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West of Her: Into the Great Wide Open

February 6, 2018 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

Stay honest, Mr. Lincoln. – Jane, West of Her

Directed by Ethan Warren, West of Her tells the story of Dan (Ryan Caraway), a young man searching for purpose. Alone and adrift in life, he signs on with a mysterious organization, agreeing to travel the country with the enigmatic Jane (Kelsey Siepser) as they unveil mysterious and enigmatic street art in the middle of the night.

Set against the backdrop of the American mid-west, West of Her is both an engaging and cinematic film that, at times, feels like a bold experiment. In many ways, the film feels almost like it could have been directed by Terrence Malick, which is a high compliment for first-time director, Ethan Warren. His use of broad cinematography surrounds his leads in a way that makes them appear small by comparison, emphasizing their insignificance on the grand stage. What’s more, his use of improvisation brings a sense of authenticity to the conversation between the two leads, creating a sense of genuine honesty between them. All of these factors add up to create a film that is engaging and candid in its quest for meaning in our disconnected culture.

In many ways, West of Her is a love letter to the millennial experience in that, while it struggles to find clear answers, it is more than willing to engage the murkiest of questions. Issues of belief, identity and our purpose in this life flow freely within the film in ways that neither judge nor belittle those asking them. At one point, the film makes an appropriate reference to the Wizard of Oz and, in doing so, offers a callback to the mysterious man behind the curtain. As the ‘great and powerful’ Wizard proved to be frustratingly ordinary, so too does Dan and Jane’s endeavor seem lost at the hands of a faceless organization who remains quiet on their reasoning behind the project. Still, while Jane accepts their mission to lay their art as an end to itself, Dan wants to know more. He yearns to find his place in a universe that seems overwhelmingly large and imposing against their own individual unimportance. He claims to have no particular system of belief but cannot accept that there is no meaning to life. (“You believe more than you think you do,” Jane prods.)
But what exactly does Dan believe? Certainly, he wants to believe that his work has meaning. The artistic endeavor that they’re involved in seems to be driven by some end goal, but the purpose eludes him. (“It’s not just the mystery,” he says. “I think it has something to do with the message.”) The tiles seem to offer some words of hope and connectedness to those around him, yet he and Jane still move around like nomads. He also believes in the reality of love (although it could also be argued that Jane believes in the power of that more than he does). Ultimately, however, Dan seems to be caught in an ongoing stream of ideologies, striving desperately to discover something true and honest. (Incidentally, Jane also seems to be one who used to believe something secure… until life’s tragedies shattered her confidence in anything real.)

Nevertheless, rather than settling for an ending that simply acquiesces to the meaninglessness of life, West of Her also remains confident about the nature of purpose. Eternally hopeful, Dan seems to recognize that, even though the doesn’t have all the answers, he still believes there are answers. Though it is unafraid to ask the most difficult questions of this generation, there is an optimism about the film that remains palpable. Yes, Dan may be dissatisfied with the traditional answers given—several beautiful shots with a church background suggest a spiritual heritage—but he is very interested in engaging them. Dan wants to believe something.

He’s just not sure what he’s looking for. Yet.

In the end, West of Her is a surprisingly engaging and philosophical film with grand intentions. Director Ethan Warren builds a solid visual tension with his cinematography while the leads carry their heavy load effectively and authentically. Wrestling with some of life’s most difficult questions, West of Her reveals the cries of a generation struggling with their own disconnectedness from truth and each other.

 

West of Her is available on iTunes and Google Play.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: belief, Ethan Warren, Kelsey Siepser, millennials, Ryan Caraway, Terrence Malick, West of Her

Go West, Young Man – 1on1 with Ethan Warren (director, WEST OF HER)

February 6, 2018 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

http://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/1on1-with-Ethan-Warren-West-of-Her.mp3

Directed by Ethan Warren, West of Her tells the story of Dan (Ryan Caraway), a young man searching for purpose. Alone and adrift in life, he signs on with a mysterious organization, agreeing to travel the country with the enigmatic Jane (Kelsey Siepser) as they unveil mysterious and enigmatic street art in the middle of the night.  While the basic plot outline stems from true events, Warren argues that the heart of the narrative grew from his own spiritual journey.

“The idea came from a couple of places. The plot comes from the unexplained phenomenon called ‘The Toynbee Tiles’, a mysterious street-art initiative that has been happening for many decades. That’s the project that the characters participate in. More of the story came from this feeling that I was having at the time when I wrote it in my mid-20s. I was feeling sort of lost in the universe and [was] looking for something bigger than myself that I could feel a part of. That’s what the protagonist Dan is a part of and a lot of the dialogue comes from me at that time in my life.”

Featuring unknown actors for the key leads is certainly no easy task, especially when the film features them in virtually every scene. Thankfully, Warren found two exceptional young talents in Siepser and Caraway, who bring a charisma to their roles that feels natural and honest. In order to find his leads, Warren argues that he was seeking actors that broke traditional stereotypes.

“I was really looking for strong, unusual personalities,” he begins. “When I put out the casting notice for Dan, I said something like ‘He’s not an alpha male but he’s also not withdrawing or afraid either’. It was a lot of what he’s not… So, that became kinda tough when you’re looking for people who lack certain qualities. It was because I think of him as kind of a unique figure. He’s not really aggressive and assertive but he’s also someone who’s not going to hang back and engage with a confrontation. When I was looking for Jane, it was again that she was kind of a strong-willed character. She needs to have a shield up a lot of the time but she also needs to show her vulnerability. It was really treading the line where a lot of films sort of fall one side or the other.”

What’s more, West of Her also features stunning cinematography as Dan and Jane travel across the United States together. Using broad landscapes which dwarf the leads in their scope, Warren states that this use of setting provided important visuals that emphasize the character’s emotional journeys.

“The movie takes place over 10 states and about 3000 miles… So, much of it takes place in these really wide open spaces and vistas where the actors look so small compared to this natural beauty around them,” he explains. “I think that really serves as an important image, showing how small they are compared to the environment around them. It works on a story level because they are these people who are participating in a project that requires them to live like ghosts and not engage in people around them but they’re also battling this loneliness. So, to show them in these giant settings felt like an evocative image for me.”

Interestingly, while the visuals and location remain essential to the film, there is an authenticity to the dialogue that helps to set the film apart from others of this genre. Although the script was completed beforehand, Warren points out that much of the dialogue came from the actors themselves.

“What’s so unique about the movie is that a good portion of the dialogue was actually written by the actors in that moment,” he claims. “It’s not a fully improvised film because I had a 90 day script but, starting early on, we did start doing a lot of improvising when we realized that we were going to be shooting in a lot of locations that we didn’t always have a scene for. After that, I really started letting the actors play a lot more fast and loose with their dialogue.”

Furthermore, Warren also notes that the dialogue evolved over the course of the shoot as the actors built up their own relationship with one another.

“We shot in sequence which is rare on most films but, in this case, because we were shooting a road movie, it made the most sense,” he remembers. “Only a couple of scenes were shot out of sequence. So, because of that, the actors were getting to know each other at the same rate that they are in the movie. For example, when they started in Chicago on Day One, that was the first day when they were together. Three days later, when we were in the Great Plains, the characters were three days later in their relationship.”

“On Day Three or Four, we got out of the car for a bathroom break at a rest stop that, in the back, had a recreation of a Civil War era village. We knew we had to shoot there. It was sunset. The place was empty. The owners said to go for it. I said to the actor that they should, get to know each other, walk around and not worry too much about staying in character. And that ended up being some of the most exciting stuff that we’d shot so far. From then on, I told the actors to sort of let the inspiration strike them and, if the dialogue felt sort of natural or if they wanted to play around a little bit, that that was more exciting for me. It helped bring the movie alive in many ways and made the characters a little more three dimensional than what I’d wrote.”

Through his use of natural visuals and fluid dialogue, it could be argued that West of Her echoes the work of Terrence Malick (Tree of Life, Song of Songs). When asked if Malick had been an influence, Warren confesses that the comparisons are intentional.

“Before we’d started, I’d read an interview with Malick,” he says. “When I’d first started to think about shooting this movie, it was when The Tree of Life happened and he had a line in some interview about how he seeks unrepeatable moments. That really stuck in my head while writing and through production. That was something I wanted to capture and that’s exactly what we did.”

With its emphasis on humanity’s quest for what is real, West of Her reveals itself to be a love letter to the millennial experience. This notion becomes particularly evident in the film’s interest in exploring what it means to be authentic, both as individuals and in our relationships with one another.

“Jane has a complicated relationship with ideas like [authenticity],” Warren states. “She spends much of the film putting up a shield and not allowing anybody to connect with her, as much as Dan wants to. On the other hand, while she is more closed off to the world, she seems more optimistic in many ways and more authentic in the way she views their work. She views it as something that’s bringing joy to the world and really acknowledging her inability to control things and her inability to know the what the meaning of her life is. She’s more sort of open to that confusion and fully engaging to that than Dan is. Then, the journey of the film is them bringing those perspectives together. So, if she views their work as something that is bringing joy into the work and is good for its own sake, then he is able to cause a change in her that you can feel that way but also engage with your work in a way that brings sincerity and meaning into your own life… I think of myself as someone who really looks for authenticity in the world. I try to bring that into my work. When I was feeling that sense of lost and confusion that led to the film, what I wanted was an authentic connection with the world. I think that creating this film has brought me to that.”

According to Warren, much of this search for authenticity stems from our culture’s current tendency towards isolation. As we are driven increasingly into our devices to maintain relationships, he also recognizes that it has caused this generation to question the very nature of belief as well.

“I think so much our lives are divided. You see so many people are working remotely or just working from home,” Warren enlightens. “We communicate with texting and keep in touch with so many of my friends but never hear their voices. When I was experiencing this sort of confusion that sort of motivated me to write the script, I was living a very similar, isolated lifestyle… As I said, that lead me into a real crisis of whether I’m just floating through the void and not engaging with the world in a meaningful way. When it comes to the element of faith and belief in something, what I wanted to explore was the real terror that comes when you don’t have anything to hold on to, whether it’s emotionally or spiritually and the way that we look to soothe that and comfort that.”

 

West of Her is available for rent or purchase on iTunes and Google Play.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Film, Interviews, Podcast Tagged With: authenticity, belief, Ethan Warren, Loneliness, millennials, West of Her

Get Re-Enchanted: Stranger Things 2, Pop Culture & God

October 16, 2017 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment


i am
*so* psyched
for Stranger Things 2

like, *psyched* psyched

i want more mystery,
more stylish 80s homage,
more dope soundtrack,
way more Eleven;
i want #justiceforbarb,
Eggos ate raw,
Winona Ryder everything,
coffee and contemplation

honestly, who can deny
that the whole
Stranger Things thing –
like much of what
it lovingly calls back to –
is one of those
oh so pleasant
serendipitous revelations;
one of those things where,
now that it’s happened,
you can no longer imagine
the pop landscape
without it

however,
(serendipity be damned),
why?

why such a strong reaction
to Stranger Things,
by so many,
seemingly
“out of nowhere”
?

i thought
Alissa Wilkinson
(in a Christianity Today
article called
“How ‘Stranger Things’
Re-Enchants the World”
)
was onto an answer:

In a modern world—where science can explain everything from depression to deja vu to the Aurora Borealis… even religious folk yearn for a re-enchanted world, one where fairies, or demons, or other intelligences exist just beyond what we can see.

What we’re after is joy—the serendipity of discovery, the thrill of mystery, the feeling of excitement lurking around the corner…

Our desire for magic doesn’t let up… art still seems best poised to capture that magic. Stranger Things is just the latest version of this yearning…

agreed for sure:
part of the draw,
the allure
of Stranger Things,
is that it sort of
re-imbues the world
with a magic,
a mystery,
an enchantment;
Stranger Things
takes the “regular world”
and adds the “upside down” –
takes plain old “things”
and makes them “stranger”
(again)

so is that it?
Stranger Things
speaks to us so
cuz it’s a reminder that
“there’s more to things
than meets the eye”
?
and cuz the experience
of that is… fun?

no, that’s not (just) it

as Wilkinson notes,
the show is
“the latest version
of this yearning
[for magic];”
Stranger Things is also
powerful precisely
because it participates
in this long line of
pop culture manifestations
of a specific
human yearning

what yearning,
specifically?

a yearning not only for magic –
read: the supernatural –
but for a universe
*built* with and on magic;
a magical universe
that not only
brings “joy,”
but makes possible
an explanatory
and existential
completeness
that an un-strange,
mundane,
materialistic,
naturalistic universe of
pure scientism
actually *cannot*

a yearning, in other words,
for a universe of meaning

what meaning?

literally *any* meaning

for in an un-strange,
mundane,
materialistic,
naturalistic universe of
pure scientism,
science is the only
game in town;
but though science excels
at explaining the “how”
of things,
it is exceedingly bad
at explaining the “why;”
in fact, science
does not,
*cannot*
speak the language of “why”
at all, and therefore
cannot lend meaning
in the sense we mean

you need things to be a bit…
stranger…
for that kind of meaning;
you need a magic universe
of possibilities
for that kind of meaning;
for that kind of meaning,
you need
a universe with a God

once you have that,
magic and the
possibility of
knowing the
“why” of things
reappear,
along with all
our dearest, deepest meanings –
good is better than evil,
love defeats hate,
sacrifice overcomes greed –
the narratives
we inescapably spin
to demonstrate
those meanings,
and the pop avatars
we create to animate
those narratives…
Stranger Things,
thankfully,
awesomely,
among them

(for some related
ideas about narratives,
see “What IT Means
(and How *Any* Good Story ‘Means’)”
)

Filed Under: Editorial, Reviews, Television Tagged With: #justiceforbarb, belief, Christian, christianity today, eleven, Faith, God, Jesus, meaning, morality, narrative, Netflix, pop culture, review, Science, scientism, spiritual, story, stranger things, stranger things 2, wilkinson

Podcast: Ordering the [MIDNIGHT] SPECIAL

April 19, 2016 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

Midnight-Special-Movie

http://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2.13-Midnight-Special-Wade-Bearden.mp3

This week on the show, Steve Norton welcomes Seeing and Believing co-host Wade Bearden as they discuss Jeff Nichols’ MIDNIGHT SPECIAL. Plus, the guys offer up their Top 3 Sci-Fi films of the 21st Century!

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

2.13 Midnight Special

Filed Under: Film, Podcast Tagged With: belief, Faith, film, indie film, Jeff Nichols, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Midnight Special, science fiction, SciFi

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