Week 51: Kicking & Screaming

Dear Avid Reader,

This is not the 2005 Will Farrell soccer movie. This is the 1995 movie directed by Noah Baumbach.

Don't go flipping the script or putting salt in my game.

You Aim For The Stars, You Hit The Roof

In the documentary "The Outsider", Roger Ebert describes film directors operating between two pendulum points: pandering, and narcissism. To be accurate he states that if a director isn't "self-indulgent" then he becomes a "caterer" to the audience. Ebert goes on to list great directors Bergman and Fellini as examples of film-making greatness that came out of so-called artistic self-indulgence.

When I heard Ebert say this, I was blown away. It really described a negative extreme that I had been trying to describe. While it's easy to describe an artist that is making art solely for money as a sell-out, or artistically bankrupt, or a hack, it was harder to describe how the other side of the coin could also be bad. Self-indulgent, narcissistic, and insular were added to my thesis. Now both the populist and the distinguished artists had their weaknesses, or at least they did in my mind. This is important because I have always wanted to be a snobbish, elite artist and now I knew what I was getting into.

And this is why I have chosen Kicking and Screaming as this week's movie.

You Know What I Mean, We All Know What We Mean

I would assume that few of my readers have watched this film. I believe that few people in general have seen it. But this movie is freaking great. In many ways it reflects a great deal of my personality. The dry, too-smart-for-itself dialogue. The intellectual elevation of typically low culture. Like when they wait to leave the house and watch a detergent commercial to see  if the stain comes out. Or how movies where monkeys have prominent roles are treated with the same level of excitement as European capitals. I love it.

And then there's the cool detachment of the characters that is equally their greatest strength and most appalling weakness. Especially with Max. Max can adroitly deflate Friedrich's fake compassion at the bar, but he also has a knee-jerk reaction of doom to Kate's birthday. I imagine it is Max the one bankrolling Grover's existence by letting him live at the house rent free, after all it's his parent's money. Why make Grover earn a living when he doesn't. But he reacts so coldly when Skippy ends their friendship. It's a quality that I admire and also fear. It's also something I would have been envious of in college.

And the ending is so spot on. I discussed in my Dirty Dancing post how I felt that the ending of that film was not true to the characters or the times. But this film ends so beautifully. The audience knows Grover will never make it to Prague, that he and Jane will never be together. It's just how they ended up. And how they end on a flashback, making the airport scene all the more bittersweet. I feel every break-up in that moment.

Damn I love this movie.

Racism Spans From Here To The Dancefloor

But the most thrilling thing about the movie is how it deals with nostalgia. Now, I have already covered memory in my Monty Python and The Holy Grail post, but nostalgia is somehow different. I guess I see it as remembering in order to re-experience the emotional color of the moment. And usually the feeling is a hurt, a pang. And why folks want to feel pain on purpose is a mystery. It's like pushing a sore tooth with your tongue. You just can't help yourself.

And Max explains the phenomenon so well in the bar. The act of hyper-reminiscing conversations that happened hours ago. Or even making a decision based on how the outcome will be remembered. I've never had a character in a movie so accurately describe something that I thought only I did. In fact, I wasn't even aware I had been doing it until Max articulated it.

Double damn, I love this movie.

Don't Upset Him Because He'd Already Rather Be Bow Hunting

I think nostalgia is something that my peers and I encounter in a very strange way. I have grown up in the shadow of the Baby Boom generation. And as I came of age, I was surrounded by media that was geared toward helping Boomers philosophize about their own childhood. I was a kid when Wonder Years was on the air. So I was a kid watching a show intended to have adults reflect on being a kid. I felt as though this has given my generation sharper nostalgia reflex. For example, I used to pour over my elementary year books in middle school, and my middle school year books in high school. Before I could drive I was already concerned that "it was all slipping away". In a sense, I was pushing at my baby teeth with my tongue.

In so many ways this movie feels like it was made specifically for me and only me. And I guess that is why I think it's so great and why everyone else thinks it's mediocre.  I feel the same way about the album Laughing Gallery by Ruth Ruth. It's a thing that only I truly understand. That's why it's awesome. At least it's how I will remember it.

Until Next I Blog,

James