By Israel Lawton The opening of Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming is agonizing. It is 12 minutes of pure torture; cruelty for the sake of comedy, a callus scab of wit covering a puss filled bourgeoise wound. And all the while, you are sickened by a terrifying realization: "I am loving this", you think. "I know these people, or I Knew them, and I hated them and supported them and I miss them". This is the strange, tragic magic of Baumbach's debut film, and a notable technique he would employ in later films with different goals and aesthetics. The plot of Kicking and Screaming is lose but sharp: it meanders from apartment to classroom to bar then back to apartments, with the camera alternating between forlorn trailing shots and voyeuristic framings of the character's most personal moments. All of this laced with the occasional flashback centering around the broken love story between Grover and Jane, which serves as the heart wrenching lynchpin for how our apathetic anti heroes got into this situation in the first place. In the first scene we are largely repulsed by our character's actions and mannerisms: we see them tear each other down, complain about the luxury of their parents money, and aimlessly discuss philosophy that they have had no point of reference to understand or truly care about. However, as the film progresses in the months after their graduation, we come to know these pampered sages, we come to see their actions in a broader context that lights them in lush sadness and desperation. Every line of the opening 12 minutes, from Chet's self absorbed monologue about being in college for 10 years to the cruel banter of of Jane and Grover slowly becomes clear. We come to understand that what we perceived as an empty parroting of philosophy for the sake of one upping each other is exactly that; but is also an honest attempt to come to terms with grand issues that, in a variety of trivial ways, are impacting their lives and future. This is the real charm and power of Baumbach's writing: that the distasteful quirks and mannerisms that we are initially introduced to become the things we prize in the characters. We see these people at their moments of most humiliating weakness, as well as their most abusive, but also at their most supportive and forgiving. In many ways, this gives the film something of a cyclical tone: with every new situation we see their behavior loop back around to our initial perception of them, and as they never seem to move on they seem stuck in their own self immolating feedback loops. For this reason, Kicking and Screaming (as well as most other Baumbach films) take on a world of their own: a world of broken dreams, limp ambition and wails of anger turning into soft sarcastic whimpers. Without ever breaking the film into surrealist metaphor, a fantastic quest or melodramatic camp, Baumbach's films become immersive experiences; realist nightmares that viewers often find lingering long after the film ends. This is connected to a broader concept of film theory I have been bouncing around for a while: that all film is fundamentally surreal, that through the process of creating a film, editing it together and viewing it the work becomes something beyond reality, regardless of any artistic intent otherwise. Even the most painstakingly realist film is an exploration of an artists perception of reality, designed to simulate their experiences and beliefs in the topic at hand. Baumbach's films are the perfect example of this: films that strive to show the real, day to day lives of the characters, that quickly become manifestations of Baumbach's own anxieties and desires. Every time I watch a Noah Baumbach film, I squirm. Sometimes I squirm with delight, others with embarrassment, but most of the time with pain. His films are painful, not because they are real; but because they are the opposite: they are personal, and fiercely unforgiving. And from this brutality comes a raw, gaping catharsis.
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ContributorsThe contributors for Cashiers of Cinema are a menagerie of creators devoted to Radical Aesthetics. Meetings are held at the dumpster behind Winkie's. Archives
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