Bored now.

For the first time in ten years, I'm completely unemployed. No UChicago, no AF temp job. It's been about a week. I'm miserable. I'm beginning to think I'm the type of person who can become lost without structure and purpose, but I can't be sure, since this has never happened to me. In general, my day to day activities and discipline haven't changed much since my previous arrangement of having two work-at-home jobs has finished, but the feeling is markedly different.

My first order of business during my last week with The University of Chicago was to secure a volunteer arrangement, something that could consistently get me out of the apartment and around the city I haven't yet begun to explore. I sent an email to Educational Video Center, a place a lot like a job I had back in 2007-08, and got a call the same day. Monday through Thursday, 2-5, I am a teaching assistant for two classes teaching social justice documentary filmmaking to high school/alternative school students. So that's something. (Perhaps more on this in another post.)

Other than that, my existence consists of applying to at least one job a day (though that drive has been waning), and interminably working on my production reel (UGH), so I can finally apply to all of those jobs in my queue that require one. I've also been teaching myself Adobe After Effects through online tutorials — and trying use it to come up with some kind of graphic identity for said reel. I usually end a variably productive morning with some Buffy or Angel, though I'm beginning to tire of it lately.

I'm beginning to tire of everything lately. As you can see, it's not for lack of things to do. As I've written here before, I can be by myself for hours and come up with an endless list of tasks I should take on. But for all of the busyness I put myself up to, lately, I still find myself thinking the word "bored" — a word and concept I loathe — and sometimes even saying it aloud. I don't believe one can be bored as long as there are things to take care of and thoughts to think and even people around (I guess). But I'm increasingly sad and bored and lethargic, and the false sense of discipline and purpose I give myself just isn't cutting it.

Now, if you know me, you are probably a bit surprised that I didn't plan for this, at least in part. But that's part of the problem: I did. I knew I might be unemployed for some period of time, but I thought I would be driven to give some attention to some of the priorities that had been back-burner'd over the past year. When I left Chicago in July, I did so with a vision of my temporarily-freelance existence, a picture that included cutting a feature-length documentary (pro-bono) for my friend DS and staying financially solvent through a few odd freelance editing jobs here and there through JS. Alas, DS reneged on the documentary after pressure from his production company — months of my work for nothing; I won't even be in the credits. And JS, well...that was probably doomed to begin with. I haven't heard from him in quite a while.

While I don't directly blame those guys for my current situation (wouldn't it have been great if I'd found a job here in NYC back in April?), and while I'm certainly grateful to have been able to live in this new, expensive city for three months now without much worry, I now find myself without any of the preplanned activities I'd banked on and been assured of just three months before, not to mention without the invaluable resume fodder I need to stand out in this insanely competitive market. I don't even want to broach the topic of money. It's just a disappointing situation, and I'm feeling helpless.

Unfortunately, the timing of my complete unemployment has come right as SM's work is ramping up. He has five classes, night lectures, reporting/field work, and hours of reading and writing assignments. By the time we're both home (thank God I'm out and about at least 3 hours of the day so I can say I get back from somewhere), I'm starving for connection, while he is stressing about school. I know I wrote here that I could go for days without talking to anyone, and I still think it currently holds true, but I don't think I realized how much purpose there is in working, even remotely, and resting assured that you will connect with at least someone, and that your work is meaningful to at least someone. Without that component, my world has shrunk that much more.

I'm volunteering at EVC in a program that isn't usually supported by others outside of the main teacher, so outside of helping students (who sometimes mistake me for one of them anyway) with camera work and learning FCP, I often feel superfluous. My friends here in NYC, with the exception of a few graciously involving people, all have their own lives and social groups, and they're often too busy or forgetful of my now-consistent presence to hang out. The perceptions of New York as an isolating place are starting to resonate. I have almost zero desire to get out and meet new people, I just miss having friends I could contact to hang out whenever, or friends with whom I'm comfortable enough to be some type of reliable social group. I remember feeling this way in 2009, after several friends of mine and SM's had left Chicago, and we didn't feel that bond with many people left in the city, so I know it's only a matter of time before that gets better. But feeling out of step with the busy, working world and with SM in school (and meeting new people there), it's hard to look very far ahead. I just hope I'm able to land a job before my money and sanity wear out.

The Graduate

One of my friends recently saw The Graduate for the first time, and sent two of us an email about it. DS and I had two separate but perhaps complementary ideas about the aims and ending of the film. I thought y'all might find this interesting. Below I've pasted our emails, spelling/grammar mistakes and all. What do you think?


Subject: The Graduate
------------------------

From: JW
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 12:25 AM
To: TS, DS

Just watched The Graduate for the first time and I was curious whether
the scenes with Ben pursuing Elaine were meant to be creepy or
romantic or neither? Obviously to modern sensibilities he's quite the
stalker but perhaps in the 60s following a girl around was seen as
romantic? Certainly she does end up reciprocating...

J

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From: DS
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 4:04 PM
To: JW
Cc: TS

The way I read it was as a subltey creepy and perhaps solipsistic pursuit and ending. The very last shot is the most damning one of the film, they're on the bus, grinning, not talking, consigned to spending the rest of each others lives together in relative alienation. I don't remember exactly, but aren't they surrounded by old, decrepit couples on the bus?

To me that's the central concern of Dustin Hoffman's character, the fear of the alienation of being an adult and entering the modern world of wage labor and shallow relationships, (like the oedipal one he has with Mrs. Robinson.) Hello darkness my old friend indeed.

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From: TS [Me]
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 4:55 PM
To: DS
Cc: JW
I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I'd always read the end as a testament to his persistent immaturity and as a damning realistic take on romance. Ben spends most of the movie in over his head without doing much about it: he doesn't know what he's doing with his life after school; he falls into an affair, more out of curiosity and laziness than anything else, while not making any career moves; and then he finally finds something in his life to latch after he connects with Elaine, but he finds he doesn't know how to go about it. His relationship with Elaine is the first thing he has been forced to fight for, and he goes about it with no grace whatsoever. I don't think they were meant to be romantic as much as clumsy and embarrassing. He's lucky Elaine likes him at all, because he played all the wrong cards. By the time they leave the wedding and get on the bus, I think they're both faced with those facts: wow, this tactic worked...what now? He's over his head again, and she's stuck with the guy who acted the way he did, on all counts (banged his mom, took her to a strip club to turn her off of himself, pursued her to Berkeley, etc.). Lots of movies have their characters do these ridiculous things, and they're rewarded for it without stepping back to think, hm, what does it really mean to be the person who does that kind of thing? Though the rom com in its current form didn't exist back then, the grand "romantic" gestures sure did, and I saw this movie as a contrasting reality check to those gestures. We're supposed to feel a bit creeped out, I think. Also, keep in mind that this is Dustin Hoffman here: the original beta male, he became known for playing complicated, yet somehow likeable underdog characters. He wasn't Robert Redford or Warren Beatty, and I think this peculiar star status lends itself to the role.

These are just impressions I remember from my last viewing. I also like [DS]'s reading of the film.

******************************
If you guys have other readings of the film, let me know in the comments below.

Obligatory Tree of Life Post

I'm going to try to make this free of spoilers. I don't think it's possible to spoil this movie, though. Just don't walk out after the first 45 minutes.

Okay, so I saw The Tree of Life this past Tuesday. Right off the bat, I just have to say that the cinemotagraphy is amazing. It looks specacular. The movie itself is the culmination of Mallick's films. Everything was there: religion, man vs. the universe, voiceover, hands running through wheat, good vs. evil, shots of the sun, shots looking up at the trees. And it was beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

But my thoughts on it haven't yet settled. At first, I thought that the parts about the dawn of the universe didn't mesh well or have a coherent message with the parts centering around Jack's family. But as I've had some distance from it, it is clearly one of the many contrasting pairs Mallick sets up in the film.
The very personal and subjective pain of losing a close family member, contrasted with the expanse of the universe
Father vs. Mother
Grace vs. Nature
Future vs. Present
Past vs. Present
Preparing for and sculpting the future, as opposed to letting things come, letting things happen
Evil vs. Good
The meting out of love (when deemed appropriate) vs. unconditional and ever-present love
Brother vs. brother

These were just a few of the themes that I felt and picked up on while watching the film. There were two specific impressions that have really resonated with me, though.

First, when it came to the Waco, TX scenes, so much reminded me of my own family and my own childhood. I am the eldest child, and I, too, felt a strange relationship to my younger siblings, both a strong love for and a certain jealousy of their presence. We were also physically disciplined (something I have no problem with), but later in my parents' marriage my dad became more abusive (something I have a huge problem with); my mom was also silently indignant about this, as Jack's mother was, but couldn't do much to stop it. Then there were some religious aspects of the film that really hit home. All of those questions were ones I had asked of God myself in some intensely personal, trying, and scary times. There is fear and awe and doubt mixed up in those moments, just as they were expertly portrayed in the movie.

The second thought that I just can't shake about this film is the similarities between it and East of Eden by John Steinbeck, one of my favorite books. East of Eden is just as beautiful, if not more so, and the juxtapositions between the beauty and wide open space of the west with the author's detailed family histories and personal memories recall Mallick's struggle to comprehend humanity and existence. Both works also allude to biblical references throughout. The book also centers around the relationships between brothers (there are at least three sets of siblings in the book, two of which feature brothers competing for love and acceptance), just as The Tree of Life spends time showing differences between the two brothers and the desire to be "good."

The book is a bit more concerned with fate and intertwining stories, as a book is so well-suited to do, but both pieces end (explicitly or implicitly) with what I interpreted as a choice. Both writers asked "why him?" with a certain amount of guilt, and I think Steinbeck provided not an answer but a choice -- an obligation -- to keep going. Although my fellow moviegoers, SM and DS, disagreed with me about the ending of the film, I saw it as a sign of freedom from the burden of grief, permission to keep going: Timshel, "thou mayest." He is the only one left to do something with his life, and he has the permission, he should do so without guilt.

These are just some reactions that have been going through my head in the past 4 days. I think I need to see the film again to really hammer down whether the questions Mallick posed were answered or if they need answers at all. DS was pretty adamant that this was one of the finest films he'd ever seen, and that there was no conclusion to be drawn from the impressionistic portrait. Maybe it's just my desire for outlines and closure, but I think there's more to this than not being able to fully interpret it, and I think we're allowed to judge the piece if it doesn't end up coalescing into anything substantial. I'll let you know if I figure anything else out.

Reluctant Symbology

Back when I first read Catcher in the Rye, it genuinely irked me that my English teacher harped on and on about symbols. Between the red hunting hat and those ducks, I just didn't buy that a writer would go through and plant all that crud for us to pore over the text and ferret out. As I got older, I started to appreciate that there are some writers out there who would do such a thing. However, throughout all of the films I studied in college, some of my skepticism surely remained. That said, I have to hand it to my high school English teachers: they sure beat that ferreting habit into me.

Just last week I went to a screening of Terrance Mallick's Badlands with a few friends. Last year we'd endured a Kurosawa series at the Gene Siskel Film Center together, and this year we'd contrived to setup our own Mallick series, only to find that the Music Box had already done it for us. Anyway, we saw Badlands and then headed to a barbecue together (first of the season!).

Fresh from the theater, the movie was, of course, on our minds. I prefaced my contribution to the group critique with a caveat: "I hate when people look for meaning and symbolism in works of art, especially film. You can just make up some bullshit, and as long as you run with it, carry it through to the paper's conclusion, you can pass. But..." I hesitated before submitting my question. "Do you think there's any significance in her father being a sign painter?" Before others could fully form their own arguments, I involuntarily began forming the answer to my own question, the clues coalescing into a college paper as I arranged the condiments onto my medium grilled hamburger. Fortunately, I suppose, DS saved me by offering up a tidbit Mallick's biographical history, that he was an aspiring academic, a Rhodes Scholar, before he was a filmmaker, in philosophy no less, so my search for significance beyond the screen and the text was most likely not in vain.

So here's my theory: of course it's significant that Holly's father is a sign painter. Whether he leads her on the right path or not, he serves as sole guider for a character who doesn't show any agency of her own until a brief and minute act of independence and self preservation near the end. the signs he paints are never shown to be direct commands, rather they are tableaus or brand names, passive declarations of what is and what should be in your life. Similarly, while he may have had questionable tactics, he sure had a lot of influence on how Holly lived her life, setting up rules and consequences that were outward manifestations of how he believed life should be, always demonstrative and never really explained by a man of few words.

[Spoiler alert] After Kit kills him, Kit's philosophy takes control over Holly in the place of her father. She comments on his behavior but still fails to act independently from him or even squirm under his guiding hand. But while her father had a demonstrative style of control in the form of figurative signposts (your dog has been shot: wrong way), Kit had a more passive, leash-like hold over her. Her life with Kit surprisingly holds no signs. For somewhat of a road trip movie, there is a noteworthy dearth of signage (not even highway names or exit signs): the only sign I remember seeing is one for Texaco at a gas station after she's already separated from him. For much of the movie they aren't even on roads.

DS made a point of insisting that this is not a film about morality, and I agree. There is a reason Holly's father is not portrayed as saintly or even good. As I said, his methods have something to be desired, but furthermore it's important to note that it's not clear where he was attempting to guide Holly to. My point is more to emphasize the fact that she was being guided at all. I may even go as far as saying there's a bit of a bildungsroman hidden in here, the apex of which is her decision to stop fleeing and submit to being apprehended by the police. It was actually somewhat of a relief for me to see her show some agency for once in the film. It's a small climax, but I think it's there nonetheless.

Part of me very much enjoys watching movies and other media with a critical eye. If you were to ask me, though, it's how it all comes together collaboratively and technically that I find exciting. I would argue that this also extends to the details of how exactly the idea/writing is portrayed onscreen, and so I don't completely ignore the craftsmanship of the writing. But when it comes to all those symbols, imagining someone painstakingly seeding that trail for the viewer to follow, another part of me just doesn't buy it. There are so many other things to worry about than tracing the movements of a red hat throughout a story, right? Luckily for whatever writer or director is out there ahead of me on the trail, though, I find myself seeing the signs, taking the bait again and again, and following them down. When I see Days of Heaven tomorrow as a part of this series, I suppose I'll have to see it with new eyes. I've gushed over the cinematography before, so I guess I'll have my eyes peeled for the next set of symbols Mallick throws my way. I might even write about it here. But I'll have you know, I won't be very happy about it.