Notes on 'Quirky'

[children with angels]

I could do with a little help, if you guys are game, and it also might be an interesting topic to discuss...

I'm currently working on a conference paper about the idea of 'quirky' in recent American film. Obviously the word is one that gets thrown around fairly indiscriminately by critics, but I think it actually has a certain use in identifying a particular sensibility in much American indie cinema that I'm sure you're all pretty familiar with (for all I know it could have already been discussed here).

What I'm choosing to call 'quirky' is a particular type of American movie of the 90s and 00s that often has a style of slight detachment, slight artificiality, slight 'surreal'-ness; it will be somewhat strange, but not too strange; it is also usually comedic or semi-comedic (without this I think we tip into a darker kind of strange where David Lynch lives); it will often focus on young or young-ish characters (usually male and white and middle class); it will often be somewhat sentimental but in a different way to much of the mainstream; it can often use a lot of irony but not so much that it starts to feel cold - in many ways I think it's a bit of a comeback of sincerity in reaction against recent excesses of irony; it quite commonly has a child-like feel and valorizes sweetness, innocence, and (to an extent) naivety - though it might also have a fair dollop of inappropriate humour; it is often linked with 'hipster' culture.

Some directors and movies that I think come under the term (to be included, a director has probably made more than one that's applicable):

Wes Anderson is clearly the high priest of quirky. Then there's also Paul Thomas Anderson (pre Blood - PDL most of all), The Coen Brothers (sort of), Michel Gondry, Hal Hartley, Jared Hess, Spike Jonze, Jim Jarmusch (sort of), Charlie Kaufman, David O. Russell (especially Huckabees), Alexander Payne (sort of), Terry Zwigoff, Buffalo 66, American Splendor, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Thumbsucker, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Running With Scissors, Charlie Bartlett, Rocket Science, Winter's Passing,  Igby Goes Down, The Year of the Dog, Smart People, Garden State, Stranger Than Fiction, Lars and the Real Girl.

If you're interested in a more in-depth idea of what I'm talking about, you can read a piece I wrote on the subject back in 2005 (here: http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2005,7,7), or you can look at someone else dissing the trend (here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200709/quirk). I reckon that you probably know what I'm getting at though. I think it's definitely also around in contemporary indie music, on TV, in literature (Sufjan Stevens, Flight of the Conchords, McSweeney's, etc.). So my question is: can you think of some more examples that I haven't come up with? Either that, or we can have a discussion about the idea (or its pitfalls)...

[Alexandro]

I think I know what you mean. A lot of the names on your list don't really hold up to me however. It may be that people like Payne, PTA, Kauffman, because of a kind of generational coincidence were put into this category, but I don't see them as being just "quirky" in the sense you describe. There is no emotional detachment in any of those guys films.

This titles "Me and You and Everyone We Know, Thumbsucker, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Running With Scissors, Charlie Bartlett, Rocket Science, Winter's Passing,  Igby Goes Down, The Year of the Dog, Smart People, Garden State, Stranger Than Fiction, Lars and the Real Girl." are more to the point.

Which is why Juno is such a bad trip. It has already digested all those other films and turned it into a completely mainstream genre.

[children with angels]

I would disagree that there's no detachment in PTA, Payne, or Kauffman. What I mean by detachment is (sometimes only occasionally) taking a slightly distanced or ironic view to your characters, asking the audience not always to feel what they are feeling, but sometimes to judge them, laugh at them, be slightly confused by their actions. It doesn't mean that we aren't also moved by the films, just that we might sometimes be moved in a different way.

For Payne, I would say that Election is doing that throughout, as is About Schmidt. The former takes an undeniably very ironic view towards its characters. Schmidt is different, but it too is asking us to be somewhat distanced towards Nicholson - we are encouraged to be charmed by the sweet naivety of his voiceover, for example. His paris Je T'aime segment is textbook in this regard too. Sideways prob encourages the closest relationship to its protagonists (or at least to Miles - Payne is MERCILESS with Jack) of his movies, though even here we can chuckle slightly at Miles' pretensions if we wish. As I say though, Payne's a slight outsider to the trend I think.

PTA's relationship to his characters is often slightly distanced - look at the way he treats Dirk and Reed's musical ventures, for an obvious example. In fact, any character in his films played by John C Reilly is usually being gently, lovingly mocked. Our response to Barry Egan too is often one of confusion and disbelief - empathy too, of course, but filtered through a lens of slight incredulity.

Kaufman is even more capable than either of them of being detached and judgmental towards his characters: BJM and Human Nature are quite bitterly ironic in their treatment of their characters' flaws, and Adaptation is very self-critical, asking us absolutely to recognise Cage's pretentiousness (even whilst, of course, we somewhat admire him for it). Eternal Sunshine less so, admittedly, and I haven't seen Synechdoche yet.

It's not a question of saying these films aren't emotional, or that they're insincere, at all - as I said, I see quirkiness in some ways as a return of sentiment and sincerity. But then distance never means that we can't be moved by an artwork, it just has an effect on the ways through which we ARE moved.

[Alexandro]

Perhaps I was just trying to disassociate those filmmakers fro the others because I do feel "quirky" and "emotional detachment" have become a sort of gimmick for a generation of filmmakers and I don't think these guys use it (if they do) in that way at all. I think most filmmakers who do this do so in an attemp to create sympathy for unlikeable characters (Wes Anderson being the main example), or even for unlikeable situations that would otherwise be repellent or depressing. In that way, emotional detachment is used as a tool to achieve the opposite.

So it's not so much that the others are not using some sort of emotional detachment as that they do different things, riskier and bolder with it. Payne doesn't do anything to make you like the characters in Election. I would say he does everything he can to make them dislikeable. He mocks them, but the humanity of the characters it's so strong that the audience feels engaged with what will happen to them. And he's very good at this because he always has it both ways. You can really have a laugh with how clueless Schmidt is, and at the same time you can feel his pain so much as to be moved by his sincerity. PTA, I'm not so sure. I think he is a highly emotional director and his films reflect that. He never seems to be tottally detached from the characters as Payne. He not only understands them, but feels the way they feel. I don't know If I'm being clear, but every character in every PTA film wears his emotions in his sleeve, which would be the opposite of the still people of The Life Aquatic or even The Royal Tenenmbaums. Kaufman is the same case for me, it's just that he can be tougher in humiliating his characters. He knows this feeling, so he can go through it each time. Synecdoche, is kind of a new direction, if only because most of the humor is low key so every painful situation the characters goes through is felt with more intensity and yes, less detachment than say, Nicolas Cage's anxieties in Adaptation.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Sunshine Cleaning made me want to gut all my screenplays so I can make money.

[pete]

it's just another attempt to create a utopia amongst filmmakers.  A lot of their approaches are reminiscent of magical realism, actually, in particular the attention to detail and the non-sequiturial passages that do more to flesh out the characters than the plot.  These films tend to turn what is traditionally "mise en scene" into characters.  I think a number of these films have had their roots in the French films of the 60s and American films from the 70s.  But I think the audiences too have been conditioned throughout the ages to find quirks more and more entertaining - with shows like The Office doing so well.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Quirk isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the approach is what is so sickening lately.  It's as if there is some sort of checklist "Character has (a) ritual, (b) compulsion, (c) limited goal.  (a) and (b) interrupt each other once (c) is pursued, character first blames friends and family, then connects with friends and family, overcomes either (a) or (b) and embraces what is left, thus achieving (c)."  Which, in and of itself, seems to mirror the life of the screenwriters who fall prey to writing in this style.

[Pas]

I'm not film theorist or whatever but all I can say about film that I deem quirky is that there is a ''love it or hate it'' factor associated to each of him. Like I love Rushmore and absolutely hate Thumbsucker for almost the same reasons that I love the other.

This may not be logical/relevant

[children with angels]

I've just had my first peer-reviewed academic article published, and it develops at length what I'm defining as the 'quirky' sensibility. If anyone's interested enough to read 16 pages about it, then they can do so here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie/contents/notes_on_quirky.pdf. Some of the films I talk about in more depth are Punch-Drunk Love, The Royal Tenenbaums, Adaptation, and The Science of Sleep.

Also, more generally, I'm excited by the site the piece features on, which launched today. It's called Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, and is a relaunch of a seminal British film journal called Movie that started in the 60s. I'm the newest member of the editorial board, which is a total honour, because it means I'm working with some of my absolute idols in film criticism. I would imagine it's not going to be to everyone's taste, but I wanted to give it a shout-out just in case anyone is interested in following its development. You can find it here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie. The first issue also contains great articles on The Wire, No Country & Three Burials, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and loads of others.

[Reinhold]

i printed your piece and left it out on the magazine table where i work. good stuff!

(read the first 9 so far-- i am at work so i have to do my job a little bit too)

[children with angels]

Hey, great - thanks for the interest! Hope you like it.