Joanna Arnow's Narrative Subversions

The director talks 'The Feeling...' with Beyond Interpretation programmer Chris Cassingham.

Hello! Welcome to Nothing Bogus, an Indie Film Listings+ newsletter. The + is commentary, interviews, dispatches, tutorials, and other groovy stuff. This week, Chris Cassingham interviewed Joanna Arnow about her new movie, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed. Listings are at the bottom of the email.

by Chris Cassingham

Few films I’ve seen in recent years have felt as at home amongst the howling, cacophonous laughter of a large crowd as Joanna Arnow’s latest, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something has Passed. It follows Ann, played by Arnow, as she navigates the waters of a number of familial, professional, romantic, and sexual relationships, all with varying degrees of fulfillment. 

Arnow’s remarkably assured vision mines outrageous humor from grim mundanity. Whether it’s the way someone rolls over on a bed, or the time it takes to squeeze the world’s most depressing-looking meal out of a microwavable pouch, Ann’s deadpan journey through contemporary life illuminates all its humiliations and degradations, and the degree to which we decide to participate in them. The precise choreography of the film’s vignettes, filmed in mostly long, static shots, transforms the film’s unabashedly sexual scenarios of submission and domination into an almost innocent kind of searching for connection and purpose, revealing Ann as a woman deciding how she wants to position herself in the world, and with whom.

On the eve of the film’s theatrical release via Magnolia Pictures, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Arnow to talk about the film’s year-long journey since Cannes last year, some of her cinematic inspirations, and the ways in which people underestimate her characters. 

Chris Cassingham: I wanted to start off by asking about your collaborators. On a small film like this having people around you who understand exactly what you need is so important. Can you tell me about bringing together the team of people who helped you make this film?

Joanna Arnow: I started working with one of the film's producers, Pierce Varous, in 2017, I believe — we were actually trying to get another film off the ground, which ended up not coming together — yet — and the momentum switched to this one instead, so we switched gears. Pierce runs Nice Dissolve, a post house in Bushwick, and I met him originally when I was doing the color grade for Bad at Dancing there back in 2014. He's been a great collaborator over many years. I started talking to [producer] Graham [Swon] in 2020. He gave me the most amazing feedback on an artist statement for a grant application — he even suggested a sentence that I used. I just feel like things like that don't happen very often, to be so creatively aligned with someone who understands your project so much. They've just been terrific partners. I'm pretty thorough. I mean, I'm sure lots of people are thorough, but, you know, they accept me for who I am [laughs].

To what extent can you speak to the community of independent filmmakers and film exhibitors in New York right now that champion a filmmaker like you from the start of their career? You've mentioned Rooftop Films and the Lower East Side Film Festival as formative and important platforms early on in your career. Do you get the sense that there's a real community amongst independent New York filmmakers?

I'm sure it's hard for me to speak more broadly, but I think the film communities I've been a part of are all really wonderful communities and organizations where people support each other's projects. Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective is one group I'm a part of that workshopped this script and rough cut of this film multiple times. And we workshop each other's films and discuss resources and answer each other's questions and things along those lines.

I really appreciate organizations like Rooftop Films and the Lower East Side Film Festival. I didn't come into this industry with film connections, and when I made my first documentary feature, I Hate Myself :), those two organizations — Rooftop had the World Premiere and Lower East Side Film Festival had the sneak preview — were like the launching point for my career, in a way, to be able to make more connections, to get these films seen, to get some reviews. Festivals like that, that give new voices a chance and a way in, I think it makes all the difference.

There's a lot of attention on the BDSM elements of your new film, and I think it would be pretty easy to sensationalize them. But I think for those who've seen the film, they would probably agree that your approach to exploring those types of relationships goes much deeper than just their potential to shock or scandalize. What were your considerations in portraying the more mundane elements of the story with the potentially shocking ones alongside each other? 

I guess I don't see any of it as shocking. I just see it as a story of a woman exploring sexuality, relationships, and different aspects of herself. To me, the nudity and depiction of sex scenes is all just in service of telling that story, and there's nothing extra, there's nothing intended for shock value or anything like that. I feel like BDSM and BDSM-type dynamics and sexuality are fairly common and human topics. So I'm always a little bit surprised when I hear people speaking about that as something that's subversive.

To me, it's a narratively subversive film, because I wanted to subvert the hero's journey in a typical three act film where a character starts at point A, and then is very sharply different by point B. I don't think that's true to life and helps people change. I was interested in depicting a character arc that was much smaller and jagged and uneven, if it even happens at all. I was just more interested in exploring the contours and movements of someone's life over the years in an authentic way.

I was really fascinated by the way you just chose to block and compose all of your shots, which are often really long and static. Beyond the humor that kind of visual language creates, what were some of the ideas behind keeping us at a bit of a remove from the action? I'm curious how you thought about your performance in this context.

Well, I definitely think that I wanted to have a static camera and relatively quiet sound design. It's fairly natural sound design, but slightly quieter than usual. And I think both of those elements heighten the deadpan humor of the scenes. What you do see when the camera is still, when it's quieter, is the gestures have more weight to punctuate the scenes, and the rhythm of the scenes kind of come to the fore because you're more constrained in how you're experiencing the world.

I think scenes like when my character runs to the wall, back and forth, it was very important to me for the humor to be able to play out in one shot, so you can see the repetitiveness of the back and forth. And I wanted that action to all happen on the same plane, so it emphasizes the Sisyphean quality.

This might be an obvious question, but is the type of deadpan humor we see in The Feeling... the same humor that tickles your funny bone? I'm always curious if a film's modes of humor are very specifically aligned with the filmmaker's personal tastes.

I do love deadpan humor. I hadn't seen any Kaurismaki films until after I'd written this, but once I did, I was just like — not to compare myself to such a wonderful filmmaker — but I did feel a kinship with that style of filmmaking in that tone.

You've mentioned Tsai Ming-liang as an inspiration as well.

Yeah, Vive l'amour is a reference for me, especially, and all of his work, I think. The way he uses minimalist style to let viewers take in his off-kilter, absurd, and often sexual situations on their own terms is something that I've come back to.

I watched the rest of your filmography ahead of this conversation and wondered if you could speak to a potential throughline in the films. At points in all your films, you, or at least a version of you, seems to be subjected to some kind of humiliation, be it physical or sexual, or like social humiliation. How do you interpret it?

I wouldn't agree about characters being subjected to humiliation, because that makes it sound like they're not active and [don’t] have agency themselves. And I feel like there can be a tendency when talking about my characters to take away their agency, whereas I feel like they're making decisions, participating in — you know, in this new film — seeking out BDSM experiences and planning them, or with Bad at Dancing, inserting herself into the roommate’s sexual situations.

And then in I Hate Myself :), there's this questioning and exploration of the character's own role in the dynamic and that they're — actually that's not a character, that's me, because that's documentary, I'm used to talking about character [laughs] — but that was something that I was seeking out. And I feel like sometimes people say the character is subjected to, or maybe doesn't have agency, because maybe they don't agree with the choices that my characters, or myself, were making.

This gap between the way you perceive yourself and your characters, and the ways other people perceive them, is a really important, central theme of all of the films: There's a gap between your sense of self and the way others perceive it. So I appreciate your clarification on that.

With this new film, sometimes there's talk about this character humiliating herself. But you know, it's in the context of BDSM, so it's humiliation roleplay, which is a powerful thing, if anything, for someone to seek out. So, you know, I just like to say that, because I wanted to make what I hope is a very kink positive movie.

Part of the reason for the non-traditional character arc is also seeing a character explore incorporating one type of relationship more in one arc and maybe threads of the other in another, and, you know, working to figure that out; not necessarily saying, Oh, yeah, that conventional relationship is the superior one. I'm not looking to make judgments about either type of relationship.

To what extent are you interested in the autobiographical? Your first film was a documentary about your own life, and there might be a tendency to, from that point, read autobiography onto your other films. Is that something you welcome? Are you doing that deliberately?

My new feature is auto-fiction. I drew on my personal experience when writing it and making it but it's not autobiographical in any way, and these are all characters. And, you know, even putting anything into a process of a narrative will make things change, even if it's one that's non-traditional, such as this one. But I also proudly call it autofiction, because I am excited about the ways it's mined my own experience for humor, and drawn specifics that I hoped would make it a more relatable and resonant story for others. So, you know, casting my parents to play a version of the parents, and filming in locations that certain scenes were inspired by, and even things like recording my upstairs neighbors, the sounds that I hear, and using those in the sound design. I feel like all these personal touches helped contribute to what I hope is a richer fabric of this mosaic film.

Before we finish I would love to talk about the life of this film. As we speak I'm working at the Milwaukee Film Festival where The Feeling… has had three very successful screenings. My guess is it's probably one of the last festival stops in the film's life before the theatrical release on April 26. Could you talk about the year that's transpired since your premiere at Cannes last May?

Yeah, it's been exciting to show the film to different audiences and get to travel with it a bit. I didn't go to all the places the film went because of work, but I went to some of them. And it seems like the humor has been connecting. There have been laughs in a variety of cities, and I enjoy talking to people after and hearing their takes. And I think it's important to build some word of mouth that way.

Chris Cassingham is a programmer and critic based in Milwaukee. You can find his writing in outlets such as InReview Online, Documentary Magazine, Little White Lies, and Journey Into Cinema. His ongoing but sporadic screening series, Beyond Interpretation, spotlights new and exciting microbudget American feature films for audiences in the UK.

Listings

• Celia Hollander is looking for scoring opportunities this summer. Email celiaraehollander@gmail.com for private scoring reel and/or more info.

• Bre Thomas is casting for an upcoming short film in NYC. For May 27: The role is an Uber driver, 30s-40s, non-speaking role (doesn’t need to actually drive). And for May 28: A delivery person (20s-40s), with a minor speaking part, and three photo assistants (20s), two of which will be minor speaking roles. All paid, under SAG micro budget agreement. Email bre.thomas@gmail.com.

• Maddie McCann is looking for a location sound mixer (with post sound mixing experience a plus) for a half-day short film shoot in Prospect Heights on 5/5. Email memorabiliamovie@gmail.com for more info! 

• AMT Casting is looking for the lead in a SAG short. Rate of $232 + 10% per shoot day. 6-7 day shoot sometime between June 6 - June 14. The character, SAM MORESCHI, is 18-23, male or non-binary. Angelic, strikingly pretty face, more beautiful than handsome. Intelligent, determined, emotional, sarcastic, self centered, musical. Email TAPES.AMTCASTING@GMAIL.COM.

• Melina Valdez is available for graphic design / illustration / pitch deck work. Here is a link to Melina’s portfolio.

• There are a few different casting notices out for a new Savanah Leaf short film called BIRTH. Find them here.

• If you would like to list in a future issue, either A) post in the Nothing Bogus chat thread, or B) email nothingbogus1@gmail.com with the subject “Listing.” (It’s FREE!) Include your email and all relevant details (price, dates, etc.).