{"id":789,"date":"2013-04-20T14:59:25","date_gmt":"2013-04-20T19:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/?p=789"},"modified":"2013-04-20T14:59:25","modified_gmt":"2013-04-20T19:59:25","slug":"independent-mediocrity-when-its-not-the-man-keeping-us-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/2013\/04\/20\/independent-mediocrity-when-its-not-the-man-keeping-us-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent Mediocrity: When it’s not The Man keeping us down."},"content":{"rendered":"

I love Mike D’Angelo’s review of “Future Weather<\/a>“, which he gave a ‘B-‘ over at The A.V. Club.<\/p>\n

Love is, of course, an exaggeration, and it’s a shame that it is. Perhaps not in this case, but so frequently. That we are always so moderate and moderated and that we so often lack irrational exuberance<\/em> these days. But I appreciate D’Angelo’s review; I find it a wonderful counterpoint to even more wonderful January 30 article, “The \u201cgentleman\u2019s F\u201d and the scourge of deliberate mediocrity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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And they are obvious and logical counterpoints; we are compelled to ask the same questions about a B as a D. That B on your report card that mean “above average”; was it about being better than<\/em> average or about being less than<\/em> excellent? Outstanding? This is not a question about grade inflation, an issue that applies to all grades and is a separate topic; no, it’s more an analog of a calculus problem, a problem of limits, of approaching from the left and from the right and — in a reversal of the standard math homework, in which different approaches provide different results (showing a function, let’s say, not to be differentiable at that point) — here providing us the same ‘answer’ but for different ‘reasons’. Are you approaching that B from a C, upward, or from a B downward? And in a parallel fashion one could ask about that D; and one could take it further (was the C better than a D, or worse than a B). In this regard it is, perhaps, not a very interesting question.<\/p>\n

But I return to those Ds. Are they a matter of failing to fail or succeeding at not failing? These quantitative measurements may be objective, but they don’t necessarily explain what interests, and so I return to D’Angelo.<\/p>\n

The parallelism between the B and the D on either side of the C breaks down because the point of Tobias’ post was about the marketplace and formulaic, unexceptional movies that skate by as the barest of entertainment … and they do so because they make money. But as Mike D’Angelo argues, “Making an independent film is such a Herculean enterprise that it should, in theory, appeal only to hugely ambitious sorts.” Independent films have almost no shot of making signifiant money (the exceptions proving the rule (and, yes, I rather despise that expression … yet I love it (love-hate))); there is little financial incentive — or at least there shouldn’t be<\/em> much financial incentive, as perhaps that’s the problem: such uninteresting middle-of-the-road fare does<\/em> get picked up and rewards its makers — at all here to pander to mediocrity and mediocre tastes.<\/p>\n

I haven’t watched “Future Weather” — and given the tone of the review I’m not sure I will –, but based on the description and the description of its formula\/genre, I can already see ways in which I would find it more interesting. If the genre did not resolve as expected, for example, I’d be intrigued. Forget reconciliation or the mother learning lessons, or any of that. Make it truly about the daughter, and not merely as a tale of survival; D’Angelo writes: “Does the world really need another sensitive tale of a precocious child struggling to make a place for herself while contending with a flighty, irresponsible single parent?” Confound the traditional subplots, including the “tender subplot involving the high-school science club, which is run by Lili Taylor and consists only of Haley-Jardine and an exceedingly shy boy with a painfully obvious crush on her”. Expose false dilemmas — “Mostly, though, the film marks time until the moment when Ireland inevitably returns and Haley-Jardine must make a tough decision about which woman is best for her” — and let other options be chosen, let her choose neither<\/em>. I ask myself, if making movies is resource intensive — still the case — that’s an economic matter, one that involve opportunity costs, but also questions like, why does this have to be a movie? Why not a comic book or short story? Art installation? Stage play? What is cinematic about it … or what can cinema bring to an otherwise typical narrative? Can we use cinematic conventions<\/em> (the answer is an obvious and emphatic yes<\/em>) to tell an unconventional<\/em> story?<\/p>\n

Then why bother telling a conventional one?<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/h3>\n