the most visually disciplined, but its structure still seems erratic and lurching compared to Bujalski’s supremely focused work. Whereas Bujalski finds an emotional core and bounces off of it for two hours, Swanberg tends to wander and occasionally get lost in the thickets of self-indulgent improv. Gerwig, directing for the first time, only reinforces these tendencies, and the more leeway Swanberg gives her (albeit within his own identifiable approach, which may be the problem), the flimsier the film feels.
Swanberg’s is a cinema of evasion and obscuration, often purposefully so (he titled an early film LOL, which is a harsher, more coldly technological variation of Bujalski’s sensitive and uneasy Funny Ha Ha). This makes for compelling viewing, and often conveys an intriguing current of feeling beneath the surface, somehow prevented from ever coming up for air. However, it is also inherently less satisfying than the work of a filmmaker who allows emotions to be exposed, head-on, or who runs those submerged currents closer to the surface, so that we can almost see them pulsing behind those bare walls, beneath those tentative faces.
Swanberg’s films could actually benefit from a centralizing conceit or stylistic motif; perhaps if all the action took place in a single space, or at least if all settings were interior, the work would become more assured and intense. (By the way, the director is notably more comfortable inside; his natural landscape is the sparsely decorated window frame, the bare wooden floor, and especially the doorless doorway.) As for Gerwig, it seems she needs more space to develop her own voice as a filmmaker; her co-directing credit her feels “given” by Swanberg, and there’s an air of patronization which makes itself felt whenever the character struggles for some way to express what she’s feeling – or wants to feel – within the dominant framework.
Still, if the film is a failure, it’s an interesting one, and perhaps even intentionally so. Mumblecore tends to be so exclusively focused on the emotional flutters and mental trepidations of its self-absorbed subjects that it usually has little room for meta concerns. Yet Nights and Weekends seems to be as much about its own failure to communicate as its couples’. As such, it offers a fascinating peek at the difficulties creative people sometimes have in expressing their inner visions and potentialities (especially in tandem) – the challenge of achieving a rhythm upon which all effective artistic and personal collaborations rely. Sometimes, however frustrating, knocking knees hold their own fascination.
[Originally this post provided a link to my piece, which was first posted on the Examiner. As of 1/29/10, it has been moved here in its entirety.]
“Mumblecore tends to be so exclusively focused on the emotional flutters and mental trepidations of its self-absorbed subjects that it usually has little room for meta concerns.”
This is absolutely true, Joel, but one film is an exception to that rule, and that is Jean Eustache’s THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE, which to date is the greatest film ever made in this challenging movie genre. I am no fan of the Linklater films, and a recent film by Andrew Bujalski which played at the Film Forum, titled BEESWAX, seems to have the same deficiencies you pose here. ‘Mumblecore’ as a genre has become so self-assured and seemingly resistent to criticism that it has in large measure become reduced to an ‘anything goes’ presentation, which often degenerates in an endurance test for the audience. I do like however, what I’ve read here in this very fine essay, and despite your admission that it’s a fascinating failure, there’s enough substance here to warrant a netflix rental.
Of course last year we had a rather engaging film, IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS, which uses humor, poignancy and angst to excellent effect in captivating Los Angeles street settings in black and white. Mumblecore with panache, if you will.
Sam, interesting…I actually think in Swanberg’s case, mumblecore has grown more visually sophisticated. Nights and Weekends looks a lot better, and is far more controlled, than his earlier work, despite its flaws. Disappointing to see Bujalski’s work may be suffering from connection with the mumblecore phenomenon…since his 2 earlier works, both of which pretty much kicked off the “movement” were executed before the term or the associations had even come into play.
I’ve never seen The Mother and the Whore but very much want to. I hope to catch it one of these days in a retro, as it seems to be stubbornly unavailable on Netflix. Though I suppose that is one I could “allow” you to add to the package, ha, ha.
Thanks for posting this…I forgot it was up. Hope others find it interesting as well. It is worth a Netflix, methinks…though it helps if one has an interest in the phenomenon overall and has maybe seen 1 or 2 other films.
I encourage all who are curious to click on the links at the top of the post; the first two are reviews of the first two mumblecore films I saw, including a history and thoughts on the movement (and links to further discussions) and the last link is a run-down of all the other mumblecores I saw and what I thought.
Seems like you like ‘Orphans’ and ‘Baghead’ more than I do, but you didn’t exactly proclaim as the second coming either. My own experience with ‘mumblecore’ is mixed, but I like the Linklaters more than Sam does.
Superb review.
Thanks, Peter. Baghead I found amusing, but I can easily see how it would not work for some people. I think I liked The Puffy Chair more – though many hate that too. Orphans…I don’t think it succeeds, but I was intrigued nonetheless. I think the filmmaker may have some interesting things in store for future projects.
I like Linklater, but have never been a Linklater cultist. It doesn’t help that an acquaintance once blustered about me not having seen Tape (when I had almost certainly seen more classic films than her at this point) – but while I enjoy his work, his laconic style is not necessarily my favorite flavor. With mumblecore, I’m more intrigued by the rough edges than anything else, which is something I don’t really see in Linklater’s cinema of smoothness.
I’ve said in other reviews that the mumblecore flicks (with the exception of Bujalski’s early work, which is fantastic) may be akin to “the Jazz Singer”, harbingers of a no-budget video explosion but with few merits besides their own promise. Then again, their unique qualities I’m appreciating now may turn out to be their own properties, and not merely that of their style, in the long run. A vague formulation, but I hope it gets across what I’m trying to say here. Only time will tell. For now, they’re the only show in town and are quite interesting.
By the way, I encourage anyone interested in upcoming movies this fall to visit my fall-movie-preview-by-director on the Examiner. It just went up this morning, and is my most recent post.
Linklater is most useful for me as a motivational tool. The last few times I’ve tried watching “Slacker”, I keep stopping halfway through to get up and do something more important. Last time, I wound up gritting my teeth and learning 2 semesters’ worth of ActionScript 2 programming in a month, which helped me finally get somewhere with my Flash game design. Maybe next time, it’ll convince me to finally try writing a screenplay again and go mumblecore myself. Either that, or go into politics. One or the other.
Ha, ha, very wry – I like it. Slacker is definitely an achievement. Linklater keeps the film moving along and I don’t really find it boring. I do, however, find it excessively obnoxious. Oh, I know, we’re not supposed to sympathize with all of the characters, but how about any of them? I found the whole half-baked leftist bohemian vibe rather stultifying, just not my scene at all though I have friends who are diametrically opposed to me on this (one called late-80s Austin his version of Disneyland). I just find the counterculture if this period to be rather stale and smug … like that twit who starts lecturing his girlfriend about not giving bums money, not because he wants them “to get a job” (which would at least be an honest reaction, if ungenerous) but because of some pompous theory about her acting out her “privilege”. That pretty much sums up the whole offputting Gen-X feel of Slacker for me, though I DO think Linklater is way more thoughtful and imaginative than many of the people he’s presenting.
Thanks for that clarification Movie Man. I will be checking out your fall preview.
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