Everything is Boring

Please Make it Stop

One of the things that I think is important during this moment of transition is the understanding and joy that comes from accepting my interests wholeheartedly. The words are coming to me so easily now because I know what I like, and I know what I want to do, and I’m going to do it because I know it’s what I should be doing.

Writing has gotten considerably easier because it feels like my heart finally caught up with my mind and there are no inhibitions coming from that. In terms of expressing my interests as well as my thoughts I feel cogent in being able to come across very clearly and directly, which I think is something that people avoid nowadays.

I spent so much of my life avoiding my own thoughts and opinions, even though I would stew on them and shove them back. But no! I do know what I like! And I feel very secure in that!

If I am talking about something I love why would I hold back? The reasons I like something are so varied and would be described as ‘niche’ but they aren’t niche! They are just me. Art is so finicky, you never know when you will react to something or find yourself drawn to something for reasons you don’t understand. But that’s the beauty of it to me. The desire to decipher that. To find out why specific things makes me think, or, what are the elements of this that are producing this reaction.

Lynch is very interesting in this regard. I haven’t parsed out my thoughts on this yet, but getting into Lynch during quarantine has probably been a huge acceleration toward me accepting being a trans woman, and for that I am eternally indebted to Mr. Lynch. I think there are multiple reasons for this, but the biggest one is the idea of a doomed character, specifically the tragedy of a doomed woman. I spent a large chunk of my life tragedizing myself. I think this fully started when I found out my brother Kenneth would pass away young due to his disability. I really never saw Kenneth as a tragic figure in anyway, but I found out the average life expectancy from wikipedia searching out of curiosity.

From that moment on I exploited that, and moved that tragedy onto myself. I gave up the strength to process those emotions, and I also avoided my own emotions because of guilt. How could I let life get me down? Do I deserve to acknowledge my own emotions? I would cage up these feelings for years until they came out recently. But there is a feeling that I got from Laura Palmer in Fire Walk With Me that I found to be very powerful, and that is this acknowledgement of her doom. Laura Palmer knew she was going to die and she knew she was being raped by her father. There was an acceptance within her of incoming doom, but there is still an assuredness in her actions (talking to people, her relationships with her friends and lovers, her second life at the bar). Laura Palmer continued to create persona after persona after persona that no ever really knew Laura Palmer. Her last conversation with James (and then it coming back in the Return) hits for exactly this reason. Laura is floating in the void, waiting to die.

Did anyone know me before? How much of my life was clouded in a dysphoric fog? I was so committed to trying to be happy but knowing deep down that I was ready to die. I was rarely suicidal, but so much of my life was waiting for the shoe to drop so hell would finally end. I funneled a lot of this through the trauma of finding out my brother was going to die. It was wave after wave of thinking about him actually dying and the phone call associated with that. I would have daydreams of giving his eulogy, but they were always hazy and I never could seem to find any words. That part always freaked me out, but I realize now that I hadn’t formed.

Inland Empire is a good film to describe that feeling. I think some people would consider this to be one of Lynch’s ‘weirder’ works, but if anything it’s one of his most relatable. The entire film has an eerie, repetitious quality that is perfectly in line with the digital aesthetics of the imagery. The recurring elements such as the play with the rabbits or the girls Laura Dern’s character ends up being around are constantly being replayed and remixed. This to me is one of the finest examples of dreams in cinema that I can think of. Inland Empire is easily the most digital film ever made, and the choice I find to be completely and utterly brilliant.

ASIDE FOR LATER JUST HAD THE THOUGHT The majority of the conversation surrounding film in 2020 boils down to plot elements (or representation lmao) and it’s completely fucking boring. Who cares? The things that I like about a film are what it tries to do and how it tries to do it. There are so many variables within a film that boiling things down to like, what happens is so exhausting. It completely takes the discussion outside of any art conversation especially when it comes to film where the shot, edit, and sound are the big elements!!! They aren’t just stock!!! They are always always always choices and whether those choices are lazy or not is important to be cognizant of. I was recently watching In The Mood for Love and the first diner scene is a masterpiece in and of itself. But if you were just like, describing it, it would be ‘the two characters go to a diner and figure out their partners are cheating on them’ which yeah, I guess is somewhat interesting but it’s so FLAT.

Then you watch the scene and it’s staggering. The shot construction, cuts, and ideas within this sequence deserve interrogation fully, but just to save that for later there are two things that I think are valuable in discussing now. The first is the first pan within the scene. The scene involves Tony Leung’s character asking Maggie Cheung’s character about a handbag she has, and asking if she can get one for his wife for her birthday. There is a discussion (note: need to rewatch for specifics because I’m blanking a bit on the set up for the pan) and THEN there is a rapid pan from Leung to Cheung and back to Leung after Cheung’s character starts to flip it and probe into knowing too about the infidelity. Before this moment the shot construction is completely static cutting between a somewhat medium close up, then shots of the cigarette and hands, so this pan completely comes out of nowhere and is so married to the script and so fucking smart that it makes me want to cheer. It completely flips the situation to Cheung’s character and the realization that she is aware of what is actually happening.

The other part that is incredible to me is the final three shots of the sequence which involve a dolly move from OUTSIDE OF THE BOOTH back into Leung’s character, then a cut to a cigarette, then a cut to smoke in slow motion to end the scene. (Note: thoughts arent there and need to rewatch the shot construction as well as where the script leads) ((second note: I should flesh this out by talking about the preceding elements of the movie leading up to this and what the viewer is aware of in regards to the situation. Lots of dramatic irony if you are paying attention that pays off well))

But this is what I’m talking about in terms of how boring film discussion is now and how flat it is. It’s like oh we can say, how pretty the shots are but like, what are they doing? What is the film trying? Is it succeeding? Are there thoughts in the choices made or are they just going by the numbers? I think it’s very hard to make a great film, but it makes me most sad to see modern cinema as extremely vanilla, boring, static, sterile, cynical, board-room driven, and mindless. Private equity and venture capital will eat us all

BACK TO LYNCH AT SOME POINT

Picture: me screaming for 4 hours about everything being BORING

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