Did I watch Nomadland wrong? | MONOPLEX #6
Watching under-stimulating movies in the attention economy.
Allow me to be neurotic at you for a moment.
I’m an incredibly impressionable person. I care about what other people think about me and what I say and do and this is a difficult thing to admit. We live in this weird age where everyone is projecting the idea that they know everything but also the idea that… no one does? It’s weird and dissonant. It seeps into our social interactions and permeates our politics. It’s even become difficult to talk about movies in the public square (yes, I’m complaining about Twitter; I’m very sorry) because the way we speak with one another has evolved into something very callous and impersonal.
I see a lot of arguments about what cinema is and what movies are right to watch and how to watch them the right way and it’s really exhausting. The internet has allowed us to form and fortify personalities based on our interests and identify with work that isn’t our own, people we don’t know and institutions that we don’t have any real stake in. You see it in our itch-inducing tribal politics and in the way we talk to each other about culture. It’s why we can’t go a month without a generally innocuous Martin Scorsese quote sparking a flame war about whether or not Avengers: Age of Ultron is even allowed to be called a movie or whatever.
The struggle isn’t new. Giant, expensive tent-pole blockbusters and smaller, riskier, more readily celebrate films have been locked in a generations-long battle for your attention and no one talks about how difficult it can be to break out of it. Huge, multinational corporations are spending more money than any of us can even fathom to pump our multiplexes and streaming services full of everything we ever thought we wanted. We are being overstimulated. Swept up in weekly dispatches from our wildest dreams, backed up by the full market-driven might of the attention economy. I know it’s not cool to say but breaking out of that is hard.
So… about Nomadland.
I put this thing off for hours; that’s how intimidating I found it. Director Chloé Zhao’s meditative journey through the American West is a far-cry from last weekend’s busy offerings from Hulu’s competitors. The central performance (Frances McDormand’s “Fern”) is strong but quiet and the film spends a lot of its runtime simply allowing you to peek into the lives of these “nomads” without giving into plot for its own sake. It’s genuinely gorgeous; Zhao’s camera shrinks McDormand and pulls back to showcase the vast openness of the Arizona desert and the majesty South Dakota’s Badlands. She’s even cast actual nomads as themselves, deepening the tangibility of the world without inviting pity or shame.
All this going for it… and I was restless.
Nomadland, for me, was a challenging movie to keep my focus on. There are lengthy stretches that rely on the visual splendor of the American West to lock you in and that simply wasn’t enough for me. I struggled not to look at my phone. I even felt myself dozing off at points (which can’t be wholly placed at the feet of the film; during the pandemic, I could probably lay down in the middle of a highway and go to sleep). It troubled me a lot because I like and respect what Zhao’s trying to accomplish, I just wasn’t compelled by it. I came away with a deep admiration and appreciation for the subject matter but no more than I would have come away with if this was just, say, a random episode of “This American Life.”
Nomadland isn’t incredibly stylized, like the smaller pictures that do tend to make a big splash (ex. Netflix’s I Care a Lot), and Zhao doesn’t wring any Oscar clips out of McDormand. I don’t think this a problem for the film but, over the past week, it has made me interrogate my own need for that sort of thing. Why doesn’t this more contemplative style of filmmaking enthrall me the way it seems to for everyone else? Why do I need an explosive, awards-bait monologue or snappy editing to engage with this kind of film? Why don’t I feel stimulated? Is the movie even good or am I trying to force myself to enjoy it because much smarter and better-read film writers are praising it? Am I just not watching movies correctly?
After sitting with it for a week, I think my respect for it has actually grown. I’ve come to relate Fern’s own desire to forsake the trappings of capitalist excess in the way to the more exploratory way I’m trying to approach movies. I may still enjoy the big, branded spectacles (a lot) but I’m trying to be more adventurous with what I watch. I want to explore more and have movies like Nomadland wash over me the way they do for others. Maybe this is like the scene where Fern gets a flat tire on her van and is saved and scolded by Swankie (playing herself) for her unpreparedness in not having a spare. Were there stops I should have made before this? Something else I should have watched to prepare? Was I better off sticking with what I know?
If Nomadland can unravel the way I watch movies this way, I can’t imagine where else this journey will take me. The jury’s still out here, I know that for certain. I plan on watching it again, although I don’t know when. The world of film has so much to offer that charting a path through it can be a daunting process. That’s why we read film criticism and appeal to authority to guide us through it. Personally, I’ve found that approach lacking as of late. So I’m venturing off on my own, chasing rabbits. I don’t really know where I’m going or what I’m doing. And I find that funny because Fern doesn’t either. But that’s the adventure, I suppose.
Or I could just be talking myself out of being bored with a boring movie. I just don’t know.
Nomadland is now streaming on Hulu.
The marquee
Tom and Jerry | HBO Max
Two of the oldest enemies in entertainment history and terrorizing a hotel wedding and bringing with them a host of new 2D animated animal friends. I’m hoping this turns out because we’ve gotten a slew of great family films recently, like Netflix’s Finding ‘Ohana and Disney+’s Flora & Ulysses. Here’s hoping the old boys can capture that old magic. And if they can’t? Classic “Tom and Jerry” shorts are available on HBO Max as well.
“High-Rise Invasion” | Netflix
Netflix’s latest anime hit involves a high-schooler trapped in a dimension made up of countless skyscrapers trying to get home before she’s killed for sport by masked assailants. It’s giving me “Angel Beats” meets Battle Royale vibes and I’m very into it. And, if you know me, you know it takes a lot to get me into an anime series these days so I demand that you all watch it.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday | Hulu
Lee Daniels is back is with a new Billie Holiday biopic that spotlights her struggles with addiction and the social upheaval she helped put in motion. Daniels’ track record is all over the place but critics are praising “Rise Up” singer Andra Day in her debut starring role and she’s backed up by supporting ensemble of familiar faces. Maybe this is the first step in getting Lady Sings the Blues streaming somewhere.
“Close Enough,” season2 | HBO Max
One of the best HBO Max originals returns for its sophomore season, with more millennial parenting hijinks and imaginative takes on the strange, shitty and wonderful world of adulthood. Seriously y’all, this show is great.
Here’s something interesting
During the pandemic, I’ve become obsessed with finding older movies that have been generally lost to time. I came across the trailer for Allan Moyle’s Pump Up the Volume about two months ago and became obsessed with tracking it down. After about three weeks, I managed to find a used DVD copy but I was hesitant to buy it but fortune shone on me in the form of a brand new Blu-ray release that dropped this week!
It stars an impossibly hot Christian Slater as a shy, bookish high school nobody who moonlights as a hypersexual, teen radical shock jock by night. This, in my opinion, should be in the same 90s teen classics conversations with Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Scream, and Dazed & Confused. Absolutely worth the blind buy but, hopefully, this new remaster will find its way to a streamer so more people can catch the wave.
Plugs!
Hi, I’m CeeJay!
My podcast, Below Freezing with CeeJay & Micah, is back for its third season, check out the latest episode here! Check out my buddy Dan Purcell’s new singles “Nobody Knows My Name” and “Home Lives In You.”
Welcome to MONOPLEX, a weekly digest of film & TV offerings available in your living room. You’ll get a personal recommendation here and there but I promise to never tell you what to watch - only what’s out there. MONOPLEX is my one-man war against the idea that “there’s nothing to watch.”
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