A conversation with Bo Burnham on his film debut
A24
I lingered in the Michigan
Theater’s main auditorium last
Thursday after the screening of
Bo Burnham’s directorial debut,
“Eighth
Grade.”
A
crowd
of
teenagers, young adults and retirees
had just finished giving Burnham a
standing ovation after his short Q&A
and were now streaming out the
back of the theater while I fought to
make my way to the front. Not a seat
in the theater had been empty that
night. The movie, which marked
the beginning of the Cinetopia Film
Festival, had sold out earlier that day
— and for good reason.
“Eighth Grade” is a continuation
of movies like “Lady Bird” and “Call
Me By Your Name.” While they’re
not all explicitly similar in genre
or plot, they evoke a similar feeling
from their audiences — something
like nostalgia, but not quite, and like
nervousness, but more trepid. These
films zero in on the familiar and
universal experiences of growing up
and falling in love, while skillfully
retaining
the
autonomy
and
individuality of their characters.
“Lady Bird” and “CMBYN”
fit nicely into the coming-of-age
category of films, but “Eighth Grade”
narrowly avoids this label. While
the movie introduces an expectedly
coming-of-age abstract — Kayla
(Elsie Fisher, “Despicable Me”)
is a shy middle schooler entering
her last week of eighth grade who
decides to put herself out there
before the school year ends — the
entire movie is undercut by larger
anxieties concerning technology,
social media and problems beyond
Kayla’s impending high school
career.
Burnham, who got his start in
comedy by making Youtube videos
filmed in his childhood bedroom,
has always had these concerns
on his mind. Much of his standup
challenges our expectations of
technology and tries to illustrate
the
complex
relationship
our
generation has with it. “I’m addicted
to the internet too,” Burnham
conceded during the Q&A after the
screening, but that doesn’t mean he
still doesn’t share the anxieties we
all do, especially when looking at
the effect it could have on younger
generations.
“There
is
a
much
subtler
conversation to be had about
the internet beyond Russia and
cyberbullying,
something
very
personal and interior to the internet
and what it does to people that is not
okay,” said Burnham earlier that
night in response to an audience
member’s
question
about
this
aspect of the film. “There’s this
sudden impulse to see yourself as a
commodity or a character. To sort of
float above your life and watch other
people watch you and watch other
people watch you watch them.”
Much
of
“Eighth
Grade”
concerns this kind of watching.
Kayla aimlessly scrolls through her
Instagram feed, liking pictures and
videos of other 13 year olds pulling
pranks and painting their nails. She
makes videos with survival guide
tips on how to be more confident,
while suffering from crippling
shyness in her day-to-day life. She
wants to be seen as someone she’s
not, an expert on relationships
and “Being Yourself.” Access to
Instagram and Youtube makes
this very easy for her to do. Kayla’s
the eighth grader most of us were:
Awkward and introverted with
acne-prone skin. But unlike us, she
can hide this under Snapchat filters
and good lighting.
Making my way to the front of the
Michigan Theater under the massive
chandelier,
swarms
of
people
moving in the opposite direction
of me stared. I found Burnham’s
representative, who I was directed
to in an email, and taken backstage
to wait for him to finish up another
interview. As I waited, no matter
who I talked to, be it Ella, the A24
publicist traveling with Burnham
on the tour or a 68-year-old male
Michigan
Theater
employee,
everyone’s reactions stuck on the
same point: The universality of a
13-year-old girl’s last week of middle
school and her efforts to woo the
cool kids in school.
“What’s the score?” Burnham
asked Ella as we walked down
the narrow hallway towards the
dressing room. He was referring
to the Cavs and Warriors game
taking place that night, and I was
immediately worried I would have
to make small talk about basketball,
a subject far from my specialty. But
Burnham
barely
acknowledged
this pause before sitting down next
to me. He had been answering
questions all day; it was 10:45 p.m.
and he admittedly looked tired.
A question many people have
fixated on in relation to “Eighth
Grade” is how Burnham managed
to perfectly capture the experiences
of a 13-year-old girl without basing it
off himself or someone else. Multiple
years of touring has exposed him
to the age demographic he was
trying to paint a picture of but, as
he pointed out, anything we need to
know about middle schoolers these
days is right at our fingertips. They
put everything online to be seen.
“I think it would’ve been different
if it had been sort of polluted by like
‘Oh this is my little cousin or my
friend’s sister,’” Burnham responded
when I asked how he managed to
draw such a perfect portrait. “When
I was writing it, it felt like someone
I knew, but it wasn’t specific.” This
is how he avoided the nostalgia trap
this film could’ve easily become. He
was chasing a feeling, not nonfiction.
“I just wanted to do an intense
movie about being this person, not
what it means to be a kid always
throughout all of time. I was
feeling very nervous and panicked
and anxious on the internet, and
I was looking at the internet and
meeting people, and I saw all these
people also feeling very nervous
and panicked in their lives too. So
I wanted to explore what it felt like
to feel anxious, to feel …” Burnham
paused here, thinking. “Anxious
is the opposite of nostalgic. It’s the
opposite of distance at least. You’re
locked in it and you can’t really
see outside of yourself. So it was
important that the movie didn’t
see outside of her. I didn’t want the
movie to know any more than she
did.”
It’s terrifying to think that
the common thread from one
generation to the next is anxiety, but
the internet undeniably doles out
this feeling of uneasiness from one
user to the next. And all the details of
the film lend themselves to creating
this feeling of uneasiness, but also
the feeling that we are in Kayla’s
world where every look, word and
wink is a life or death situation.
The audience truly doesn’t see
outside of Kayla as Anne Meredith’s
EDM score ropes us into the film,
dropping a hard-hitting bass drop
when Fisher’s character sees her
crush for the first time or confronts
the mean girl in school.
As far as influences go, Burnham
didn’t have any but the faces he’s
come across in life and online. But
there’s something to be said about
how the experience of 27-year-old
Burnham can be easily translated
to 13-year-old Kayla or 20-year-old
me. Why did he think that is the
case? I wondered, and then I asked,
“What do you think it is about the
internet that allows you to write
convincingly from the point of view
of a 13-year-old and not have the
audience bat an eye?”
“I think the culture at the
moment is existing on an eighth-
grade level, you know what I mean?”
Burnham replied. “The national
conversation is taking place at an
eighth-grade level, our president
has like an eighth-grade reading
level. So it just feels very true to me.
I think the internet makes eighth
graders of us all.”
What struck me about this
conversation with Burnham, and
replies like these, was the concern
and anxiety seeping into his voice
as he talked about these topics,
and how starkly it contrasts from
the Burnham confined to Netflix
specials and computer screens.
While his standup drips with vitriol
and is known for its dramatic flare,
this movie is entirely different. It’s
smart and clever and honest, tackles
similar subject matters as “what.”
and “Make Happy,” but isn’t the
least bit arrogant or pretentious.
As Burnham put it, this movie
is truer to who he is. “I am not
naturally
that
pyrotechnic,
overridden, cynical thing. It’s what
the medium called for … and the
truth was I was onstage terrified
every night.” Making the move
from irony to sincerity for Burnham
was “freeing.” “It was natural. It
felt more like dropping things like
finally I can drop all these tools. I’m
so excited to finally do something
that isn’t ironic, isn’t satirical.”
When we’re children, we just
want adults to recognize the
magnitude of our situation. “Eighth
Grade” captures the life and death
feeling attached to being 13 years
old. Between the music, Elsie
Fisher’s
fantastic
performance
and Burnham’s attention to the
most minute details, the audience
was dragged into this feeling
and left laughing, squirming and
occasionally shielding their eyes,
unable to stand the familiarity of it.
“I didn’t want to make a nostalgic
movie,” Burnham said during the
theater’s Q&A session. “I wanted to
know about what it’s like to be young
now. I watched hundreds of videos
of kids online talking about their
own life and the boys talked about
minecraft, and the girls talked about
their souls.”
I don’t think Burnham made a
nostalgic movie. It’s difficult to feel
nostalgic about such a confusing,
anxious, hormonal time in one’s
life. But he did make a reflective
movie, an honest one. He made
a movie that triggers feelings of
anxiety and terror as we feel them
in eighth grade and now on a larger
scale. As Burnham put it, “Sweeping
decisions about the future of our
brain’s neurochemistry are being
made by nine guys with no social
skills in Silicon Valley.” And while
being a girl in eighth grade is a
common experience among many,
these sweeping decisions make
every generation’s experience in
middle school more and more
unknowable.
NATALIE ZAK
Daily Arts Wrtier
SAMANTHA NELSON
Daily Arts Writer
‘Tully’ explores modern motherhood with sincerity, boldness
What
does
modern
motherhood
look
like?
The
spectrum
of
cinematic
depictions of what it means to be
a mother is seemingly endless,
ranging
from
lighthearted,
surface-level
portrayals
of
mothers in “Freaky Friday”
and “Mean Girls” to far darker
depictions of mothers acting
‘un-motherly’ in “Carrie” and
“Ordinary People.” Despite the
variation in genre, what all these
films have in common is that
their portrayals of motherhood
are
over-exaggerated
and
unrealistic. When it comes to
interpreting motherhood, the
film world turns to using a phony
lens rather than showing the
grittier and occasionally less-
pleasant truth of the stresses
and
anxieties
that
mothers
actually experience. Void of
unnecessary fluff and over-
dramatization, Jason Reitman’s
film “Tully” offers audiences
a fresh and sobering glimpse
into the rarely revealed side of
modern-day motherhood and
its overshadowed intersection
with mental health, challenging
the unfair standards that expect
constant stability and overall
perfection from mothers.
Marlo
(Charlize
Theron,
“Mad Max: Fury Road”), a
mother of two elementary-aged
kids and a newborn baby, is far
beyond her breaking point. Life
has become a merry-go-round,
but instead of spinning around
and around among colorful
animals and smiling faces, Marlo
is rotating through the same
numbing routine that mainly
consists of changing diapers,
breastfeeding
and
prepping
microwave dinners. In a state
of perpetual sleeplessness and
with minimal aid from her
loving yet ridiculously unhelpful
husband Drew, (Ron Livingston,
“The
Conjuring”)
Marlo
is
running
on
empty,
heading
toward a downward mental
spiral. However, a beacon of
light shines down when, eager
to revive his sister’s spirits,
Marlo’s wealthy brother Craig
(Mark Duplass, “Safety Not
Guaranteed”) offers an unusual
baby-shower gift: A night nurse.
Desperate for a sliver of R&R,
Marlo takes her brother up on
his offer, quickly finding herself
face-to-face with the youthful,
enviable and illustrious Tully
(Mackenzie
Davis,
“Blade
Runner 2049”). Despite Tully’s
initial purpose of simply caring
for the baby through the night,
her
late-night
house
calls
gradually evolve into gossip-
filled evenings with Marlo. As
the friendship between the two
women grows, their bizarre,
almost
sister-like
chemistry
strengthens and, invigorated
by Tully’s free-spirit and zest,
Marlo slowly emerges from her
state of emotional blankness
and depression.
Through
her
character’s
feelings
of
self-doubt,
numbness
and
inner
and
outer
exhaustion,
Theron
brilliantly delivers the powerful
message that motherhood is
multifaceted. While, in part, it
is unconditional love, joy and
relentless devotion, it can also
lead to a loss of identity and
emotional deterioration. Marlo’s
unsweetened and uncensored
moments as a mother create the
tone of realness that persists
throughout the movie.
Arguably most commendable
about “Tully” is its boldness in
tackling the theme of mental
health, a topic seldom explored
in adult characters. Throughout
the film, as audience members,
it
is
clear
that
Marlo
is
experiencing
some
form
of
postpartum
depression
and
severe, debilitating insomnia.
Yet, the other characters in
the
film,
Marlo’s
husband
included, are oblivious to her
struggles. This oblivion speaks
more broadly to the manner
in which, until fairly recently,
mental
health,
especially
postpartum
depression,
was
often
unacknowledged
as
legitimate or relevant by society.
Still today there exists a skewed
and ancient notion that mental
health can be boxed up and
designated to fit a specific type
of person, which simply is not
true. Through the presentation
of Marlo, a thirty-something
mother and a character that
viewers would not expect to
be suffering from depression,
“Tully”
overturns
the
false
assumptions that there is a mold
of any sort for what mental
health ‘should’ look like.
More than anything else,
“Tully” is a film that aims to
enlighten. Reitman re-evaluates
the notion of motherhood from
a more humanistic perspective,
tearing
down
the
implicit
and
outdated
stereotypical
standards that expect expert
childcare, relentless positivity
and
endless
smiles
from
mothers. With Mother’s Day fast
approaching, “Tully” takes an
unconventional route, exposing
the reality of motherhood’s
tribulations,
honoring
all
mothers by challenging the
illusion of ‘the perfect mother’
and beautifully shattering the
misconception that there is a
way that mothers are ‘supposed’
to be.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS
Fall 2018 — 1D