I like the films coming from Swanberg, Duplass, Bujalski, et al mentioned in Kristin’s Mumblecore post. Kevin and I watched Joe Swanberg’s new film, Hannah Takes the Stairs at SXSW and I had the same response to it I’ve had to his other films (LOL, Kissing on the Mouth). I didn’t leave the theater riding on one emotion. I left talking about all the brilliant little gems, the pieces that are more relevant in his films than the whole. As Kristin put it, the films are a series moments so acutely portraying people trying to communicate.

As far as labeling this family of film–and the friendships growing between the filmmakers–as a “movement.” Well, I bristle at the idea. What is it about coining a movement that (in this case before these filmmakers even reach the age of thirty) we find comforting? Does it somehow validate watching films which individually may confuse us? Now that they’re grouped together, like the French New Wave, are we now able to analyze them? Where as before, we just had to watch them like we would any other movie.

If a group of like minded people gather together, it’s normal. But if those like minded people gather together and make something interesting, like European painters exiled to New York after World War II, they’re labeled a movement. Their work is not close and intimate, it’s recognized by themes and concepts demarcating that movement. In short, trying to stamp “mumblecore” on the work of a filmmaker like Joe Swanberg I think defeats what his films try to achieve: A moment of real intimacy and connection with the audience. The moment when a 25 year old girl sits in a theater wading through the film and suddenly says to herself, “Whoa! This is me! My boring little life is on a big screen and now, suddenly, it’s interesting!”

Maybe now instead of having that moment, that 25 year old girl will say, “Hmm. This is Mumblecore.”