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Shane Carruth and the Constraint of Frustration

01.19.2020 by M Donaldson // Leave a Comment

Shane Carruth on the Set of Upstream Color

Primer and Upstream Color are divisive love-them-or-hate-them movies (full disclosure: I love them both), but filmmaker Shane Carruth should inspire everyone. Artistically, he’s taken ‘control freak’ to new levels by assuming each crucial filmmaking role — writer, director, ‘star,’ cinematographer, editor, music composer, distributor, and others — to maintain a challenging vision and cut costs. We can also apply ‘control freak’ to how his direct authority over these aspects gives him ownership of the end product. If Upstream Color were an album1Actually, the soundtrack album is available, it’s fantastic, and you should listen to it., we’d say that Carruth owns his masters and publishing.

When a creator wishes to do projects on a large scale, full control over rights is the most problematic element to sustain. The funding for big projects is usually traded for a loss of intellectual property rights. That might explain Carruth’s apparent frustration in an interview for The Hot Corn:

“I’ve got a massive thing that I’m doing, and after that I’m gonna get out of this, I’m gonna get out of film after this. I’ve got another half of my life to live and I want to think about charities and finding a way to help people, not doing this bullshit, caring about box office, distribution and all this.”

It’s no wonder that our most independent artists are feeling discouraged as capitalism spirals out of control. On the musician’s side, succumbing to a dependency on corporate platforms like Facebook and Spotify is stifling. It’s artistically dispiriting to rely on partners who care little about the craft that goes into a perennial work.

That’s why artists should create their own models. If we work in a niche and desire an impactful statement of our design, then we need to accept that the tech-giants aren’t on our side. There will be compromises to these new models — we probably won’t be able to fund ambitious projects like The Modern Ocean — but constraints help make great art. We need to prepare ourselves because the large, investor-driven platforms we rely on are going to leave music behind. They’ve already started. And we prepare by forming networks, our own distribution outlets, and doubling down on our niches and existing audiences. This route is possible when we use the powerful tools of the internet for our benefit, not to add additional value to a corporate interest through our content and access to our fanbases.

I imagine the interviewer caught Shane Carruth on a bad day. The filmmaker has already embraced progressive release models and knows what they offer. After all, he self-distributed Upstream Color from a website the same day as its limited theatrical launch. That feat was bold and forward-thinking at the time, and it would be both those things today. Hopefully, Carruth will combine a need to help people with his talent for innovative story-telling and develop many meaningful films. It’s doubtful he’ll match the preferred scale of the abandoned projects that inspire his frustration. But I don’t doubt any new work will prove impactful because of Carruth’s insistence on total independence as a guiding artistic constraint.

🔗→ Shane Carruth on The Dead Center and why he’s quitting film for good
🔗→ Your Daily Reminder That Gigantic Media Corporations Are Bad and Cinema is Suffering

Categories // Commentary Tags // Art, Constraints, Distribution, Ownership, Primer, Shane Carruth, THe Modern Ocean, Upstream Color

It Isn’t Technique, It’s Language

12.20.2018 by M Donaldson // 1 Comment

Some movie talk for today, three films in particular. First of all: Roma. I believe Alfonso Cuarón has come into his own with this picture. Fans of his previous work may feel he had already arrived (Children of Men is a masterpiece, yes) but bear with me. The lengthy single takes that Cuarón is known for often overshadow his movies — reviews of Children of Men always mention shots like that famous car scene, and bringing up Gravity elicits talk of its 17-minute opening scene. There are plenty of impressive long takes in Roma, but Cuarón has settled into a lyrical style with his camera where these scenes draw you in rather than drawing attention to themselves. Cuarón alludes to this in a must-read profile in The New York Times:

“ … what they’re calling technique in film — and I’m not talking about commercial movies — isn’t technique. It’s language. When Tarkovsky makes decisions about framing and about how to move the camera, they’re not technical decisions, or even stylistic ones. They’re requirements of the language that he needs for his filmic experience.”

I loved Roma, and the Tarkovsky shout-out isn’t far off (there’s a bit of Fellini, among other masters, in there, too). Regardless of the camera’s ‘language,’ the personal story told in the film, with a powerful social and political undercurrent, is affecting. This one got under my skin.

On a less intimate note, how disruptive would it be if Netflix took home an Oscar? There’s a discussion to be had about Netflix and other streamers as the present home of bigger budget ‘art films,’ as theaters continue to lean hard into the superhero/event movie paradigm. Amazon’s been supporting upper-tier indie film a bit longer than Netflix (though their commitment has been questioned), and HBO seems to be ramping up their indie game, so this could become an odd competition. Roma’s performance at the Oscars could increase the heat.

But I did see an ‘art movie’ at an actual theater in the past week. We visited Enzian Theater, our local, long-running independent film establishment, for The Favorite. I admit I was lukewarm on The Lobster — it fell apart for me in the last half — and though The Favorite does not entirely convince me, I liked it a bit more than that previous film. It’s fun. Despite the other high-profile stars, it’s Olivia Coleman’s movie, isn’t it?

I don’t go to the theater that often and this recent experience opened some thoughts as to why. Maybe it’s just me, but I am often distracted in a theater and find it difficult to ‘get into’ the movie. I enjoy completely losing myself to a good film, and occasional murmurs and coughs and – in the case of the Enzian, which I do love – servers walking around take me out of the story. But I don’t think movie-goers have changed as much as we’ve changed as watchers. My huge TV, subwoofer-enhanced sound, and distraction-free home environment spoil me, and I can’t imagine watching the swirling images of Roma any other way. This home theater preference is a significant problem for non-event movie studios and theaters, which is why the support of Netflix et al. is increasingly essential.

I’m not sure if Shane Carruth would accept any Netflix money, though. With Primer and Upstream Color, Carruth took independent film-making to a whole new level as the sole engineer every step of the way: writer, director, producer, composer, lead actor, and so on. He was even one of the distributors in the case of Upstream Color, selling hi-res downloads of the movie from his own site. It probably wouldn’t matter if these were lousy films, but I find them wonderful, elusive statements and completely vision-driven. Scott Tobias wrote a terrific new piece on Upstream Color for Polygon:

Upstream Color exists just outside the realm of comprehension, which isn’t a bug but a feature, designed to keep the mind circling back to it like some unscratchable itch that flares up every once in a while. Some filmmakers like to give viewers something to solve but it takes an audacity to leave a few ellipses and risk riling up the sleuths. […]

There’s plenty of room for speculation over [the movie’s] questions, but unlike the mappable timeline chicanery of Primer, they’re unmoored and abstract. Carruth has full command of his effects in Upstream Color, but he doesn’t seem interested in directing viewers toward specific conclusions more than general ones.

If that seems like a description of your kind of movie, then seek out Upstream Color. It’s fantastic and fantastically done.

As for Shane Carruth and his next project — The Modern Ocean perhaps? — there’s been radio silence. In the meantime, Carruth can be found doing side-jobs like his beautiful score in the first season of TV’s The Girlfriend Experience, or his lead acting role in The Dead Center. Fans may be frustrated that he’s in front of the camera more than behind it, but I see Carruth taking a cue from John Cassavetes. In time, the side hustles will fund his next project, allowing continued independence and an unbroken vision.

Categories // Miscellanea Tags // Alfonso Cuarón, Enzian Theater, Movie Recommendations, Shane Carruth

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8sided.blog is an online admiration of modernist sound and niche culture. We believe in the inherent optimism of creating art as a form of resistance and aim to broadcast those who experiment not just in name but also through action.

It's also the online home of Michael Donaldson, a curious fellow trying his best within the limits of his time. He once competed under the name Q-Burns Abstract Message and was the widely disputed king of sandcastles until his voluntary exile from the music industry.

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