I Think

Alright, I finally bit the bullet. I’ve purchased this domain for one year for too much money. It really is not an insignificant financial commitment for me. Whether or not I can match that spiritually and populate this blog is yet to be determined, but I don’t really want to start on that note, though. It’s kind of defeatist.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you already know me on some level. What sort of introduction can I give? You already perceive me in some way and some version of me already exists in your mind. You might be reading this in my voice, emphasizing parts how you think I would. What’s the point of subverting that, or even promising to? I don’t want to be edgy, I just want to get my thoughts down without worrying about any potential audience interpretation. I’ll acknowledge it, but I won’t be concerned by it.

Merriam-Webster recently did a thing where you could enter the year you were born and see what words were added to the dictionary that year. Naturally, the first terms that appeared alphabetically for 1999 were “active shooter” and “adorkable.” I really can’t overstate how much I hate that, but I find it somewhat reflective of my lifelong grappling with various neuroses and cringe. I won’t be expanding on that now, but it might come up later when I am inevitably forced to examine my favorites and my hate-its. Not that my intention is to be a hater here. Make no mistake, that is what I am at my core, but I hope you understand that critique is a neutral word, and I look forward to doing a lot of it. Art isn’t meaningful until analyzed.

My thoughts on art? Sure, I’ve got a few. On film? Well, that barely narrows it down. Artistic expression is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of civilization. I’m only exaggerating a little bit. To properly alchemize the human experience into something that can be universally understood, to transmute emotions into the visual medium, to match ancient tropes to modernity… agh. It’s what I live for. It’s what differentiates us from animals, plants, and the pebble stuck in my shoe. Art is the ultimate humanizer. It’s both cliche and a little bit untrue to say that a novel, a song, or a film can put you in someone else’s shoes. Whatever art provides is only a small piece of an entire puzzle, you can’t understand Virginia Woolf by reading just one of her novels any more than you can pass organic chemistry by perusing the periodic table. There’s pieces of her there (no death of the author here, BTW) but not everything. Here, I’ll probably do my best to track references and inspirations, but that’s an impossible end. Every work that exists does so in conversation with its predecessors.

I’ve got a great example. There’s a Japanese Breakfast song called “Paprika,” which is named after the 2006 animated film with an instrumental inspired by a parade scene from it. It’s got this soaring brass music to accompany a triumphant chorus; it’s the first track on the album Jubilee, after all. Michaelle Zauner wrote the song to celebrate being an artist and her connection with her audience. It’s really fabulous. She mysticizes her abilities and depicts yearning from both sides:

How's it feel to stand at the height of your powers

To captivate every heart?

Projecting your visions to strangers

Who feel it, who listen to linger on every word

Oh, it's a rush

There’s magic in her music, and spreading it is a source of elation akin to adrenaline. As much as we need art, art needs us. It’s an exchange of ideas, and everyone contributes. I really recommend you listen to the song to get the full effect.

Creating is a venue to project, to theorize, and to have fun. You can harness an emotion, put it into a character, a scene, a story, and have someone view it in their own way. It’s liberating to unpack, interpret, and understand. To imagine a life for yourself that doesn’t exist, to find yourself in someone else’s fantasy… it’s really a spiritual experience. Coming from me, I guess you can take that with a grain of salt. I just don’t understand how anyone can be lonely when the internet exists and contains almost every movie ever made and every book ever written. Plenty of work has been lost to time—hello, symbolism—but a million lifetimes worth of art still remains. I’ve been friendless in my life, but I’ve never felt alone. There’s no denying what we share. The greatest hopes, deepest fears, the most minor gripes, and simple, mundane amusements have all been depicted somewhere. If you think something’s missing, it’s really just waiting for you to make something yourself.

I’ve threatened to talk about myself so much in this intro not because I think you’re interested, but because my own experiences and the way I view the world will greatly influence my interpretations and the value I assign to certain filmic elements. There will probably be some times when I tell a story only tangentially relevant, but just bear with me. Projection isn’t as fun when you’re self-aware, but introspection is vital.

So, my costly domain– so sensible, so intelligent. One human being who knows me on a personal level will read it in the right voice, so let’s get a Thomas shout-out right out of the gates. The source of this phrase is a Criterion Closet Pick video starring Agnès Varda. There’s a chance that Thomas and I can repeat this video by heart. I feel a strong connection to Agnès Varda (my middle name is Agnes!), even though I am definitely a fake fan. At this point, her only features I have seen are Cleo from 5 to 7, Le Bonheur, Vagabond, and The Creatures, though I have also seen her short documentary Black Panthers. Hopefully, as part of this blogging project, I can dig deeper into her entire filmography. Part of the trouble is that the bulk of it is documentaries, which I’m not really into, but who knows what I may discover and be imparted upon.

The films she describes as “so sensible, so intelligent” are Sweetie and An Angel at My Table, both directed by Jane Campion, who is one of my favorite directors. I see her and Agnès in a very similar vein with their approach to female characters, which I hope to dig into one day and hopefully supplement with some feminist lit quotes (mama, let’s research!). Agnès was just about 89 years old when that video was made, and English was obviously not her first language, but her jumbled description of Taste of Cherry is absolutely enthralling. If you weren’t familiar with the film, you would have no idea what the plot of it is. She does, however, clearly capture both the theme and her love for the movie. I’ve seen this clip of the film she made with French artist JR, Faces Places, wherein he’s gleefully pushing her in a wheelchair through a gallery in the Louvre, and she is breathlessly and wondrously listing artists. It’s a little recreation of a scene from the Godard film Bande à part, which Agnès listed as her favorite of his in her Criterion Closet video. While those characters simply sprint through the museum, Agnès and JR’s race added the wonder and admiration. My aim with So Sensible, So Intelligent is first and foremost to analyze whatever movies I’m watching, but I know I’ll stumble into some of that awe, too.