Art History (2011)

Director: Joe Swanberg

Screenplay: Josephine Decker, Kent Osborne and Joe Swanberg

Cast: Joe Swanberg as Sam / director; Josephine Decker as Juliette / actress; Kent Osborne as Eric / actor; Kris Rey as Hillary; Adam Wingard as Bill

Ephemeral Waves

 

“Art History” becomes an apt title – opening with a quotation of trying to replicate eroticism, this begins, in the middle of a film scene being shot, with the struggles of even getting a condom on in the midst of acting out a sex scene let alone within such a vulnerable moment, in such nudity in front of a director and his cameraman. Part of the Mumblecore movement, there is a meta-narrative of this being about a tiny film crew, the director Joe Swanberg playing a director, made by a tiny crew of people, all about trying in the film within this film to shoot a sex scene. What the film is this crew is after is to debate, almost lost in a fixation with trying to recreate the intimacy of a romance between a woman (Josephine Decker) and a man (Kent Osborne) after one night of dating, as it instead becomes a fixation for the director, more so as he begins to realize the pair are becoming romantically close.

What the film is raises the concerns that spiral out in the emotional climax, that this is meant to be a film about sexual desire from Joe Swanberg which willingly bares it all, whilst scrutinizing this entire ritual of trying to record these acts. Filmmaker Josephine Decker and Kent Osborne are bravely comfortable doing explicit full frontal nudity, comfortable in a natural eroticism which is beautiful, but it is depicted here with a matter-of-factness which is contrasted by all the questions of the director’s male gaze. This becomes more so a concern as he finds himself intermingling with the central pair, who have become romantically close between filming, in an antagonistic way, which is explicitly where the film eventually reaches its final scene and the director’s follies. The film itself is walking a fine line between whether the explicitness has any point to it, lengthy scenes of just the actors played by Decker and Osborne laying about acting out sensual groping. The title might be pretentious except that, especially with how art history itself, beyond cinema, has sensuality as a significant subject, this concern is one which has been seen both in the work itself and interpretations by scholars later on, and here we see this concern come in terms of the nitty-gritty of depicting this, and how one's emotions can become a hindrance and influence upon this depiction. The film has another concern about the personal nature as Swanberg’s director, as his actress and actor are romantically connected she the longer they are playing two people having this intimacy, becomes almost threatened or effected by it to the point of an eventual self-sabotage as the scene keeps being filmed, least in terms of burning at least one bridge or two with people he works with.

The borders between acting and their relationships blur more and more, with the two actors in a relationship, the women connecting to the man, the man however planning to end the relationship once the production has ended. The border in treating the actors, especially Decker’s Juliette, is another concern, between respect and exploitation, sinking more and more as the intimacy of this tiny crew including female and male friends still cannot catch the issues with the production itself. The film Art History itself is bleeding in this concern as, whilst with the equal opportunity depiction full nudity, that concern with the point of depicting the eroticism as matter-of-factly here becomes a huge concern in terms of the emotional exploitation for her as an actress far more than for the actor, something the film is aware of. It also raises the strangeness of the ritual itself, filming an acted out sex scene, with all the concerns of whether a replication of sex can capture the power of the sensuality even, something even hardcore pornography can be accused of missing the point of even with real contact.

With this bubbling and uncomfortable mood growing in the filming, there is a joke early on, the group around this a healthy group of late twenty to mid-thirty year olds in their own little world, which gets to the concern the title suggests with depicting eroticism, in a crass but perfect way. That, with one of the men in the group having drawn a picture of an act of lovemaking between a man and a woman we do not see that the others in group joke about. One where, alongside pointing out the woman’s spine looks like it is broken as a result of mid-coitus, it looks closer to a crucifixion as the drawing is kindly mocked for missing the desired results. A lot of Art History too, a film some will instantly struggle with as a seventy plus minute film of nothing by small conversation, is paradoxically about the fact we have all this tiny talk of little, of this “mumbled” conversation the mumblecore genre was coined upon, but the revelations come in what is unsaid and acted out. Even in this joke scene about the drawing, this is not drama where the dialogue eventually carries a monologue of emotional clarity or exposition, where also poaradoxically the dialogue for all its extensiveness is not as important as what is not spoken aloud.

The same can be said of how the film looks too, as stripped back as a film as possible as a digital production, the day time scenes matter-of-factly flat and lived in as the world between filming this sex scene over and over is ordinary. At night, when the filming starts however, everything develops an unnatural mood which emphasizes the mood even if it was not Joe Swanberg’s intention. At night is where the tumultuous nature of all this film’s drama, its drive, belongs, the conflict between a director struggling with his work to his manipulation of his cast as a result of this obsessiveness comes about, where the bedroom they are filming in eventually becomes a void separated from the rest of the world by possessing the only light. Even the swimming pool is magical, probably the only place where true sensuality in the filming transpires as, with the crew sometimes skinny dipping within it, they look like unisex nymphs in the midst of the green-lit pool disconnected from the world. Aptly it is here, with someone making themselves the villain in their swimming shorts, when this magic is lost and rightly gets slapped, [Major Spoiler] Joe Swanberg with the best scowling face with the deserved slap to the face for his jealously having taken over [Spoilers End].

I am unsure how to gauge Art History whilst I praise it. It is, honestly, a work which only really grows in context of seeing other Joe Swanberg films, a case of a filmmaker where it might be to say they exist to build up as one large production, which is an issue if the pieces are not all available. My previous experience with Joe Swanberg was negative, but time has changed, and a film like this does intrigue as much as it feels like a piece of a filmography which needs to expand with more pieces beyond.