Nobody is going to read this essay. I will concede that up front. Even in my non-career as a writer of mostly-unread pieces of cultural criticism, this will set a record for utter lack of eyeballs. Nobody is going to read this essay, because nobody cares about the work of these filmmakers.<\/p>\n Which is the problem.<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m not entirely comfortable calling Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck tremendous filmmakers. That seems like hyperbole in order to get you to buy into my argument before we even get past this endless preamble. I do not feel Fleck and Boden are collectively the second coming of Stanley Kubrick (for reasons unrelated to the fact that culture will never give us another Kubrick). But they are very, very talented. They make the type of movies that I wish I could watch every day: movies about people dealing with real shit, and coming to realistic conclusions about the effect that shit will have on their life. Fleck and Boden are not visual virtuosos, and they don\u2019t pen Charlie Kaufman-style mind melters. They make normal movies about people, and they do it incredibly well. This is a feat in its own right.<\/p>\n The pair started their feature film career with the most notable film they\u2019ve made to date, as they helped give us a perception of Ryan Gosling as a good actor with Half Nelson. It made a bit of a cultural dent as that year\u2019s \u201cThis performance is so good, you have to see it!\u201d movie, but it was no cultural sensation. They followed that up with Sugar, a movie I have yet to find a single person to talk about with in the seven years since its release. When It\u2019s Kind of a Funny Story was released in 2010, it bombed, despite the fact that it was an interesting, creative look at both depression and being a teenager, a take that seems slightly ahead of its time five years later. It was Fleck and Boden\u2019s most accessible, comedic work, and even then nobody wanted to access it, so we had to wait five years for Mississippi Grind.<\/p>\n All of these films are good. Some are better than others, but they\u2019re all much better than the average film, and they all engage a part of my brain I strongly value. They are movies about characters that seem much more like actual people than those found in the average cinematic delight.<\/p>\n When The Martian was released earlier this month, I enjoyed parts of it thoroughly. Watching Matt Damon fully lean into his rarely used charisma and play Mark Watney as though he were Danny Ocean\u2019s far-flung brother was very entertaining. I have many superlatives to laud in Damie\u2019s direction, and I also thought whoever did Jessica Chastain\u2019s hair really earned their keep. But the rest of that that movie was fucking terrible.<\/p>\n Any time Damon wasn\u2019t on screen being his overly charming self, we were left with a collection of uninteresting cardboard people. (Watney wasn\u2019t a particularly interesting character either, but at least Damon\u2019s performance helped build a necessary fa\u00e7ade.) We are shown various humans huddling around and trying to save another human, and this has enraptured seemingly everybody but me. There\u2019s much conversation about the importance of human life, many geniuses explaining plans to other geniuses by using infantilizing props, and there is a lot of bleak lighting so we\u2019re all aware of how truly grey and inhuman the world of NASA is. There\u2019s no room for your Red Planet, unless we can warm Jeff Daniels up a bit.<\/p>\n But then we do! Math gives way to feelings! More impossibly hacky disco jokes get cracked. We see Kate Mara kiss the guy from Ricki and the Flash, and we all say \u201cAwwwww.\u201d We cut to a giant crowd in Times Square for some reason, even though the movie has shown us absolutely no public spaces up to this point. And Mark Watney talks about Robert Downey Jr. a bit, because the kids today sure do love pop culture references (if not tonal consistency).<\/p>\n This all bothered me because I was being told to care about these people simply because they were humans. That\u2019s it. I knew nothing about them. They were just boring people at work who should probably go out in the sun a bit more. Actors I thought I liked \u2013 Kristen Wiig, Jessica Chastain, Donald Glover \u2013 are boiled down to nothing but people saying words. And that is what killed the movie for me: it treated me like an idiot, as though I would care for Mark simply because he is a man with a name.<\/p>\n I was arguing with a friend about this, a different version of the same argument we frequently have, always boiling down to the fact that she\u2019s a relatively normal person with relatively normal emotions, and I am not. That doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s no human attachment in these bones, however. After I saw The Martian, after I had this argument with my dear friend, I went on my Fleck\/Boden kick. And what I saw were movies about people I could develop an attachment to.<\/p>\n In Half Nelson we have a well-worn narrative of somebody needing help, but done with a grace that is rarely afforded to that narrative. It\u2019s Kind of a Funny Story is exactly the same thing, as is Mississippi Grind. Sugar is that to the utmost; a movie that tells you it\u2019s about one thing, then pulls the rug out from under you not unlike what happens to Sugar Santos himself. These movies all resonate with me because they depict a small number of characters, at least one of whom we learn enough about to become attached to in some capacity. They do more than simply pointing a camera at Matt Damon and saying, \u201cYou guys care about him, right?\u201d<\/p>\n This is how it goes. You make a movie, and then if that film makes money, you get to make another movie. If it doesn\u2019t, you might still get to make another movie, but you\u2019re probably going to have to try much harder to get the money necessary to do so, especially if you\u2019ve never made a bona fide hit. This is very evident in Fleck and Boden\u2019s filmography: Half Nelson was successful enough to get them the moderate clout to make the truly uncommon follow-up that was Sugar. From there they got to try to make a low-budget Hollywood-ish film \u2013 likely because the right person at Focus Features really loved Sugar and\/or Half Nelson \u2013 the failure of which lead to the five-year gap preceding their latest work.<\/p>\n In order to thrive as a director in the modern film landscape, you either need to be making big budget blockbusters or be such an obviously talented filmmaker that it\u2019s undeniable to even a layman. (And even that doesn\u2019t always work \u2013 Rian Johnson is one of the most talented modern directors out there, and even he had to hitch his wagon to the Millennium Falcon.) It\u2019s difficult to exist in the space of simple but high quality filmmaking, because nobody will promote it, so nobody will see it. Even when you\u2019re one of the few people doing it right, you will lose. I didn\u2019t know Mississippi Grind existed until three weeks before it was released, and I might actually be Fleck and Boden\u2019s biggest fan. The only chance you have is to get Ryan Gosling nominated for an Oscar, and even then nobody\u2019s going to see your fucking movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is upsetting to me, and will only continue to be. I\u2019ll probably write this exact same essay about Derek Cianfrance in a few years. I care very much about cinema, because I spend pretty much all of my time consuming it. Its highest moments are mine, its problems burn into my brain as if I were the person burdened with solving them. As always, it comes back to me, and I love Fleck and Boden\u2019s films precisely because they look like a life I understand. I do not partake in crack, but I understand the desire to change your life. I am not an immigrant, but I enjoy seeing somebody find themselves through the loss of a dream. I love movies that treat the topic of depression with grace and humour. I am (probably) not an alcoholic, but I love consuming Woodford Reserve.<\/p>\n Perhaps the reason I\u2019m not comfortable calling Fleck and Boden tremendous filmmakers is because their films do not reflect what we cineastes collectively deem as tremendous things. I see none of the Fincherian dolly moves, no Tarantino-esque dialogue, not even a David Robert Mitchell-style dedication to overlong pans. They generally just frame up nice shots and make a movie. They use zooms really well in Mississippi Grind, but other than that their visual toolbox is pretty utilitarian. Fleck and Boden\u2019s films are not about anything spectacular in subject matter, and they don\u2019t draw attention to themselves visually, so how can one find their work spectacular?<\/p>\n Like the films themselves, there\u2019s an underlying confidence bubbling through the surface, a confidence the pair simply might not have enough money to show off. Their highest budget film, It\u2019s Kind of a Funny Story, cost a mere $8 million, and even with that the pair still made the movie look like it cost $20 million. It\u2019s entirely possible that they have beautiful camera moves planned, just no way to pull them off without sacrificing the integrity of another aspect of the film. They\u2019re probably tremendous filmmakers who just need the right person to believe in them. Their dedication to shooting on 35mm is also impressive, and no small feat given the seemingly miniscule budget of Mississippi Grind. Digital is the easy way, but Fleck and Boden have no time for that. They see their films as worth the struggle of film, even if almost nobody else does.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/fleck1.jpg\" "\\"fleck1\\"")
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