New Around Here : November - December Theme
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Whether it’s in an interview, on a date, or at a premiere before an audience, that first encounter is everything, and in the movie business, where your career is never guaranteed, that couldn’t be more true. Driving so many aspiring directors is the desire to deliver the one — the feature — but if that first film doesn’t make a compelling statement, or doesn’t catch the eye of a prospective producer or hopeful investor, it could be the end of their career.
So they must be bold when taking that initial swing. They treat us to complex narratives that can spin heads. Their dialog bears the signs of obsessive tinkering and imagination. The camera flashes and darts across the scene and approaches subjects from unorthodox angles. All of which they’ve been holding onto for years as it pours out before us. They have to believe this is the right moment to use them because it’s possible this could be their only moment.
It’s hard being “the new kid,” but that’s where the magic happens, in the audacity of new ambition. They can bring something new to the table, create something no one has ever seen before, and make a name for themselves. After all, everyone’s watching when you’re NEW AROUND HERE.
For our November - December theme we’re focusing on directorial debuts, films that immediately left an impression and inscribed the director’s name on everyone’s watchlist. Each director has their first film, but for this list, we’re highlighting films that kickstarted careers and forged directorial signatures that would go on to span entire bodies of work. These films broke rules and gave us perspectives that only come from a fresh pair of eyes and the desire to prove your worth. Debuts that declared, “My name is ________ ________. And I have something to say.” If there’s only the one chance to make an impression, then these nine films showed themselves to be unforgettable, and part of their legacy would be us returning to them and their directors over and over again.
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The Virgin Suicides
(Sofia Coppola, 1999)
“In the end we had pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how we put them together, gaps remained.”
Within the privileged landscapes of suburbia, we find the five Lisbon sisters: Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia. All in their tween and teenage years, they attend high school, swoon over boys, and live under the thumb of conservative parents. Their existence, picturesque … at least from the outside. Suddenly, all five sisters commit suicide and the community is at a loss for why. How could this happen? When did it all go wrong? Why would five promising young women end their lives? Obviously, they’ve never been a thirteen year old girl.
In a year when a litany of films would come to define a generation, Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut The Virgin Suicides signaled the rising talents of one of America’s best directors. At this stage in her career, it would be hard to shake the notion of Hollywood nepotism at play, but The Virgin Suicides is exemplary of Coppola’s unique talents in front of and behind the camera that are all her own.
It starts with her script where Coppola emphasizes female perspectives and experiences that would become a reoccurring theme in her work. As the boys of Grosse Pointe, Michigan and the adults therein fail to understand why the Lisbon sisters committed suicide, the film paints a portrait of suburban female youth and the dissatisfaction that comes with being forced into a preconceptualized mold, one where societal norms and expectations are projected onto young women. The shock that comes from their death becomes an unsettling true-to-life irony in and of itself. On screen this takes the form of a melancholic dreamscape that renders formative teenage experiences with both warm and cold hues, textured by shades of Coppola’s signature millennial pink. A contemporary soundtrack common in nearly all Sofia Coppola films scores this somber tale while the plot strolls along without a clear cause and effect progression, another hallmark of her construction. These stylings would reappear later Coppola's later work, evolving and taking shape in new ways, but it’s here, within The Virgin Suicides, where it began to shape and give rise to her signature authorial style. Out the gate, Sofia Coppola proved she could hang with the best of them.
—Greg Arietta
Hunger
(Steve McQueen, 2008)
“I have my belief, and in all its simplicity that is the most powerful thing.”
On paper, Steve McQueen’s debut Hunger concerns Irish Republican Army figure Bobby Sands as he embarks on a 1981 hunger strike while imprisoned during a dangerous and tumultuous time in Northern Ireland commonly known as The Troubles. It’s a topic that might produce a montage-laden film aimed at replicating the most traumatic moments of the decades-long conflict on the silver screen, or predictably the film might be a biopic taking us from Sands’ formative years up until his time with the IRA. But while Hunger has a political subject, the film itself is almost devoid of politics. It does not contextualize The Troubles, the hunger strikes, or Bobby Sands. Its nucleus is instead about the conditions that might cause someone to weaponize their body, especially in so slow and agonizing way as a hunger strike. So who might be the driving force behind that framing? Director and co-writer Steve McQueen.
If McQueen’s current filmography is to be boiled down into a single word it might be “authority.” His films are so exacting that watching them instills the sense that he has complete control over every whisper you hear and every fleeting glimpse the camera catches. Right out of the gate, Hunger contains all those characteristics. McQueen’s camera placement refreshes perfunctory scenes into meditative moments. Early on, a prisoner guard conducts his morning routine and the camera finds itself under the table as he eats breakfast, crumbs falling into his carefully pressed and napkin-laden lap. But just as important on-screen, at times, is what is left off. Head wounds, black-eyes, and lacerations appear on prisoners between scenes, implying a constant abuse by guards over the inmates. Only non-inmates comment on the abnormality of the wounds existence. Eye-catching smash cuts bookend McQueen’s staple long-takes. Almost a full quarter of the film is dedicated to a single-take, a scene depicting a tense exchange with Sands and a visiting priest about the decision to begin a hunger strike. It’s a change of pace for the film because perhaps what is most striking for this debut is Hunger’s silence and lack of dialogue. We are shown the conditions for these prisoners as we experience their bodily decay through images rather than words. It’s a choice from McQueen that exudes confidence in visual storytelling rather than verbal dictation, and McQueen’s bet pays off with something truly captivating.
Hunger’s framing causes us to see the humans on screen — not larger than life figures — and issues and movements. Perhaps you might suspect the nuance of Hunger to come from a first-time director, who at 39, was over a decade older than your typical debut feature-filmmaker. That “additional” time was, in fact, spent honing award-winning short films, and being the official war artist for the United Kingdom. But if McQueen’s subsequent filmography is any indication, Hunger marks only the beginning of a diverse line of features that graces us with the perspective of a talent.
—Kevin Conner
Me and You and Everyone We Know
(Miranda July, 2005)
“I don't want to have to do this living […] I want to be swept off my feet, you know?”
Filmmaker and artist Miranda July has turned out to be one of the few beacons of light amidst the gloomy quagmire that has been 2020. She published a self-titled monograph earlier this year filled with her oeuvre of wonderful creative projects and was one of the few directors to embrace digital, releasing her third feature film, Kajillionaire, this autumn to rave reviews. Praise be to MJ for giving us some fresh indie cinema to feast our starved eyes upon!
From her beginnings as a Portland Riot Grrrl, MJ has been in bands, put on plays, starred in numerous performance art installations, created zines, written novels, and even set up a charity shop. She is one of the coolest artists around and her debut feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), draws on her background in multimedia art to create a uniquely charming movie about life and love. An off-beat study of human relationships, the film weaves together mundane yet beautiful stories of a group of individuals struggling with loneliness and life itself. The film is perfectly scored by Michael Andrews and has a standout cast including MJ herself and potentially the cutest child actor in the history of cinema (Brandon Ratcliff).
If you’re a recent convert to the church of MJ after seeing Kajillionaire, go watch Me and You and Everyone We Know for your next dose of life-affirming and quirky MJ goodness. ))<>((
—Ivy Pottinger-Glass
Dark Star
(John Carpenter, 1974)
“Now Bomb, consider this next question very carefully. What is your one purpose in life?”
Boasting one of the most recognizable and influential filmographies of all time, John Carpenter has shaped the science fiction and horror genres as we know them. Even from his days on a student film budget, he had already begun teasing out the aesthetics and themes that would come to define his later work.
In 1974 Carpenter established his fortuitous beginning with Dark Star, a tongue-in-cheek parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The film imagines the 22nd century as a small crew of surfer haired eccentrics are tasked with bombing any unstable planets that may threaten human colonization of the cosmos. After the death of their commander, Sergeant Pinback (Dan O’Bannon), Lieutenant Doolittle, Boiler, and Talby each cope apathetically as their ship’s integrity hangs by a fraying thread. The monotony of their decades-long mission has driven them to a spaced-out ennui, and their disconnection with Earth leaves them with only the damaged ship’s computer for company. In a malfunction, the ship engages the Bomb #20 device to detonate while still aboard, forcing Lt. Doolittle to engage its darkly humored AI in philosophical debate.
The film marked not only a first for Carpenter, but also writer-actor Dan O’Bannon, who would go on to create Alien (1979) and Return of the Living Dead (1985). From a modern perspective, it’s hard not to notice how much of Dark Star feels like a rough draft for Alien, winding through the tight corridors of a deteriorated spaceship with its doomed crew. Though before Ellen Ripley was stalked by a fearsome Xenomorph, Lt. Pinback had to contend with a squeaking beach ball. The satirical comedy and highly ambitious production captured cult attention, hinting at O’Bannon and Carpenter’s potential.
Dark Star contains many of the foundational elements of Carpenter’s career later built upon by such films as Halloween and The Thing. It also makes his debut as composer, his iconic synth score already in full force. In addition, O’Bannon’s Sergeant Pinback resembles something of a prototype of Carpenter’s future frequent collaborator Kurt Russell. The entire production of Dark Star brims with aspiration, the first peek at a career-long mastery of genre film.
—Megan Bernovich
Citizen Kane
(Orson Welles, 1941)
“You know, Mr. Thatcher, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man.”
It is almost unfathomably how a 25 year old made one of the greatest films of all time on his first go, but leave it to the “charlatan” of cinema himself, Orson Welles, to be the one to do it. After a series of spoiled plays that left him short on cash, the voice of an intergalactic invasion made the jump to film with an unorthodox two picture RKO deal granting him full creative control. The resulting effort was Citizen Kane, a film frequently cited as ‘the best’ for decades by scholars, historians, directors, critics, academics, cinephiles, and the like (but not that one guy you know who likes to deride it every time it comes up in conversation).
Inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane posthumously traces the life of one Charles Foster Kane as a news reporter pieces together the meaning behind Kane’s famous last word: rosebud. From source to source, Welles paints a picture of a man who has everything yet nothing at all. Of the material variety, he had lots of money, so much so that he could acquire a national newspaper, construct his own 49,000 acre paradise, and buy an unending supply of priceless artifacts, but of the personal consortium, he was penny-poor, of which no amount of money could save him from the miseries of rotten character and hollow affections.
Citizen Kane boasts a moralistic tale that’s as true as any other (and a damn fine one at that), but it’s in Welles’ direction where the film changed cinema for ever. As an outsider of conventional Hollywood wisdom and with the legal protections to do whatever he wanted, Welles alongside cinematographer Gregg Toland broke rules with their camera that were well outside the studio playbook, implementing the now textbook use of deep focus that every film studies professor has used at some point in their careers. In tandem with dramatic lighting, a round about flashback narrative, remarkable production value, and Welles’ signature wit, Citizen Kane remains a tour de force of cinema in every sense of the word. There were films before Citizen Kane and there were films after Citizen Kane, and the medium hasn’t been the same ever since.
—Greg Arietta
The Babadook
(Jennifer KEnt, 2014)
“Don’t let it in.”
When a film burrows an insecurity into us through sight and sound and it resonates with our own, it’s often unshakeable. The image or feeling lingers in the back of our heads, gnawing at some part of us. Somewhere in our depths is a modicum of truth about ourselves the film has unearthed slightly. Jennifer Kent’s hair-raising debut The Babadook does just that.
A story ultimately dealing with grief and the insecurities of parenthood might not sound ripe for a skin-crawling premise but neither does its titular movie-monster’s attire of merely an overcoat and top-hat. Rest assured that both will have you squirming in your theater seat with unease.
The monster, the Babadook, first appears in a picture book that Amelia Vanek (Essie Davis) reads to her six year-old son Oskar one night. It describes a shadowy creature who tortures the humans that discover his existence. Mildly shaken, Amelia discards the book when Oskar refuses to sleep again in fear of the monster. But it returns on their doorstep with new scrawled passages indicating “The more you deny, the stronger I get”.
Amelia is already verging on exhaustion from the demands of her work and her responsibilities as a single parent. Her husband previously passed away in a car crash en route to Oskar’s birth. But the paranoia of her son and the strange goings-on in her home push Amelia to a breaking point. She finds glass in her dinner. She experiences flashes of murdering Oskar. Her mental health is deteriorating, and with it, we call into question what happenings are because of the Babadook or are maybe because of Amelia.
Essie Davis’s multifaceted turn as Amelia and the expert production design of the monster and Vanek house allow The Babadook to shine in its most powerful feature- its portrait of enduring grief. Amelia’s troubles, be they dealing with loss or insecurities about loving her child enough, take center stage in a gripping, austere, and moving finale. While the Babadook, the monster, may live in the back of our brains still (or the front of our parades), The Babadook shows mastery of genre and beyond from an indelible and unflinching first feature filmmaker from which we are eager to see even more.
—Kevin Conner
Brick
(Rian Johnson, 2005)
“Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.”
Called a “slick Hollywood calling card” by Empire Magazine and “a shrewd attention-getting move for a first-time filmmaker” by The New York Times, Brick is inarguably both of those things. Writer-director Rian Johnson ditched the safe confines of a textbook feature that categorizes cleanly into a popular genre for the unconventional polarity of contemporary teenagers plugged into a noir film. They are fast-talking smart alecks with moppy bangs and locker combos. Mobster-esque thugs who operate out of their parents’ basement, threatening violence while mom bakes cookies upstairs.
This was 2005. The O.C., which glamorized life in Southern California, was all the rage among teenage viewers. Johnson took that exact setting – a high school in San Clemente less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean – and turned it noir, a bold move for a first feature, but one that has led to a career of bending genres and keeping audiences guessing to the end.
Our anti-hero gumshoe protagonist Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the chivalrous ex-boyfriend on a quest straight out of a Dashiell Hammett novel, leads the charge against an underground drug ring that plagues his school and killed his ex-girlfriend. There are code symbols left in school books, secret meeting spots, a jazzy soiree where the popular jock performs a monologue in a toga, and a femme fatale character who is not as innocent as she may seem. Ironically, most of the humor comes from The Pin (Lukas Haas), the grim, cane-wielding kingpin – get it – who likes “the Hobbit books” and whose quiet stoicism could simply be covering up his vapid underbelly. But what ties all of his characters together are their very real, very grounded archetypal personas, performed with deadpan believability and sincerity.
Made with a sub-$500k budget and famously edited by the director himself on his Macintosh, Brick proved Johnson’s ability to write and direct a complex film that emulates other works in the genre dating back to the 40s and 50s. Even 15 years later, Brick has lost none of its relevancy and contemporary appeal. Johnson’s writing is tight and at times poetic, and he directs with flair: low angles, tight shots during tense moments, and framing that often makes you feel like perhaps you’re missing something, a clue that could be relevant later on.
The worlds that Johnson builds in each of his five features to date are not only fully realized, they are fully lived in by the time we join the party. He commits completely to each conceit, no matter the absurdity. With Brick, he recreates situations and characters that bring to mind past noir films like The Maltese Falcon. In Looper, he played with time and the science fiction genre. Knives Out, which gained him award show recognition, was a flirty, original take on the traditional whodunnit. Johnson is very much an experimental filmmaker who works within the confines of traditional storytelling and conducts his trials, instead, with tone and genre-merging.
He also wrote and directed a Star Wars film, which feels like the only way to end this pro-Rian Johnson propaganda piece.
—Candice McMillan
A hardboiled thank you to Candice McMillan from Seattle Refined for programming this week’s selection. You can read more of her work here.
George Washington
(David Gordon Green, 2000)
“Sometimes I smile and laugh when I think of all the great things you're gonna do. I hope you live forever.”
Who is David Gordon Green? Yes, he is a recognized American film director, but if audience members of his various films had to identify him in a line-up based only on their viewing experience, buttery fingers would flash in all directions but no consensus would emerge. This is by no means any fault of the audience. David Gordon Green is a known director and his work has found a wide audience, but to consider his body of work means returning to our initial question, as his filmography is one of the more unique and unpredictable this side of the millennium.
Green has been Houdini-like in his career, continually escaping from any of the expected boxes of genre or style that might have otherwise have defined him. He turned heads and entered the mainstream when, after a number of smaller, dramatic features, he helmed the premier stoner comedy of the century Pineapple Express (2008). A string of similarly raunchy, irreverent comedies followed without any of the cultural clout before he shifted course towards more conventional Hollywood dramatic fare. He earned relative acclaim with titles such as Prince Avalanche (2013) and Stronger (2017). His latest jump has him locked in manning the resurgence of the beloved Halloween franchise for an entire trilogy.
However, Green’s most compelling feat was his first, turning in the affecting George Washington as his debut feature film. Released in the year 2000 when Green was but 25, the film was considered a breakthrough. Here was a new voice that gave critics optimism for the contemporary American film movement. Green’s career, while full with movement, never would align with the expectations the independent film community had in wake of this significant debut. George Washington reverberates still though and has served as a touchstone for American independent filmmaking this century.
More a reverie than a narrative, the unique film text is the result of the film being both folkish documentary and mythical rendering of American life. What story there is revolves around a small group of mostly black preteens who amuse themselves over summer vacation hanging out and playing games in dilapidated structures of their impoverished North Carolina hometown. Life comes quick like the summer heat, and heartache and loss punctuate the stillness of the kids’ lives. The film’s treatment of youth and its trouble is disarming in its compassion, and that sense of intimacy leads to truly profound moments and performances of revelation and honestness. The cast of mostly one time actors often stutter through and shyly deliver their lines, conveying childish realism more than any amateur limitation. The rich visual character achieved by Green and his crew quite literally feels like what dreams are made of, and by capturing the interior emotional lives of the film’s inhabitants in this proficient style, Green seeks to meet their already inherent complexity and grace.
Regardless of its debut status, George Washington is a remarkable achievement in film, a mesmerizing, deeply compassionate and human affair that could easily be attributed to the work of a more accomplished director. Perhaps the degree of confidence and commitment to craft befits a rookie director though. Cinema has always been a young person’s game, the history of the medium is shaped by the swings of the bold, hungry, and newly arrived, and 25 year old David Gordon Green came ready to play and hit big. Big enough that he’s had the rarified opportunity to transform into all sorts of directors in his career. All this while his debut has maintained influence on the independent filmmakers that have followed in the wake of George Washington. Creating a lasting vision and a secure future, there isn’t really much more to ask of a debut, whether it’s as president or feature film.
-Dante Hay
Bottle Rocket
(Wes Anderson, 1996)
“Let’s get lucky.”
Developed from a short of the same name, king-of-quirk and modern-day auteur Wes Anderson’s first feature, Bottle Rocket (1996) was a bit of a flop at the box office. But this clearly didn’t stop Anderson, who has since gone on to direct ten feature films in the past two-and-a-half decades. From his stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) to coming-of-age dramedy Moonrise Kingdom (2012), Anderson has crafted a remarkable series of unique and fun flicks that are all his own.
Bottle Rocket (1996), co-written with one of the film’s stars Owen Wilson, is perhaps the least typically ‘Wes Anderson’ film of his career. There are certainly elements of Anderson’s distinct style in this first feature, but it is very pared back when compared to his bigger budget sequels like The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). At its core, Bottle Rocket is a heist movie with Owen and Luke Wilson playing Dignan and Anthony, two youngsters set on carrying off a series of complex heists that are doomed to fail.
It’s a solid debut, and if you’re not a fan of the more over-the-top Anderson films of late, this may be more to your taste. After all, we do have this film to thank for the first on-screen appearances of the Wilson brothers! With Anderson’s next film, The French Dispatch, waiting for cinemas to resume operation, I think we could all do with some Wes Anderson to cheer us up in the new year!
-Ivy Pottinger-Glass-Glass