The Squid and The Ladybird
To paraphrase Italian Renaissance-artist-turned-Michael-Bay-CGI-Ninja-Turtle Michaelangelo, art is a gift from God, and the artist is simply a vessel through which it is expressed. But, never before have I ever encountered works that wanted me to know that the vessel created this work, and the vessel deserves your attention. I spent a few weekends watching and rewatching movies involving the film industry’s current indie mumblecore darlings, Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, specifically Frances Ha, Ladybird, Little Women, Marriage Story, The Squid and the Whale and The Meyerowitz Stories. Every film generally reflects a part of the director/writer/creator in some form, whether it’s through the themes, the dialogue, the cinematography, or any other of the millions of choices made during its inception; but, in these specific works, I felt as if I was being presented a self portrait — or more accurately, a selfie — loosely hidden behind the premise of a well-told story.
I’m going to attempt to capture a few of the defining features of these portraits, and, therefore, I have purposefully avoided reading about Baumbach and Gerwig as much as I can, besides their basic Wikipedia summaries. This means I’m probably going to be extremely off-base on some of my tea readings, but it makes this exercise in cold reading more fun. I also want to clarify that it’s very hard to read the phrase ‘indie mumblecore darlings’ and not assume it was written in disdain. I actually really enjoyed all of these movies; they are well-crafted, well-written and I recommend them to anyone that hasn’t seen them. To join in on the fun, stop and watch all of these movies before continuing on to this next part.
New York
I don’t know if you know this, but New York is the best place in the world. Nothing of note has ever happened in a city that isn’t New York. New York was built upon a giant glowing crystal of artistic talent and cream cheese, so if you ever leave New York, you will lose any talent you ever had. It is impossible to meet a single creative person outside of New York, and if you’re not in New York right now, you’re a hack. In fact, there are certain people who are born New Yorkers and find that their life force slowly fades as they live in awful war torn cities like Los Angeles or — *gasp* — Sacramento.
Parenting
The paradox of being a parent will continue throughout human history, or at least until we evolve to lose self-awareness; a parent has to be an infinite, infallible, self-sacrificial, God-like well of love, while also being a horribly flawed human being with hopes and desires. Failing to achieve this impossible task is forgivable… unless you’re not the parent that’s the artiste. If you’re not carrying the burden of being an artist, then you have no excuses for a lapse in parenting. I mean what else could you possibly be doing? What could a regular, non-artistic person have in their life to cause them to shirk their parental responsibilities? In fact, even amongst ‘artists,’ there are so many imposters. Everyone knows that the real artists are actually…
Writers
Oh, to be a ✨writer✨! We’re so privileged that they exist; where would society be without writers? We’re even more blessed when such forces of nature decide to sully themselves to make cheap, crass, disgusting Hollywood movies. They see life for what it truly is, they have mapped the crevices of the human psyche, they just feel so much more than the rest of us. The only thing better than a writer is an undiscovered writer, whose genius is simply incapable of being appreciated by the mere mortals of this time period.
Attractiveness
Despite being an understandably grouchy artist, it’s incredible how likable I am. It must be my natural charisma and gravitas — people seem to flock to me. When I was in middle school, the rich, popular girls liked me, and even when they didn’t, it was because of my free-spiritedness. When I was in high school, I was so tall, dark, handsome, and clever that college girls were interested in me. My friends and coworkers rely on my wisdom, and every individual life I’ve touched deeply cherishes my relationship with them, to the point that my ex-mother-in-law and I are still best friends. Even my ex can’t deny how likable (and handsome) I am.
Wow this is unbearable, why would you watch this?
Because they’re all pretty good movies! Like I said earlier, I don’t point these things out of sheer disdain; I point them out because they’re amusing and have a kernel of truth to them. Both Baumbach and Gerwig are very good writers who write good scripts that they then turn into good movies. It’s just amusing how much of themselves they are desperate to project into their work. They also seem to be aware of this as well, especially in The Squid and the Whale, where Baumbach takes a shot at his teenaged self for describing The Metamorphisis by Franz Kafka as “Kafka-esque,” or in Ladybird, where Timothée Chalamet’s character is impressed by our protagonist’s ‘very anarchist’ lack of a cell phone.
In our post-meta-hyper-modern culture, everything has already been done and said, our genuine selves are unique echoes of clichéd personalities, and I feel the need to point out the rule of threes here, instead of elaborating on my point. I can distill someone’s entire life down to a ‘New York indie playwright’ type and mostly be right, but at the same time, that doesn’t undercut their existence. We all have the urge to roll our eyes at the good writer for the sin of making good things. We want to go to our hipster coffee shop, but don’t want it to conform to the hipster-coffee-shop stereotype. We’re finding things, consuming them, and identifying them for what they are, but I propose we add a step. Let’s accept what comes with the territory, and more importantly, let’s enjoy it anyway.
