C'mon C'mon

So, Who's Watching Jesse?

or

"I Don't Like Feeling This, But I think He's Spoiled...or I Am"

Radio producer Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) has a full schedule of recording kids' questions that will make up one of those radio essays that show up all the time. He's a good listener, but his interactions are generic, asking open-ended questions to get a response. But, he gets a cry for help from his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffmann)—he hasn't heard from her for a year since their mother's death following an extended term of dementia and on the anniversary of it, they're talking, catching up. Viv's husband, a musician, has moved to Oakland for a job, and he's not coping, suffering from extreme bipolar disorder and she feels the need to help before something really bad happens. Johnny asks what she's gonna do with her kid (Woody Norman).

 

It's only for a week so Johnny flies from New York to Los Angeles and he'll stay with the kid, Jesse. Jesse's high maintenance and Johnny's low output—but he is a good listener. It's just the kid never stays in place, has a lot of energy, has a lot of questions, and although Johnny's moody, he's not always in the mood. He's never had kids, and in his "big" relationship, she left him. Now, he just sort of records...

Then, there's Jesse. He has a lot of questions, but most of them he keeps to himself because he's scared of them. He acts out, pretends he doesn't care, and plays "the orphan game," where, instead of being Jesse he pretends to be an orphan asking to be taken in. He's smart as a whip, but doesn't have any friends. He knows that Johnny's only temporary, but he misses his Mom and wonders why she's in Oakland and he's with Johnny. He asks Johnny why he and his mother don't get along. But, Johnny is better at asking questions than giving answers. Then, Johnny shows him his recording equipment.

"It's really cool in here!" he says, referring to the space in his head between the headphones. And, it is. It's also isolating, which can be good for concentration, but bad for interaction. But, during the "getting-to-know-each-other" phase, it comes in handy. And then Johnny's called and told he needs to do some recording in New York. "Would you like to go to New York?" he asks Jesse. "Yes" is his reply.

 

It's a bit of an open-ended question.

But, not to Viv. "You do NOT ask a child if he wants to go to New York without asking his mother first!" But, the ex is not improving, and without any other choices, and with Johnny's advocacy, she relents and Johnny takes Jesse to New York City to stay in his apartment, go to his recording sessions, and hang out, under Johnny's supervision. But, New York is a city that never sleeps and neither, evidently, does Jesse in New York. The city energizes him, makes him hyper and a little unruly, and Johnny snaps at him a couple times. This sends Jesse into a tail-spin—he's the farthest from his mother that he's ever been, he's spending time with strangers, and nothing is familiar. And Jesse's a little kid, and hasn't had the experience of handling his emotions for very long. It's difficult.

I loved C'mon C'mon, but then there is no way that I couldn't. Its elements are hard-wired into my DNA. My mother died of Alzheimer's. I know the pressures of dealing with lack of identity from them, and letting go of reality to keep them safe and happy...but more safe than anything. It's straight out of Lewis Carroll living with that disease and more times than you'd think you find yourself doing something counter to what makes sense. Because it's better for the person you love that you do.

And I did radio work and audio post-production for many (many) years, and I, too, thought it was "really cool" to live in the space between headphones. I became hyper-aware of sound, of it's qualities, it's speeds, it's up-ramps and fades, it's colors and qualities and textures. I took an audio recorder everywhere—on trips, on errands—trying to find that perfect sound (tough to do, as you never record what's making the sound so much as you're recording the space that it's in). Acoustically perfect rooms—with "dead" ambience—made me uncomfortable (nothing strange there, it does everybody, especially when you become aware of your own pulse!). I was much more comfortable being in "that" space.

And I was lousy at expressing my emotions. I suppressed them...until they exploded. Couldn't regulate them; I didn't think you had to. But, personality and mental status are like old cars. They don't work very well without some maintenance work. And sometimes—like with Alzheimer's—you have to let go of reality and look at the world objectively instead of subjectively, because sometimes the subjective is just plain wrong. And full-on brain repair? That's expensive. Maintenance is better. You get a lot more mileage that way.

Oh. And I love New York, too.

So, this one was as familiar and as comfortable as an old sweater and ratty slippers and there was no way that I could not be tickled by it. Sometimes you're challenged by a movie, sometimes you are taken someplace new—or some thought new—that you realize why you love movies so intensely. Sometimes, you're just moved by the proximity to life that art can achieve, even when presented in unfamiliar ways (like in black and white, for instance). Or the beauty of the image in a frame thoughtfully composed, but still giving you all the information you need.

That is being objective, though. Subjectively, I think it's one of the best movies of the year and I can't wait to show it to other people.

Wild (2014)

Cheryl Strayed On the Path
or
You'll Never Walk Alone

As you get older, you realize that you run the risk of walking a grooved track, well-worn and familiar. You can, literally, get yourself in a rut. The more you walk it, the deeper, you go—that is, the groove in the trail gets deeper, you don't necessarily go farther. The longer you walk it, the deeper it becomes, and you lose the perspective of the path, and it only gets harder to get out of it. The resolution is to find a different path, fresh yet unfamiliar, to go forward and to get where you need to go.

I've done some hiking (so I'm an expert for this movie, right?) and even gone on a pilgrimage or two. Even if you're walking with a group, it's a solitary exercise, making you aware of your surroundings, but, more profoundly, of yourself. You become more aware, often painfully, of your body on the journey. Each step, of the thousands you make, giving you feedback on how you're doing, updating you about your condition, the muscles in your legs, the blisters on your feet, the grooves in your shoulders made by the burden you carry. Mentally, you carry burdens, too, that in your solitude with no ability to confront them, you let them go. The mind fills with memories, stray thoughts, snippets of song and life that un-spool, keeping you company on the long journey of the path and the mind.

Wild, the new film by Jean-Marc Vallée (who made last year's The Dallas Buyer's Club) captures more than any movie I've seen the parallel tracks of road and mind that you encounter when you walk alone. Based on the memoir of Cheryl Strayed (née Nyland), it chronicles her (in the form of Reese Witherspoon, who also produced) taking on the Pacific Crest Trail after her life spiraled out of control following the death of her mother, Bobby (Laura Dern) at the age of 45.

We start at the low-point of the trip, at the top of a mountain. The view is gorgeous, awesome, intimidating. Cheryl's focus, however, is on her feet, specifically the right one. A too-loose pair of boots causes her feet to slide around in them, despite the cushioning of her dense socks. The toe-nail on her big toe is loose, so she makes the decision to pull it out (by comparison, it took James Franco 127 Hours—and 3/4 of that film to cut off his arm). The intense pain causes her to knock over her monstrous back-pack which kicks her boot—the right one, of course—into the ravine and out of sight. She freaks out, horrified, at the idea of retrieving it in bare feet. She screams at the Universe, then throws her other boot into the ravine, doubling her problem.

She probably could have saved herself a few hundred miles right there; she's got impulse control problems. In which case, every painful step she takes is a repudiation of her instincts.

The film starts there, then bounces back and forth in time and space along the trail (including the moments and life-choices that got her there). = Fleeting moments along the way recall the flashbacks and as she walks along snippets of song echo ghost-like in her head, along the lines of Springsteen's "Tougher Than The Rest,"  Wings' "Let 'Em In," "Homeward Bound," by Simon and Garfukle. The one that shows up the most is Los Incas' melancholy version of "El Condor Pasa," lyricised by Simon and Garfunkle to evoke want, basic life-choices and becoming. Apt choices—they make nice upbeat soundtracks for trudging in the dirt.

Wild keeps to a minimum the cliché of the shot looking-down-at-your-feet as you walk, instead there are many long shots held for a time as Witherspoon makes her way slowly through the frame. Memories of songs, overlayed by her vaporous accompaniment, the flashbacks bursting in with hard cuts to reveries of her mother, her life and death, and Cheryl's response by imploding her marriage with one-night stands followed by a heroin chaser, make up the bulk of the film. Stability crumbles, her foundation shatters, therapy is a joke, relationships disappear, and the only thing that lasts is a tattoo acquired in the divorce (to mark the occasion and her right shoulder). Then, just as quickly, we're back on the trail with another obstacle or encounter. The flashbacks are shot as a combination of recollection and impression, sparked by not-too-obvious cues (refreshingly). They're random and create a puzzle of influence as to why Cheryl went off the rails and one suspects (if one is to believe Nick Hornby's screenplay) it's because she focused on her mother's views in a moment of weakness, as opposed to her everyday wisdom. At one point, Cheryl says her mother is "the love of my life." Although Hornby never provides a moment of true epiphany, the realization that life needs to be taken in the macro, rather than the micro-incidental is articulated throughout. As Hemingway wrote: "There's no one thing that's true. It's all true." It's not the steps (or mis-steps) you take, but the journey that matters.

So, yes, you can throw your boots occasionally, but the important thing is that you keep walking, no matter which direction you find yourself going.

You'll get there.

Cheryl...Strayed