A friend and I were strolling through the plaza at Fifth and Jackson, on our way to Daiso Japan. Incredibly, I'd never been, and was excited. The night was dark. Figures to my left and right, huddling in the gloom, a nightmare with the right assumptions. Has the effort I've laid down over the years toward these people helped me? Do such things make a difference?

They do and they don't. The reason for my kindness isn't a desire for protection, nor the expectation of the same in return. Those are frequent and wonderful benefits for which I'm thankful, but they're not why I'm nice. 

There is no tip jar for public bus drivers. This fact separates it from many other customer service jobs, and it's one of my favorite aspects of the gig. Why?

Because without one, the public knows your kindness is completely genuine. There is no incentive, no reason for pretense. A friendly bus driver means something to people. That woman or man piloting this vehicle, out here amongst the chaos, actually just likes being nice. There are people like that. 

Of course I love it when the contagiousness of kindness reveals itself in others– without this job I wouldn't know that it happens basically all the time, amongst all people– but I have to remember to give folks the space necessary to be who they are in that moment. They don't need to reply. They can have some room. I greet everyone once, keeping in mind Mr. J. M. Barry: "Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle." That good energy you make comes back around in unexpected ways. It's something real you built, and they build it too.

In the plaza a man came toward us, tall, dark, cloaked, with an imposing figure and strong build, mysteries in those sagging pockets. Hard to make out his expression in this gloaming. I felt short in his presence.

"Excuse me, young man and young lady, I was wondering…," he began, reaching his hand out. 

Then he recognized me.

A grin exploded out of him, the type of beaming smile that would make any person's face beautiful. He radiated convivial vigor. "It's you!!! Hey, man," he exclaimed, as we shook hands long and firm. He turned to my friend. "This guy is the best! He is the best, nicest, friendliest…."
"Oh no," I laughed.
"You are!"
"It's good to see you! I'm sorry I'm not driving today! But I'll be back Saturday!"

He wished us both a great night, still beaming. He didn't ask us for anything at all. I was touched by that, because he looked like he would have benefited from doing so. I believe he refrained out of respect. Which moved me. Or perhaps we gave him what he needed, in the form of joy, the animation of delight and all it reminds us toward.

He certainly gave me the same.

This is a continuation of the story below– scroll down or click here!

The Kristofferson-John Wayne hybrid mentioned earlier, having long ago finished blessing the ridership, now pipes up after watching me in my element.

"You the best of the best, brutha," he rumbles. "You're pretty good, brutha." Puuurty guhd. "The best of the best! You're pretty darn good…." 
It's nice to hear at first, but the guy won't let up. I guess I should be grateful. 
"You're gonna jinx it, Larry!" I reply. One of my favorite sleepers, Liz, stirs awake at Larry's low-frequency voice and its ceaseless adulations.
"Best of the worst, more like," she groans in mock displeasure. "This guy he love you. Have to invite him to your wedding!"

And so begins another of our epic bantering sessions. I love her Jamaican accent.

"What wedding is that?" I ask.
"When you get married! You have to invite all of us!"
"I didn't know I was getting married!"
"Of course you are, Nathan!"
"You know, that's actually something I think about. If I ever was to get married, I would invite all the passengers. Free food!"
"And free booze!" 
"THEN they'll come! No one cares about food!"
"Yeah, nobody wants food," she laughs. "They just want booze. Except me, I want a soda."
"Yeah, I don't drink booze."
"Me neither."
"Gimme some orange juice, I'm good."
"Me too." 
"Wait," I say. "Who am I marrying?"
"Your girlfriend!"
"Oh yeah? Do I know her?"
She cackles. "Yeah! You're gonna meet her on the bus."
"I'm so glad to be learning this information!" I quip. "Is she a bus driver?"
"What? No. Nathan. She's an office girl."
"An office girl!?"
"She works nine to five!"
"Nine to five, wow. One of those. Oh I get it, and I'll meet her on her way from work."
"No, she's at home right now. It's too late for her. She doesn't ride the bus this late. She's a good girl." 
"Oh that's good. I'm glad I'm marrying a good girl."
"I'm just looking out for you, Nathan. Yes, invite everyone."
"Oh, I will, believe me! I especially have to invite you, since you know everything about me!"
"Yup!"
"It'll be you and me, Liz, drinkin' some lemonade, and everyone else fallin' down drunk!"

We continue drifting deeper into the southlands. Unable to contain my enthusiasm, I greet an incoming passenger with, "Happy Sunday!"
He frowns. "Happy Sunday? Da fuck?"
"I'm just tryna keep it light, keep it positive, you know! Gotta do what we can, right?"
He sees something in me he responds to– truthfulness perhaps, or experience. He comes around. "Das whussup!" 

This guy's the love child of Kawhi Leonard and Keegan-Michael Key. At the end of the line he asks, "when do you go back?"
"We're gonna park it here, mother nature's callin' me! I apologize!"
For some reason my verbalizing my bathroom needs compels him to proclaim, "you got GAME, bro! Don't gotta apologize for nothin'! You cool, light-hearted!"

Feel the enthusiasm, so rich in the air. Where does it come from? To what degree did we build it ourselves? I watch him and a young white man come together in search for his missing Mike and Ike's, connecting over Redman and Method Man. I can't catch all of their conversation, but I can feel its goodness.

Two young men got on, angry with each other. That was half an hour ago. But look at them now, standing up in the back to shake hands, coming together in a handshake hug. They bound out together, white teeth glowing.

Liz looks at Larry. She asks, "so what happened to your face?"
"Oh, I, uh. I fell down some stairs."
"Oh yeah? Nobody beat you up?"
"No, I just fell. But it's still funny."
"You got a great attitude!" I say. He's chuckling. I could learn from this man. 
Liz responds, "it looks like it hurt!"
"Yeah. But it's good." 
"Well, that's good," Liz answers. "Did you cry? Did you cry one little tiny tear?"
Gruffly: "no!"
"It's okay to cry!"
"I'm a tough guy!"
"Tough guys can cry too!"
"I'm a tough guy." 
"You're a tough cookie!"
"But my heart hurt a tiny little bit."
"That's okay."

It's okay to cry, John Wayne. We know you're human too. 

A randy octogenarian stares at me from outside, inhaling for a howl. "You are CUTE," he roars.

The night carried on, effervescent, moment to moment, making as much or as little sense as it needed to. I didn't want to be anywhere else.

---

Friends! I'll be featured on next week's episode of Bare Naked Bravery, a podcast "hosted by Emily Ann Peterson exposing the threads of heroism behind the stories and people we love most..." Eep! Stay tuned!

Scattered conversations, shadow and light and primary colors, bodies and smiles sliding past each other. Look at this beautiful cavalcade. 

Here's a tall fellow, love child of Kristofferson and John Wayne, his disheveled hair cascading out so jauntily it's downright dapper. This is inebriated bedhead done right. There are bloody wounds on his face, only recently healed, but he's working his way up and down the aisle like a renegade pastor, grinning despite the blood and his gravelly voice, saying emphatically to each passenger: "God bless you. Hey. God bless you too. Oh hey there hi, God bless…." 

I call the stops out with fearless friendliness. Another man is standing alongside, watching me perform. A grin slowly forming on his face, wider and wider: he can't take it. "Yo," he finally blurts, unable to contain his enthusiasm. "Yo, I like your STYLE, bro. Keep it UP!" 

A moment later, from another: "you are too SMOOTH, muhfugguh! This bus ride' the best birthday present ever! Jus' a lil' too SMOOOOTH, unh!"

Be yourself. This is the only weapon I have. Be your good self, and offer it to others without imposing it on them.

The Earth turned today, and you could feel its joy, spilling out of all these beautiful people. Look at the spirit in their eyes. Springtime came early, not in nature, but in the heady bounce of every person's step, a careening delicacy of ebullience, washing over all. The happy were happier, and the heavier souls walked as though they weighed a little less, a mystery, gifts from somewhere far away. 

The night had a snap to it.

I've barely started, still loitering around the plaza bus stop, waiting for my shift to arrive… and here's a man with flowers bounding over. He is Mason the flower seller, I learn, and he knows me even if I don't in return; "you're the best damn driver in this whole city put together," he exclaims, unwittingly echoing The Great Gatsby.

His scruffy denim, the nine o'clock shadow, the immaculate daffodils offsetting it all… I wish I had my camera. "Normally I'd charge a love donation of one dollar, but these are free for you! Presto!" he declares, with a flourish.

Not a minute later and here's a young lady from Starbucks holding out a croissant with my name on it. Look at her big eyes, wavy hair framed by the nondescript Starbucks uniform. Everybody looks better in black. Am I really worth the trouble? Walking a croissant all the way down here, taking the effort to make sure it isn't squished? What a sweetheart. 

Another friend stepping in, with a smile representing years. My first notes from ages ago describe her as "Genessee Lady With Cool Walking Stick." I daresay we know each other a touch better now. Rainier Avenue has room for every personality type, and hers is at the upper end of generosity; tonight she brings ginger udon noodles and tofu cold noodle salad from PCC, with a message of hello from one of their staff who knows me. To say "thank you," as an indicator of the overflowing gratitude I feel, seems paltry by comparison. How can people be so kind? When I tell people this job makes me love humanity, I think they think I'm being sarcastic. Faithful reader, you know otherwise.

Mason's daffodils get passed on to the "Lovely Ladies," my term for the group that heads up to St. Mark's for the women's homeless night shelter there. I call them that with loving irony from earlier experiences, when they were always uniformly angry. Yes, I know they have plenty to be frustrated about, but their resolute commitment to bickering was something I couldn't help smiling at. It was predictable to the point of being endearing. Having them onboard is a production: regular passengers know what they're in for, as we spend light cycle after light cycle deploying the lift and situating everybody with their bags and materials. It's a zoo.

Personally, I love it. 

I don't know if it's me who's gotten better at setting the mood, or if they've mellowed, but my original appellation is starting to have non-ironic meaning. I really enjoy picking them up, and they seem to feel that now. Or maybe they're just happier in the evening than at six A.M., when they get unceremoniously booted out of St. Mark's and left on the curb for twenty minutes. Tonight I call out a handful of farewells ("thanks for hangin' out with me!") as they– half the bus, easily– mobilize to get off. "I love you all," I holler, adding to one of them, "here, you should have these flowers. It's for all you guys." They're as thrilled as I.

"You're a lovely lady," an elderly gent says to one of the Lovely Ladies, before they all left. He's no flirt; just a complimenter. "What's your name?"
"Todd," she replies. "Short for Harry."
He waits until she leaves before waxing wistfully with his friend. "She said she was sixty-five! Are you kidding me? She was beautiful."
"Women don't age like they used to." They sigh longingly at each other as I try not to giggle. A man calls out from the sidewalk, "I loved the most recent blog story!" Now it's my turn for my heart to melt….

The doors open and close and open again, and I recognize yet another grin. Last year I wrote of Tran, the scrappy Vietnamese auto mechanic, thusly: "Certain people, in the impression they make on you, overwhelm their own physical appearance with sheer magnetic force of personality. His scrappy, frankly vagrant look doesn't register nearly as much to me as his beaming disposition."

Nobody's ever given me ice cream before. "Are you sure, Tran? Thank you, gosh!"
"Don't thank me! I have another one fo' myself!" 
"Tran! You're so awesome!"
"No. You!"

It's one of those tiny Häagen-Dazs samplers. It's delectable, but… how am I supposed to eat this stuff? Good thing the roads are empty. Although I have driven up Rainier with seaweed salad and chopsticks in one hand, vainly hoping for red lights, ice cream is another matter. I struggle valiantly until Yesler Way, where I jump out to perch it atop a solar-powered garbage can, plastic mini-spoon and all.  It should go to someone with the stress-free luxury of being able to use two hands at once. "Ice cream, everybody," I bellow excitedly at shifting figures in the darkness. "Finders keepers!"

They're confused. Who is this boy, who jumps out of his bus to leave ice cream on garbage cans in Pioneer Square and yells about it? In the receding view of my mirror I notice an intrepid soul taking up the offer. I smile to myself. This vivacious pulse of flowing life is a gift, and I must keep it alive, breathe on the flame of it, that we might feel its verve a touch longer. It is worth it.

---

Too much fun for one blog post– this story continues here!

Blue sweatshirt, flat forehead. It was the last time I ever saw him, a street character I encountered not infrequently on my Rainier Avenue route; not homeless, you understand, just scruffy. I liked saying his name. He was the definition of boisterous, and he talked way too loudly, but I didn't mind. He was a sweetheart when you got right down to it, and always reacted well when I called out: "inside voice, Little Leon, inside voice!"

This morning both of us were strangers in a strange land. I can't remember why I was driving the 70 at seven A.M., and I know I'd never seen him out in Amazon tech-head land before– definitely not at the crack of dawn. What were we doing out here? Why was I out of bed? He was more of an evenings-on-Rainier type of guy. Like me. But the day was beautiful in its own quiet way, one of those cloudy Northwest mornings, the brightening grey that blurs the moments before dawn and afterward.

"Little Leon, good morning!" 

Even as I said it, I could tell something was different. His eyes were more than sober; they were shell-shocked. 

"Hey, man, what's goin' on," he mumbled, his eyes trained on an invisible distance far beyond the material. He stumbled into the front seat. On the old buses, that was right next to me, the driver. The intimacy of it felt appropriate for our conversation, though given Little Leon's volume habits, everyone in the sparsely populated interior was surely within earshot. Somberly: "hey, guess what."
"Tell me," I said.
"My mother died last night."
"I'm sorry!" 

I looked at the moistness of his eyes, two deep brown pooling wells. There was something wrong with this day, something particular that had never been wrong before. His hush following the sentence spoke louder than any scream. We're all of us going through this life for the very first time. We're beginners in this racket, and we have no experience for something so new, so large and silent and terrible. 

I'm sorry to hear it. What an enormously forgettable phrase. People who have lost know how meaningless it is. But what can you say? Sure, it's overused, but the sympathy is real. You have to say it. You want to say it, and you mean it. I did. I meant every syllable.

Little Leon, a thin-framed broken man, African-American, too early to middle age, today clad in a blue sweatshirt, blue jeans, and battered white sneakers. Survival already trumps style for many of my street-denizen friends, but for Mr. Leon today, as would be the case for any of us, fashion was especially meaningless. He sat as a man consumed entirely by the past, the present an afterthought too bitter to bear.

"Thanks, man," Little Leon said, pausing. "It's so many ways we can go."
"Gotta go with dignity."
"What?"

There's a film that's special to me– I won't spill the title because I'm giving away the ending– about a man who slowly loses everything, including his life… but not his dignity. I've always remembered that, and I voiced it now.

"We gotta go with dignity."
"Dignity, that's right. And she did, she was beautiful right up until the end. It just hurts,"
"Aaat's heavy,"
"It hurts 'cause I was uh only child."
"You and me both!"

Little Leon leaned forward. He meant every word he said.

"Hey, lemme ask you a favor, king bus driver. By the way this guy's the best king bus driver in all the whole a Metro. He's he's he's," 
"Nawwww,"
"There ain't nobody else, cause every single time he sees me, he treats me the way he would wanna be treated."
"Thanks, man. I try!"
"You do. But lissen, I got to ask you one favor."
"What's up?"
"Just, next time you see your mom, just give her a big hug, man, hug her tight. Don't matter what she's doin', she's comin' outta the bathroom, hug her anyway."
"I will. I will." 
"It hurts."
"I'm glad you got to spend time wit' her."
"Oh yeah, my mama raised me. My dad, I never met him." The raspy inflection, halfway between tears and a hard place, the plaintive voice rising, helpless: "I tell you, when I make it to those pearly gates I'ma ask him just one thing." Trying not to shake. "I'ma ask him why he was never around, why he was never there, so I coulda maybe learned something from him." His voice cracked, and cracked again.
"Oh man, Leon. I'm sorry."
"It hurts."
"Death is so huge." 
"Just hits the bottom of your soul."
"We're gonna lose everything we love in this life," I said, half to myself, gazing out at Mercer Street, reflecting as we waited out the long light.

"Well, we won't lose it, it'll just… you know, king bus driver, I saw somethin' a long time ago that I couldn't believe. I saw this guy just bawling. Just heaving, cryin' and cryin'. I said why and he said he'd just lost his wife."
"I don't blame him."
"Oh no me neither. But I didn't know grown men cried. But he was. I mean, it was his wife! Ain't no girlfriend… so that's why I'm cryin' now, I understand."
"'It's like you lose one person and the whole world seems empty,'" I replied. That's from Joan Didion. Joan Didion, Little Leon… doesn't matter what world you come from. This stuff is all the same.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Exactly. Yeah." 

He paused. He spoke. He told me he was writing a song in anticipation of the funeral, at which he planned to sing. "I ain't done with it, but the first part goes like this." 

And then he launched into it. Reader, would that you were there. A century and a half of the gospel blues tradition had existed for the purpose of building to this moment, a broken man on a city bus singing to his friend. To hear his deep, sorrow-stricken, gospel-inflected voice… this was a blues with no affectation whatsoever. It was shattering in its heartrending truthfulness. Was I really going to tell him to quiet down now? Did I care what the other commuters thought about their morning trip to work? 

Not for a second. They one day will be where he is, and we'll give them room then, too.

I couldn't help but consider myself in his shoes. "I don't know if I'll be able to handle it," I said.
"What?"
"Oh, when my my own mom passes, I's thinkin' I don't know if I'll make it."
"Well, don't rush it, man. That's pain."
"You know though," I said after another pause, "it's better than the opposite. This is better than us dying before our parents do. Ain't nothin' worse than a parent losing their only child."
"Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah."
"This is part of the cycle."

I could see he was noticeably buoyed by this idea. Mourning happens in waves: a step forward, and three back. Though they may seem as nothing more than drops of water in an ocean, every one of those incremental steps forward is a milestone. This was a step forward, and it was just what he needed then. As we came to his stop, he exclaimed, "iss a reason I ran into you this morning, king bus driver!"
"I'm so happy you got on my bus, Little Leon!"
"You're tellin' me! Love you, be safe!"
"You too!"

I watched him walk away, a man in blue, shivering in the wind. He wasn't Little Leon anymore. He was just Leon now, and his grief will be our grief, has been our grief. Do we lose everything we love in this life? We do, except we don't lose their spirit. We don't lose the good they built in us, which is the most important part. In your good actions, the grace or humor you learned from them… that's them, reaching out at life through you, with you.

Keep that goodness alive.

You have some old photos in a box someplace. Take them out and look at them. If they're more than ten years old, they're probably chromogenic prints made in a wet lab– that is to say, sheets of light-sensitive paper coated with a layer of silver halide crystals, which, upon exposure to light (through the negative of the picture in question), were burned, changing their color. This crystal-coated paper was then fed through a series of chemical baths, developing, fixing and sealing those crystals so they maintained their newly changed appearance. 

Basically, when you're looking at a wet lab print, whether it was made in a darkroom by your mom when she was a teenager, or by the kinda-cute Walgreens photo person, back when every drugstore had those big wet lab machines (that automated the darkroom process but ultimately accomplished the same thing using light and light-sensitive paper)... you're looking at something special. You're seeing silver halide crystals that have been burned by light. The areas of the picture that are black have been burned the most, and you can tell there's some sort of organic process at work here. Look at how deep that black is. 

You're looking at an original.

Now, the cute Walgreens person isn't there anymore. If only that were the biggest loss. (S)he's been replaced by a friendly machine. You put your memory card in the slot, and minutes later you get your prints. It's quick, cheap and easy. Great.

Go home and compare them to the old family photos. The easiest place to tell the difference between a wet lab print and an inkjet print is in the blacks. Remember those silver halide crystals burned by exposure to light, causing them to turn into the most impossible, deepest shade of black? Well. All the inkjet print has to compete with that is– black ink. That's just ink. It's an approximation of black. It's not a bunch of crystals burned by light. It's got nothing on the wet lab stuff. 

The other place you'll see a noticeable difference is in the flesh tones. This is more noticeable in larger prints (or on a movie theatre screen). Flesh, especially in natural light, is made up of many different color tones. Film surpasses digital in many ways, but most obviously in tonal range. Most digital cameras can delineate thousands of colors. That sounds like a lot, until you remember even the cheapest 35mm film camera can record millions of colors. 

Also, you know that a digital picture is made up of a bunch of smaller units called pixels, each of which has only one color value. You're basically looking at a bunch of squares. The number of pixels is how we determine resolution. Film, on the other hand, has no resolution equivalent. It doesn't break down into smaller units. It just is. It's an image. It's not a bunch of squares. The silver crystals on the emulsion are visible as grain, but because they're organic and thus unpredictable, they offer a living texture that adds to the picture something tactile, rather than detracting from it. This is most visible in motion picture film. Nobody can tell you digital pixelation adds something to a picture. 

You might ask what all the point of this is. That's your left brain talking. Listen to the other side of yourself. Let your intuitive response to the images breathe.

There's a difference between looking at a replica and an original. There's a difference between thousands of colors and millions of them, a difference in the deepness of those blacks and the richness of the blue in that sky. There's something like us in the organic nature of film grain. You feel it. On some level you know it, that sensation of the familiar, authentic, natural, the details, the imperfections.... 

Quite simply, it's real, and it belongs, as you do. You are not clinical, dust-free, or mass produced; your lifeblood and the things that matter to you are not quick or easy. Why then should art, described by Viola Davis as "the only profession to celebrate the act of what it means to live a life," not be the same?

---

Given the short amount of time I've been around, there's a conversation I've had a few too many times. I'll be standing at the counter of a business that's closing, talking with the owner. People just don't want this service anymore, they'll explain, as the afternoon light fades. It's quantifiably better in quality, but it costs too much to maintain. We can't keep up. We're throwing in the towel. We'll sigh together, they and I, searching for something positive in the face of this loss.

In ways difficult to pinpoint, there has been a widespread acceptance of lower quality in many areas of life. I've had this conversation with regard not just to darkrooms, film, wet labs, and chromogenic prints, but also books, shoe repair, politeness, electronics, clothing, non-electronic interaction, children's toys, washing machines, and cars. Nylon is now deliberately made weaker to stimulate continuous revenue. Its original use was for parachuting out of planes in WWII. That's how strong it used to be (don't try that with your leggings...)!

Adapt or die, I know. Take life as it comes, and make the best of it. I really do believe in these mottos, and I have to, or else I'm headed straight for curmudgeon-land. It's all a matter of perspective. Everyone probably thinks they were born twenty years too late, as I often do, forgetting that the core of life remains almost exactly the same, and forgetting the great progress in other parts of contemporary life; we get accustomed to how things were when we were children, when we did the hard work of adapting to the world around us, perhaps assuming it would stop changing so much once we reached adulthood. 

Many of the things I love were bigger presences in earlier times. Film is an example– but the world still contains film, thank goodness, and I'll keep using it until the last lab shuts down.

"Original Hits by Original Artists," the inaugural show in the new Good Arts Building downtown, interfaces with the above issues in a number of ways I'll leave you to discover. It's a show of thirty-three "totally fake" album covers, each by a different artist, and one of which is mine. My piece was printed on Fujiflex Pearl photo paper, identifiable by a faint metallic tint in the whites.

It was the last print on that paper type made in a wet lab in Washington State.

That's a big thanks to Carl at Color 1 Photo, who closed down his stellar wet lab last week after decades in the business (I was able to get 22 enormous matte prints in at the last minute, which I hope to get the chance to show you someday...). I signed up for this show because it sounded fun, and is being put on by friends who were kind enough to invite me. But it grew into something much bigger for me, more personal.

We struggle our whole lives with change; it's usually hardest when it presents itself to us as loss. That's what my piece is about, and I suppose it's fitting it's the last of its kind. If you happen to be downtown, take a minute to stop in for a snack and reflect. I will not be able to attend the show opening, except in its very last minutes.

Details below.

---
​
Original Hits by Original Artists: Fake LP Album Covers for Imaginary Bands by Real Artists!
Good Arts Building
700 1st Avenue (at Cherry St)
"Record" Release Party (opening night reception): May 4, 6p-9
On view May 4-31, as explained by the 57 Biscayne website:

"A Release Party and reception for the artists will be held First Thursday, May 4, 6:00- 9:00 p.m. followed by the Upstream Music Fest, May 11-13, when there will be actual live (if unrelated) music on site, programmed by Upstream during the run of the festival. One of a handful of free venues in the neighborhood, it will be open from 4-10PM on May 11 & 12; and 11AM-11PM on May 13. The exhibit will also be open on the last two Fridays and Saturdays in May, from 1-6PM and by appointment."

"You don't want love. You want a love experience."

Here we are at the final five. If you're wondering why there's film reviews on a bus driving blog (!)– I worked as a film critic once, in my former life living in Hollywood. Somewhere online you can probably still find articles of me bashing 300– but we don't read about that one, especially with all these lovelies to pore over....

This is the fourth & final post in this series. For those of us late to the party: Part 3 (films 6-10), Part 2 (films 11-15), & Part 1 (Nathan weirdly justifying that it's a good idea to watch Deepwater Horizon, among other honorable mentions). Without further ado!

Image courtesy A24.

5. American Honey

"Do you have any dreams?"

Directed by Andrea Arnold. With Sasha Lane, Shia LeBeouf, et al.
Synopsis: A wayward teen girl joins a band of misfit youths as they travel the midwest selling magazine subscriptions. Theatrical Trailer 1.

Sometimes a film explores a topic so definitively, with such magisterial scope and detail, that all other films on the same subject are forced to stand in its shadow. Think Schindler's List for the Holocaust, or JFK for the Kennedy assassination. Saving Private Ryan for WWII European theatre. Other films may be made on these subjects, but they are forever doomed to be subsidiary in some sense, and they need to be specific to hold their ground (Son of Saul stands as a worthy Holocaust picture in its unique approach and minutely focused subject matter, for example). 

American Honey is one of the giant pillars. It will forever stand as the end-all, be-all portrait of what it means to be young, white, poor and uneducated in the American midwest. Since the majority of America's poverty is by far rural white poverty, and the midwest is the topographic majority of America's land mass, American Honey in some ways can considered to encompass certain dominant aspects of the American condition at large.

It is monolithic in scope and simultaneously very intimate; is almost three hours; throbs with life and color and music; is more interested in watching its characters live than teaching them lessons; doesn't have a three act structure, doesn't have much of an ending, and is as rambling and directionless as its characters' lives are… if these elements intrigue you instead of turning you away, you're in for a treat. Read (way) more of my thoughts on the film here.
​

Image courtesy Shout! Factory.

4. Tale of Tales (Il Racconto dei Racconti)

"Every new life calls for a life to be lost."

Adaptations of stories in the Pentamerone (1636), the first written anthology of fairy tales. Theatrical Trailer (US).
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Based on the oldest recorded collection of solely ofl fairy tales, Matteo Garrone's latest is a departure from the bleak masterpiece Gomorrah and its underrated follow-up, Reality. Here is a visually resplendent, fully realized world, a film of scope and richness we associate with big-budget historical studio spectaculars– except here, incredibly, no concessions to demographic pandering are made.

The best art pieces nudge us beyond our comfort zone– how else, after all, are we to expand our perception? Garrone guides us through the baroque and grotesque with sure-handed delight, involving the viewer in a series of timeworn, universal dilemmas involving kings, creatures, princesses, promises, desires, and bonds of several kinds. The stories may be dark, but possess that invigorating sense of rapture we feel when reading fairy tales. On the strength of its craft, depth and structure, this is absolutely and incontrovertibly the best serious fantasy/fairy-tale picture yet made. 
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Image courtesy Paramount Pictures.

3. Silence

"No man should interfere with another man's spirit."

Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Ciaran Hinds. 
Synopsis: A Jesuit missionary struggles with the meaning and purpose of faith during the 17th century purging of Christianity in Japan. Theatrical Trailer.

Thoughts to ponder while taking in Martin Scorsese's latest, wildly underseen new masterpiece, an adaptation of Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel (the film wasn't completed until the last minute, and despite excellent reviews never found an audience nor an Oscar presence, mostly due to the lack of time needed to mount an effective marketing campaign. If you're looking for a gem that fell through the cracks, this is it):

• Watching the film through a modern lens has its limitations. In 1639 Japan and Portugal, identity in so many ways meant religious identity. Faith played a more inextricably integrated role in daily life than it does in today's modern West. You didn't entertain the dichotomy of whether or not to be religious, as we do now; you chose how to be religious, or dreamed of the opportunity to do so. To practice as you wish remains of critical importance today, but it was an even bigger deal then. In a more central fashion it meant having control over your conception of yourself as a person.

 

• Religion has too often been the history of men telling other men– and women– how to live. All the characters in this film, despite their wildly conflicting beliefs, are telling each other the same thing: "my way of thinking is right, and yours isn't." It makes sense to me that the only figure in the entire picture to support the different faith of another is female. As Mark Rylance recently said at the Oscars– women seem better than men, for whatever reason, at putting into practice the notion that opposition doesn't have to involve hatred.

 

• Contextually, it's important here to remember that Christianity used to be an underdog religion. It was started by homeless men, and took root among poor people. It was a spiritual and intellectual rebellion against existing religious hypocrisy and systems of oppression which kept the poor at the bottom. It threatened to disrupt the class system, world slavery structures and more, this idea of validating all souls as equal. It was considered dangerous. The faith has "grown" since then, in ways better and worse, and it's not for me to tell you how to think about it. We can agree that things have changed since those early days.

 

• Most people attend films about faith with a hope of seeing a confirmation of their own views, and not much more. No matter your convictions, this will be more than that. Silence is positively drenched in nuance, and involves much multiplicity in perspectives, using a spider's web structure sourced from the book. Every character's got something valuable to say. I for one am struck by how similar the Jesuit missionaries' goals are to the Japanese inquisitor's, and how little either party seems to recognize this. Your ideas will appear on screen, and others too. Ingest, cogitate, ponder and reflect. Aristotle: "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

 

• Alright, tech talk! While some critics felt Marty's style here was lacking, I'd argue the aesthetics are simply less flashy, as the material requires, but no less precise. Witness the gradual shift from blue tones to deep yellows over the course of the feature, matching our protagonist's shift from confidence to confusion. Note also the stark midday lighting during the harrowing central segment, highlighting both the ugly banality of evil acts as well as being a visual echo of the harsh contrasts caused by opposing views in conflict. Not every director would set a whole act to the photographic no-no of top-down noonday lighting. The visual language is mellower here, but it's still unabashed Marty: who else would offer the unexpected double take of crosscutting from Ciarán Hinds to Ciarán Hinds, offset thirty degrees?

 

• Structure talk! Scorsese's use of narration marks his most innovative employment of that oft-overused device since his 1995 Casino (which featured, among other things, dual narration by different characters of the same events, narration interrupted by onscreen action, and bizarrely, a minor character narrating for only one scene). Here, Scorsese bifurcates the first act from the second through a subtle shift in who Andrew Garfield's narration is addressed to: from a dictated letter to a colleague to an extended prayer directed at God (or the silence of the title). This is itself bookended by Ciarán Hinds, offering brief voiceovers representing different characters; complicating things is a Casino-worthy introduction of a brand new narrator in the fourth and final act, a Dutch tradesman who barely figures in the plot but whose perspective affects our interpretation of the final trajectory in subtle ways.  ​

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Image courtesy A24.

2. Moonlight

"Who is you, Chiron?"

Directed by Barry Jenkins. 
Synopsis: A quiet, introverted young man struggles with expressing himself and his sexuality in the hostile environment of Liberty City, Miami. Theatrical Trailer.

Much has already been written on this delicate, sensitive gem elsewhere. I'll be brief. One of the year's most formally sophisticated entries, it deftly uses old film lenses, narrow depth of field, unusual color correction, and refreshingly unexpected musical choices (Face it. You've never heard a major cello octet in a movie about Miami ghettos) in order to convey the experience of a largely inarticulate young man as he struggles with how to express himself and his passions.

​Films about introverts are harder to make, and lives like Chiron's have so rarely had a place in cinema before. The Best Picture win is a watershed miracle for this reason alone, on top of overcoming concerns that it's "too black," "too gay," "too small," doesn't have stars, and more; at a $1.5m budget, it's the cheapest film ever to win the top award. 

The last two scenes (diner, apartment) destroy me. The care and love as Kevin prepares the meal, his unwillingness to give up on his belief in Chiron's suppressed but beautiful character; the honest self-awareness and double meaning of Chiron's last line. If film is the great empathy-building machine of our time, this is required viewing for all Americans.
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Image courtesy Broad Green Pictures.

1. Knight of Cups

"[B]ecause I stumbled down the road like a drunk... that doesn't mean it's the wrong one."
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Directed by Terrence Malick. With Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, et al. 
Synopsis: A well-heeled Hollywood screenwriter searches for direction after realizing achieving his ambitions isn't the answer to happiness. Theatrical Trailer.

The ultimate extension of cinema lies beyond narrative. Film is a great medium for telling stories, but it can do much more. Actors performing well-written lines is the province of theatre. Cinema has the ability, with its preponderance of image and sound, to be far more potent. It has no need to reduce experiences to words, no burden to simplify life into discrete units. From day one it held the promise of something bigger, deeper, larger. 

The earliest films reveled in the power not of the word, of course, but of the image. Take a look at Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera, the legendary 1929 film from which it's been said the origins of all stylistic innovations in cinema can be found, but which more importantly captures the vitality of life experience without the need for a plot. You don't need story. You have life, and isn't life, after all, what happens in between?

Let Knight of Cups wash over you. Don't try to figure it all out. It's bigger than that, designed to reach you on a level beyond the intellectual. The cavalcade of stunning, entirely natural light-lit images gradually cohere into something whole: a successful Hollywood screenwriter (Bale) slowly realizing that the status of material success, long his aim, has not answered his search for fulfillment. We set goals, convinced achieving them will bring the fulfillment we dream of. What do you do when you get there and discover they don't? There's something more. It was always nearby.

That delicate something is what this film is about. 

Bale wanders through L.A., as we do through life, contemplative and observant. The camera matches his ruminative inquisitiveness, careening around people and drifting through rooms and highways, seeing beauty everywhere, photographing light as a character, as though there was a silent, benevolent presence in our lives, always just around the corner, waiting. Bale's journey toward substance and purpose, and the pearls of wisdom he gains from each of his relationships, profoundly move to me, not least because the film uncannily mirrors journeys of my own in L.A.

Also particularly gratifying to me are how Malick, in previous films largely a purveyor of beauty in the natural world, shoots L.A. with just as much verve and celebration, as though its concrete expanses were no less ravishing than the quiet hills surrounding. It's all about our perspective. His L.A. is no den of purgatory, but as ever a place where beauty is visible by those with eyes to see it, where a thoughtful calm can read the signposts all around, guides toward a higher plane of being. What other filmmaker would cut from le Jardin de Luxembourg to a drive-in burger stand in Bartlesville, Oklahoma with no apparent judgment? Who would see the same beautiful light in both places? You can understand why I like this guy.

As well, the same generosity of perspective is applied to his characters. It isn't only Blanchett's doctor or Portman's affluent wife who are the arbiters of wisdom in this picture, though they might have the more apparent intellectual capacity. Look at Teresa Palmer's stripper, whose grasp of the ephemerality of substance in Hollywood is grounded and acute ("real life is so hard to find"), or Imogen Poots' aspiring starlet, who has no status or material accomplishment to her name, yet in a sentence recapitulates Bale's entire philosophical struggle. The film may take place in Hollywood, but it is not of it.

Most complaints about late-period Malick involve critics wishing the films were more comprehensible, more digestible, plot-driven… basically, more ordinary. I say revel in the differences. It's too unlike other films to be judged by their standards. You've never seen photography this dazzling, a camera this sensitive, this untethered, interior monologue this private. It's a film about the issues we all think about, but rarely speak aloud.

That's that! Thanks for reading!
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-Some of this may sound familiar: I recently raved uncontrollably about Malick's latest, Song to Song, which is the third in an informal trilogy of films, following Cups.
-Terrence Malick’s “Knight of Cups” Challenges Hollywood to Do Better: Richard Brody eloquently expounds on Knight of Cups, something of a lone wolf in the face of the generally dismissive reviews it received. 
-8 Reasons Why “Knight of Cups” Is Terrence Malick’s Best Film So Far