Tuesday, July 24, 2007
The Grunge Noir Of 'Clerks'
Clerks (Dir Kevin Smith, 1994, Miramax)
Ladies & Gentledudes, I present to you Kevin Smith's 'Clerks', the prototypical 90s slacker movie. Concept: two college drop-outs called Randal & Dante hang out at the New Jersey convenience store and neighbouring video store where they work, spend entire movie rapping about sex and Star Wars, playing roller hockey etc. Dialogue is generally wise-ass & garnished with all sortsa super-hip pop culture references. Supporting cast is made up of junkies & dope dealers, a couple of whom are weed tokin' grunge punks custom-bulit for instant cult status and Mtv pop cross-over success. Soundtrack consists of early 90s US alt rock desinged to really max those Generation X CD sales. 'Clerks': the prototypical 90s slacker movie.
When I first caught 'Clerks' at a friend's dorm room in first year Uni (shout out to my man Rob Laverick), I knew almost nothing about it, and so I understood it only instinctively as an art-house experiment in no-budget black comedy, a fairly high-brow (though generally unpretentious) movie characterised by naturalistic performances, a wildly creative script and a distinctive aesthetic all of it's own. Basically I just thought it was pretty damn cool. I mean, it's shot in black & white: it's gotta be art, right? I loved all the 'Star Wars' stuff, there were alot of genuine laugh-out-loud jokes, I dug the whole 'entire narrative based in one location' thing (being a 'Resevoir Dogs' / 'Die Hard' / '12 Angry Men' fan) plus it just looked so great and different, this heavily distressed, punk, B&W lo-fi aesthetic: grunge noir.
Much of my favourite art is art which was created with hugely limited resources, and the things I love about them are frequently the consequences of those limitations. 'Louie Louie' by The Kingsmen is an awesome all-time garage rock monster precisely because it is sloppy, rushed and amateurish, NOT in spite of those things. The same is true, say, of Ed Wood's 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', or the Velvet Underground's first three LPs. It is the falling short of perfection that is interesting. And the fact that a particular look or a particular sound is the result of something as protosaic as budget restraints as opposed to uncompromised artistic vision, is totally irrelevent. Those limited resources are what gives the art it's character, they enforce a strict aesthetic, impose themselves upon the tone & look of the whole piece, and consequently the piece begins to warp, it becomes something other, wierd, underground... cultish.
It says alot about Smith's own taste in cinema that every explicit movie reference in the 'Clerks' is not to avant garde film or even to the pulp/cult/alternative canon quoted in Tarantino's contemporary Miramax work, but to the super-mainstream 70s high-concept blockbuster cinema of Lucas & Spielberg, namely 'Star Wars', 'Jaws' and 'Indiana Jones'. The allusions to this supposedly 'low-brow' school of cinema are central to the Generation X, post-modern tone of 'Clerks' - the generation 'Clerks' represents was brought up on 'Star Wars', not Swedish art-house, and more-over they are a generation who refuse to acknowledge notions of high & low brow, of 'the canon.' So when Randal & Dante discuss the moral & political subtext of 'Return Of The Jedi', Gen Xers cheer them on 'cos it reflects their own belief that 'Star Wars' is just as worthy of critical debate as 'Citizen Kane'. Maybe more worthy.(For the record, they're right. 'Star Wars' is waaaay better than 'Citizen Kane'.)
So it comes to pass that a Gen X director with a George Lucas addiction makes a movie, but 'cos he don't got no bread or no Hollywood connections he can't make his movie look like 'Star Wars', it's gotta look all grungy and badly lit and roughly edited. It's gotta be black and white. And it looks amazing. Not only that, but the one thing which no budget can affect - the quality of the script - is brilliant from beginning to end. You're lucky this review wasn't just a list of memorable quotes.
"Look at you, you can't even play! Don't pass to this guy, he sucks. You suck!"
You had to allow me one. ¶ 10:04 AM
Ladies & Gentledudes, I present to you Kevin Smith's 'Clerks', the prototypical 90s slacker movie. Concept: two college drop-outs called Randal & Dante hang out at the New Jersey convenience store and neighbouring video store where they work, spend entire movie rapping about sex and Star Wars, playing roller hockey etc. Dialogue is generally wise-ass & garnished with all sortsa super-hip pop culture references. Supporting cast is made up of junkies & dope dealers, a couple of whom are weed tokin' grunge punks custom-bulit for instant cult status and Mtv pop cross-over success. Soundtrack consists of early 90s US alt rock desinged to really max those Generation X CD sales. 'Clerks': the prototypical 90s slacker movie.
When I first caught 'Clerks' at a friend's dorm room in first year Uni (shout out to my man Rob Laverick), I knew almost nothing about it, and so I understood it only instinctively as an art-house experiment in no-budget black comedy, a fairly high-brow (though generally unpretentious) movie characterised by naturalistic performances, a wildly creative script and a distinctive aesthetic all of it's own. Basically I just thought it was pretty damn cool. I mean, it's shot in black & white: it's gotta be art, right? I loved all the 'Star Wars' stuff, there were alot of genuine laugh-out-loud jokes, I dug the whole 'entire narrative based in one location' thing (being a 'Resevoir Dogs' / 'Die Hard' / '12 Angry Men' fan) plus it just looked so great and different, this heavily distressed, punk, B&W lo-fi aesthetic: grunge noir.
Much of my favourite art is art which was created with hugely limited resources, and the things I love about them are frequently the consequences of those limitations. 'Louie Louie' by The Kingsmen is an awesome all-time garage rock monster precisely because it is sloppy, rushed and amateurish, NOT in spite of those things. The same is true, say, of Ed Wood's 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', or the Velvet Underground's first three LPs. It is the falling short of perfection that is interesting. And the fact that a particular look or a particular sound is the result of something as protosaic as budget restraints as opposed to uncompromised artistic vision, is totally irrelevent. Those limited resources are what gives the art it's character, they enforce a strict aesthetic, impose themselves upon the tone & look of the whole piece, and consequently the piece begins to warp, it becomes something other, wierd, underground... cultish.
It says alot about Smith's own taste in cinema that every explicit movie reference in the 'Clerks' is not to avant garde film or even to the pulp/cult/alternative canon quoted in Tarantino's contemporary Miramax work, but to the super-mainstream 70s high-concept blockbuster cinema of Lucas & Spielberg, namely 'Star Wars', 'Jaws' and 'Indiana Jones'. The allusions to this supposedly 'low-brow' school of cinema are central to the Generation X, post-modern tone of 'Clerks' - the generation 'Clerks' represents was brought up on 'Star Wars', not Swedish art-house, and more-over they are a generation who refuse to acknowledge notions of high & low brow, of 'the canon.' So when Randal & Dante discuss the moral & political subtext of 'Return Of The Jedi', Gen Xers cheer them on 'cos it reflects their own belief that 'Star Wars' is just as worthy of critical debate as 'Citizen Kane'. Maybe more worthy.(For the record, they're right. 'Star Wars' is waaaay better than 'Citizen Kane'.)
So it comes to pass that a Gen X director with a George Lucas addiction makes a movie, but 'cos he don't got no bread or no Hollywood connections he can't make his movie look like 'Star Wars', it's gotta look all grungy and badly lit and roughly edited. It's gotta be black and white. And it looks amazing. Not only that, but the one thing which no budget can affect - the quality of the script - is brilliant from beginning to end. You're lucky this review wasn't just a list of memorable quotes.
"Look at you, you can't even play! Don't pass to this guy, he sucks. You suck!"
You had to allow me one. ¶ 10:04 AM
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Haha!
Grunge Noir is such a cool pairing of words... love that. And love Clerks - thanks for introducing me.
Grunge Noir is such a cool pairing of words... love that. And love Clerks - thanks for introducing me.
Those limited resources are what gives the art it's character, they enforce a strict aesthetic, impose themselves upon the tone & look of the whole piece, and consequently the piece begins to warp, it becomes something other, wierd, underground... cultish.
Truth.
As proved by the fact that everything else Kevin Smith did once he got a budget has been shit or banal.
[I saw it at Warwick too. First year, on VHS, in my kitchen/lounge, in Arthur Vick 3. Kiss my water feature.]
Truth.
As proved by the fact that everything else Kevin Smith did once he got a budget has been shit or banal.
[I saw it at Warwick too. First year, on VHS, in my kitchen/lounge, in Arthur Vick 3. Kiss my water feature.]
Matt: uh-huh, couldn't agree more with the 'everything else Smith did sucked' comment. The strongest single factor in support of what I've written here is that when Smith DID get a pile of cash and all the resources he wanted, he made a bunch of crap. I mean, people always say to me 'aw, Mallrats was OK' - but I just found it a huge dissapointment, because most things I specifically loved about 'Clerks' had been jettisoned. It isn't necessarily the case that an injection of money & industry imput will reduce the quality of art produced, but it was certainly the case here.
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