Depression

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…

1.     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.
2.       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.
3.        a slow pace, little action or plot development.

     I’m not talking about depression really so much as I’m talking about the cinematic effect of a feeling of depression.

     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). And dealing with the same subject as La notte there’s also maybe the most colorful, romantic tone of depression in Le mépris (1963, Jean-Luc Godard).

     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.