After realizing that my taste in movies has always
gravitated toward the dark, the next step is to narrow down what that means.
Dark is too broad a term. I love depressing movies. This isn’t to say
necessarily movies about depression, or movies dealing with depression.
Returning to my fundamental categorization of films broken down into plot,
character, dialogue, genre, and setting leaves out tone.
Dark is
an easy label to throw at a movie—even lazy. Depression is a tone. I argue here
that my use of this term is based on my connotation of a film…
- with a protagonist played by an actor whose performance is detached: almost no emotion shown (with the exception of emotions like sorrow, sadness, despair, regret, etc…), often with very little dialogue.
- with a protagonist who lacks traditional narrative goals, or if present, goals that are destined to go unattained; typically set at a time when the character has what he or she wants, but is unfulfilled; no happy endings, no life affirming discoveries; although often loss or death as conclusion.
- a slow pace, little action or plot development.
So when
did the depressing film start? The most obvious answer has to be film noir of
the 1940s, but no. Maybe I’m out of touch with the canon, but none of the
movies of the genre that I can think of fit the template. The one that comes
closest is Night and the City (1950,
Jules Dassin). It makes sense that it’s been one of my favorite film noirs
because of how depressing its ending is. Night
and the City’s fatal tone is crushing in its bleak depiction of how HARRY FABIAN (a career-best Richard Widmark
just kidding I hate this term “career best” it seems like all of the sudden
there’s this new trend and it keeps popping up in writings about film it’s so
stupid but seriously Widmark is amazing in it) loses all, yet he’s too outgoing,
smooth-talking, and passionate to fit my definition.
It seems the depressing film starts with
Jeanne Moreau’s character in La notte
(1961, Michelangelo Antonioni). Gorgeously photographed in black and white with
a sexy cast of young bougee partygoers and a career best Monica Vitti—sorry,
kidding again, but seriously Monica Vitti is intoxicatingly mesmerizing—the film
is a classic of decaying decadence. It’s revolutionary in cinema. It feels like
nothing that’s come before it, in the sense of how isolated the Moreau character is
from everything, and how this in turn isolates us from any conventional
identification of narrative development. Yet somehow Antonioni found an even colder tone with Monica Vitti, spectacular as woman-puzzle in the sublime L'eclisse (1962, Antonioni).
Anyway,
next there’s my favorite movie of all time! No wonder I’ve always loved Au hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert
Bresson). Again shot in black and white, the waif beauty Anne Wiazemsky’s career
best turn as blank object of suffering anchors the narrative. Her character
loves someone who only lives to hurt others. Also there’s the follow up: Mouchette (1966, Bresson), what could be
more depressing than the premise of an 11 year old girl killing herself? Jumping ahead, I'll say
that melodrama and brutal tragedy aren’t depressing, they’re disturbing. So stuff like Requiem for a Dream (2000, Darren
Aronofsky) or Precious (2009, Lee
Daniels).
The next phase, our contemporary era of the
depressing film, consists of Last Days
(2005, Gus Van Sant), L’humanité
(1999, Bruno Dumont), Synechdoche, New
York (2008, Charlie Kaufman), Melancholia
(2011, Lars von Trier), and Knight of Cups (2015, Terrence Malick). L’humanité I’d
like to give special attention to as being remarkable due to its exceptional
portrayal of a police officer who appears unable to experience emotion, yet not
in the sense commonly associated with a sociopath. PHARAON is something
different, with his childlike curiosity in emotions. Also L’humanité is proof of the tone from the beginning giving the film a
constant feeling of something unlike normal movies. So that’s
it. There’s the end of my list for now.
Oh and Che: Part Two (2008, Steven Soderbergh)
has to be included because it exemplifies a cohesively depressing tone in
contrast to the joyful excitement of Che:
Part One. Part Two is about
Guevara’s failed Bolivia campaign. And from the beginning it’s as if it’s
already apparent that the despair of imminent failure is upon us. I heard somewhere
that Malick planned a movie about the Bolivian phase of Che’s life and I’m not
sure if this had anything to do with Soderbergh’s film, but it sure is cool to
imagine it was.
Yet another
exception however, is the lone character within an ensemble: HELEN (a career best Lara Flynn Boyle) in Happiness (1998, Todd Solondz) or ZOE
TRAINER (Lori Singer) in Short Cuts
(1993, Robert Altman). Short Cuts is
astounding because of how vast it covers the spectrum of human emotions through
its ensemble of characters. In a twenty-four hour period, there are the vastly
different deaths that bookend the narrative—a woman accidentally responsible
for the vehicular manslaughter of a little boy/a man going psycho and responsible
for sexual frustration unleashed through the murder of a young girl. But also
it’s about how intricately each of these characters are connected to each
other. Then there’s the sweet people like say, a career best Madeline Stowe playing a woman
naturally beautiful in every aspect, contrasting someone like the career best Chris Penn
character who is approaching evil (and gets there).
But the
Zoe character is detached in every sense of my definition. And what’s more
enigmatic about the character is in one of the largest ensemble of stars, Lori
Singer’s the only one I’ve never heard of before or since. And maybe that’s
where this line of investigation has brought me—mystery.
The Turning (2020, Floria Sigismondi) is way better than I was expecting. And yes, like The Grudge (2020, Nicolas Pesce), I’m excited to love a January release that’s gotten very bad reviews. (I fear the impact of review aggregators.) The Turning possesses a formidable mastery of tone, ultimately that of schizophrenia.
But to
begin with, The Turning is set during
the mid-1990s and steeps itself in grunge mythos—namely depression. Then,
depression becomes terror. And what’s wonderful is the gradual turning of the
screw of it all. For a horror movie, for this
horror movie, the unsettling tone is unified by baiting us, the audience, with
a mystery that denies us any explanation; with characters whose motives,
virtue, or position within the realm of sanity we will never know.
There’s a
plot device in The Turning where the
governess (a career best Mackenzie Davis) gets a parcel delivered to her by
MRS. GROSE over breakfast, and its contents appear to be a series of 8” x 10”
charred negatives. What are they? For me, it’s what makes the film work.
(I imagine for others they’re nothing more than a frustrating red herring.) During
the film’s climax we find ourselves back in the black plates. Who sent the
envelope? The governess says her mother did. But her mother is in an
institution. MILES (a career best Finn Wolfhard) says that the reason he was
expelled, his explanation for what led him to violence against other students
was “they burned the only pictures he had of his dad.” Well, that’s scary. It’s
mysterious. And The Turning is a
movie that gives me all the answers I need. What ever happened to art?
Another
way the screw is turned is the kids, FLORA and Miles. Flora is alternately
adorably precocious or mischievous, stock in trade for Brooklynn Prince—in a
career best performance. And the mop-topped grunge-attired Miles is alternately
misunderstood or diabolical. Are the children sweet or evil? Are they possessed
by QUINT or is this all in the governess’ head?
Adding to
the atmosphere, beyond the gloomy grey overcast wet location,
is the film’s score. It would have been really cool to use actual period grunge,
or even at least like post grunge Olympia/pdx stuff like Elliot Smith or
Sleater-Kinney, but if I’m not mistaken we get modern interpretations of that
sound instead. I mean, good enough, I guess.
So yes, The Turning utilizes a depression element in its schizophrenic tone that I find seldom used successfully within the horror genre. Also, an effect of the tone taking such precedence is how well the film works as a horror movie with so little violence. I mean, what’s there like one violent scene with MS. JESSEL or something? All in all fun, and well put together.
