6 More Rules (for making beauty and resistance)
Reinforcement for art as a resistant force, words from the wise on politics and craft and another mighty SL list.
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Today
Reflections on making art in crisis from a designer and a film director
What does a political film even mean?
6 Rules I abide by for filmmaking with cultural cause
Check out these 6 Rules for Style I wrote a while back!
I read a short reflection last week from an architect in Minneapolis named Anne McDonald. She talked about her experience resisting, community building and exercising solidarity, the latter of which is nonnegotiable unless you feel comfortable being placed in the category of outright fill in the blank (white-supremacist, fascist-apologist, absolute goon). At the start of ICE’s escalating violence in Minnesota, she was scheduled to attend a design-related trip to London and after wrestling with her feelings of the complex timing, she decided to go.
This inner tension, between urgency and practice, is shared between artists across mediums. A hesitation brought about by the feeling that the work we toil over is frivolous, impertinent to real efforts of advocacy in these dire times. What Anne McDonald realized on her trip to London, while maintaining correspondence with her family under threat in Minnesota, is the same understanding required to harness works of art and craft as powerful resistance efforts, which they are and are destined to be.
“That’s the duality. The work and the witness. The beauty and the resistance.” — McDonald
As a filmmaker, the act of using my voice loudly against overwhelming bigotry and normalized cruelty is inseparable from my engagement with and investment in the form. As such, the stories that pull me in are ones that confront harsh social realities. But not every filmmaker confronting political matters sees it in such a way.
In a recent roundtable of European filmmakers, Jafar Panani, director of the marvelous It Was Just An Accident, said he doesn’t consider his filmmaking political *GASP*. If you’re familiar with Panani’s work, you know they circulate the subjects of injustice and oppression and center the diverse landscapes and communities of Iran (and they’re all excellent). He doesn’t see himself as a political activist though. Instead, he considers himself a maker of “social films with political subjects.” If that distinction isn’t exactly clear, he elaborates by saying his definition for a political film is more of a federally-dosed propaganda piece that divides people along ideological lines, the good and the bad, stripped of all empathy. His films, on the other hand, ruminate on the interior worlds that make a person do good or bad things, believing every ideology should be “respected” to contribute meaningfully to the emotional landscape of a film.
You can watch that interview here.
There’s part of this sentiment that I undeniably concur with. Movies with lofty political ideals must always commit to the opposing perspective, which actually strengthens the impact of the message it’s touting. BUT, I align much less with his thoughts on applying a mutual respect to every ideology. Yes, I think a good film must apply the same sensitivity to all of its perspectives (I mean that’s just strong character); however in my brain respect decrees compromise, a capitulation to the standards set by indubitable oppressors. Respect and sensitivity function as distinct in my ideation process and when I’m dreaming up a character that represents a significant ideological obstacle for a character or their world, I do it with all the empathy I can muster and not an ounce of bothsidesing repute.
But Movies don’t have to be historical relics to be politically evocative and they sure as hell don’t have to be about politics.
Some films aren’t as subversively political as Pillion (Harry Lighton) or staunchly as A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick), one about a timid gay chap living in a quaint borough of London finding solace in the sexually liberating embrace of a biker gang’s seductive head honcho, and the other about a conscientious objector during WWII that’s based on the true account of Franz Jägerstätter.
These kinds of culture-resistant works, defying classic queer tropes and oppressive political trajectories, got me thinking about what things I consider immutable in the pursuit of making beauty and resistance, which led me to this list.
1. Give your audience more than they’re prepared for
Everyone is conditioned by norms in some way or another. Go into every project with the intention of challenging them.
2. Ask ALIVE questions
A film is as alive as the questions it asks. Ask ones that warrant grand, complex discoveries.
3. Find the levity
People are more than their suffering. Uncover the joy, and in my case, the lens for comedy because I am a big believer in droplets of comedy as a framework for drama, smuggling in truth under the hood of laughter and allowing a message to land deeper and linger longer.
4. Make no compromise for neutrality
Art that tries to appease everyone often ends up saying nothing at all.
5. Trust the tension
The unresolved is what shapes the soul of a story. Let moments linger, unsettle, and compel you to reckon with what you’d rather resolve too quickly.
6. Depth over Range
A film that boldly reaches beneath the surface and connects with a discerning audience does much more cultural excavation than a film that reaches millions and delivers a message of convenient consensus.