ISSUE #6
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Another Friday, another installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
Our March programming is coming to a close THIS SUNDAY (3/19) at 2:00pm with a special ONE-TIME ONLY MATINEE EVENT: the WEST MI PREMIERE of ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Poitras, 2022).
This most recent work from director Laura Poitras earned her yet another Oscar nomination this past weekend for Best Documentary Feature. The film features an “epic, emotional and interconnected story about internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.”
You can find a column featuring other works by Poitras, plus information about the screening, later in the newsletter.
But before that, we wanted to reflect on our events from last week. A huge thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate International Women’s Day with our screening of Little Women. And we cannot overstate just how special our screening of Aftersun was — many members of the GRFS team had not seen the film, which also seemed to be the case for the majority of you who came out to the event. In the week since, many of us have been reflecting on the film and the experience of watching it in a theatre full of people who love cinema. So that is exactly what our first column this week is about…
AN AFTERSUN AFTERWORD
[BY: DAVID BLAKESLEE]
Another week, another enticing and exciting invitation to enjoy great cinema extended by the Grand Rapids Film Society. A couple weeks ago in this newsletter, I shared my impressions of a memorable night spent watching the first two episodes of TWIN PEAKS with an auditorium full of enthusiasts, many of them decked out in attire that paid homage to characters both major and minor that pop up throughout the course of that uniquely fascinating TV series. Now I’m here to share a few impressions that have lingered over the past few days following my viewing of AFTERSUN, a remarkable film that made its West Michigan theatrical premiere facilitated through the efforts of GRFS.
Earlier this year, I watched AFTERSUN at home through streaming media. I’d seen a lot of enthusiasm expressed online about the debut feature from director Charlotte Wells following its run through the international film festival circuit last summer and fall. While I routinely absorb much film-related hype on the internet that doesn’t necessarily prompt me to regard many movies as automatic “must-sees,” there was a tone to the positive reviews of Aftersun that drew me in and made me curious to check it out for myself. They weren’t just ringing endorsements of a well-made movie that held the reviewer’s attention. I was intrigued by the profoundly introspective emotional meditations that Aftersun prompted in so many who took time to share their thoughts on Letterboxd, IMDb, or other cinema-focused websites. Films that stir up that kind of cathartic response are the ones that stick with me the most and invite me back for rewatches over the course of weeks, months, years. I got the sense that Aftersun was a work of art that was already well on the way to becoming a benchmark cinematic experience for many in its audience that had been privileged to see it themselves.
When I had the chance to watch it on my home theater set up, I was impressed and moved by what I saw. This evocative, vividly impressionistic account walks us through a young girl’s vacation week spent with her father on the shores of the Mediterranean at a resort in western Türkiye (Turkey). Over the course of a hundred minutes, we learn a few things about their relationship, including numerous details that likely resonate with many viewers. The father, Calum, and daughter, Sophie, are Scottish by birth, though he left that nation, Sophie, and Sophie’s mother behind as he pursued other priorities. Sophie is 11 years old — bright, perceptive, and intuitive. Each day brings new opportunities to sharpen her observational skills as she detects patterns, figures things out, grows in confidence to speak her truth in response to the evasions, hypocrisies, and miscellaneous self-deceptions that adults routinely produce. She’s at that stage of life where the flaws and failures of the dad she loves so much are becoming more apparent to both of them. The film largely focuses our attention on the emotional journey that began with this formative experience of Sophie’s youth and brought her to the present-day reconstruction, via a deft blend of personal memories and consumer-grade video snippets, of those pivotal encounters some 15-20 years or so later in her life.
As rewarding as the home video screening was, I knew that seeing Aftersun in a theater full of viewers who were likely to strongly connect with the film would be a qualitatively different (and superior) experience. Clearly witnessing the images constructed by Wells and cinematographer Gregory Oke on a larger screen enhanced their beauty and immersive impact. Coupled with the exquisitely subtle and suggestive, largely ambient musical soundtrack of composer Oliver Coates (and yes, a few strategically chosen nostalgia inducers from turn-of-the-millennium pop archives), Aftersun’s lyrical unfurling of wistful memories quietly creates a transformative sensory-intellectual wash. It simultaneously connects us with the characters portrayed on screen while also conjuring up what I have to believe are floods of personal recollections, as fragments of their stories intersect and mirror certain profound moments of our own.
Well, maybe that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I entered the lobby of Wealthy Theatre last Friday, but that’s what I took away from the evening’s entertainment. A sense of sincere gratitude for the privilege of being in the auditorium to soak in those powerful minutes that followed the end of the film, in the company of an audience composed of folks who’d been similarly affected at a deep level by what we’d just seen and heard together. And thoughts of sheer delight knowing that a group like the GRFS is at work planning to create more occasions like this one — chances to explore the full range of thoughts and emotions that cinema is capable of provoking within us.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
LAURA POITRAS SHORT FILMS
Prepare for our screening of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed this weekend with these shorts from director Laura Poitras:
The Program (Laura Poitras, 2012)
Death of a Prisoner (Laura Poitras, 2013)
Project X (Laura Poitras & Henrik Moltke, 2016)
WORLDWIDE INSIDE JOKES
[BY: JACKSON EZINGA]
An excerpt from the screenplay for Fargo (1996) by Joel and Ethan Coen:
I love the Coen brothers, and I love Fargo. I also love my partner, Jeen, and I love showing him movies I love that he’s never seen before. When we watched Fargo, his first time and probably my 6th or 7th, we watched the above sceneplay out. When Marge walked out the door, Jeen said “Wow,” and then in his best imitation of Norm’s Midwest accent said “I’ll fix ya some eggs.”
We both laughed. It’s probably my favorite breakfast scene in cinema (the scene where Reynolds Woodcock orders breakfast in Phantom Thread [Anderson, 2017] being an extremely close second). A loving husband fixin’ his wife some eggs, which to Norm is a huge plate of eggs, ham, and toast with just a cup of coffee for himself before Marge goes to work on a case that will change her life forever. This simple scene gives the audience a glimpse into Marge’s quiet, quaint, and loving home life which contrasts heavily with the madness of the crime she’s about to investigate. It’s an extraordinary moment of visual character development. Showing, not telling, which the Coens are masters of.
Ever since we watched Fargo together, whoever gets out of bed first on lazy weekend mornings will sometimes say “I’ll fix ya some eggs” in an exaggerated Midwest accent before making breakfast. We laugh. This past weekend, I came home from Detroit after a long and busy week of pre-production on a feature film that I’m the 1st Assistant Director on. Jeen woke up and made a big pan of scrambled eggs, toast, chicken flautas, and a bowl of fruit. Even though he didn’t say it, the first thought I had when I sat down and saw my plate was “I’ll fix ya some eggs.” I smiled and enjoyed my breakfast with my favorite person before I shoved off back to the hectic world of independent filmmaking.
It’s a little inside joke we have from a movie adored by millions worldwide. We’re probably not the only couple that has this joke, but it feels like it’s ours.
UPCOMING EVENTS
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Poitras, 2022)
WHAT: An epic, emotional, and interconnected story about internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin. 2023 Academy Award Nominee: Best Documentary Feature. WEST MI PREMIERE! ONE-TIME ONLY EVENT!
WHEN: This Sunday, March 19th, 2:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every FRIDAY and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS!
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Look for ISSUE #7 in your inbox NEXT FRIDAY, 3/24!
Until then, friends…
