Golden Hour: on parents, agribusiness and the myth of creative solitude
from the archive
Hi friends,
This morning we tuned into PBS and watched Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood and it reminded me of this short film review post I wrote a couple of years ago. So I’m resharing!
Happy Sunday,
Grace
1. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (2019)
This is an unusual film about an American children’s TV presenter, Mister Rogers. Whilst he was alive Mister Rogers was an American national treasure, revered in the same way David Attenborough is in the UK. He hosted a daily children’s TV show called Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood between 1968 and 2001 which was quietly revolutionary, often tackling topics like racial segregation and mental health through encounters with the different characters that appeared in the neighbourhood.
The film, starring Tom Hanks, looks at Mister Rogers through the lens of a cynical reporter (Matthew Rhys) who is sent to write a profile about him for Esquire. The reporter is surprised and somewhat unnerved when Mister Rogers takes a particular interest in him and his life, which is in emotional turmoil following the birth of his child and impending death of his father.
The film has a quite surreal quality, which I’m sure is a turn off for some, but I really enjoyed the whimsical and, at times, slightly creepy mood that the director Marielle Heller was able to achieve by breaking the fourth wall.
The film explores many themes: the way our culture cultivates the ‘hero’ archetype, whether people can be truly good, and the ways children are marginalised by our adult-orientated society. Here is what I thought was the film’s most powerful scene, in which the reporter and Mr Rogers are having a meal together—I encourage you to take a moment to watch it for yourself.
(A gentle suggestion: this film might be a difficult/triggering watch for anyone who is estranged or has complicated relationships with their own parents.)
2. First Cow (2019)
Now for something a little different. First Cow is a film adaptation of Jonathan Raymond’s novel The Half-Life, and follows unlikely business partners, King-Lu and Cookie, as they flee from the people they have crossed and try to make their fortune in the world of catering.
Set in the American west in 1820, the film traces the shift from subsistence farming to early-doors agribusiness. When King-Lu and Cookie steal milk from the ‘First Cow’ to arrive in Oregon, they quickly start selling baked goods, profiteering from their ‘secret recipe’. As their business takes off, the precariousness of their situation becomes clear. King-Lu and Cookie are engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken as they seek to better themselves in a brave new world.
This is a slow film, which is faithful to Raymond’s novel. It’s also beautifully shot, luxuriating in the beauty of the American northwest. I’m not normally one for period cinema, but First Cow felt incredibly modern and smart—capturing so much of humankind’s ill-fated relationship to nature through the partnership of King-Lu and Cookie. It’s a brilliantly devised film which speaks to the very prescient questions we grapple with today. Strong recommend!
3. Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson star in this twisting tale, which has been receiving lots of love in the run up to the Oscars. Set on the west coast of Ireland, it tells the story of Pádraic and Colm, two friends who live on the fictional island of Inisherin. One day Pádraic knocks on Colm’s door to go for their regular pint, but Colm doesn’t answer. It becomes clear as the film progresses that Colm no longer wants to be friends with Pádraic, wishing to spend the remainder of his days focussing on his fiddle compositions instead.
When Pádraic ignores Colm’s request to leave him alone, Colm issues him with a gruesome ultimatum which—to the surprise of Pádraic and the other islanders—he then follows through on.
Most of the reviews have focussed on the male-mental health and friendship dimensions of the narrative, which I won’t retread here. As a new parent I found Colm’s pleas to be left alone to focus on his art the more salient and complex aspect of the film. Colm believes that in order to live life in the way that he wants he must physically separate himself from the relationships which he thinks serve as a distraction. Colm’s story mirrors that of Pádraic’s sister, Siobhán, who wants to leave Inisherin in order to lead a fuller life. Their respective quests to find fulfilment in places outside of their ordinary lives and relationships seems to suggest that some form of distance is necessary if one wishes to live an artistic or intellectually satisfying life.
This is a tension that sits with me today. Since I started drafting this newsletter I’ve fed my daughter, put her down for a nap, got her up from her nap and changed her nappy. It has taken me far longer to write as a consequence. But I’m not convinced that I ever would have got round to leaving my job in publishing or setting up this newsletter unless my life had changed so fundamentally. Without her, I feel quite sure I would still be focussing on other people’s writing instead of my own.
There seems to be a burgeoning conversation happening about about creativity at the moment. The record producer Rick Rubin recently published a book called The Creative Act which shares some of his insights on the creative process. Reviewing the book in The Guardian Kitty Empire notes how:
Rubin’s advice can occasionally seem contradictory. He counsels the artist to live a life that questions all limitations. Later, however, he advises actively embracing some limitations, Dogme-style, before once again placing the artistic life as a higher calling that should be unbounded by rules of any kind, particularly the self-limiting voices in the artist’s own head.
In truth, there are no simple rules for living creatively, and lots of the tropes about artists—particularly around creative genius and mental health, are actively unhelpful to the creative process. By the conclusion of Banshees we see how Colm has hindered his own ability to create out of his desperation of make something that will last ‘forever’. Perhaps this is a warning those who think they must live in artistic solitude in order to produce something of great merit.
That’s all for today, folks. I’d love to hear your film recommendations and thoughts on creative solitude in the comments, which I’ll leave open.
Have a good Sunday.
Grace