The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, January 17, 2020 — 5
We all want to be remembered
— there’s no doubt about that. If
we didn’t, fame wouldn’t be so
coveted and patent lawyers would
be out of a job. But when it comes
to making history, few of us are
ever able to achieve anything
“noteworthy.” Or are we? Terrence
Malick’s (“Song to Song”) newest
film, “A Hidden Life,” challenges
the idea that, in order to leave a
mark on the world our actions
have to be outstanding. Instead,
it suggests that simply following
through on our beliefs, even in the
face of serious adversity, is enough
to make an impact on the world.
The film explores this idea
through the life of Franz (August
Diehl, “Salt”), an Austrian farmer
called up to fight for the Nazi
regime. Though “A Hidden Life”
provides a timely conversation
about what it means to “make
history,” the film lacks any intrigue
beyond the typical violence of the
Nazis.
“A Hidden Life” should not have
been three hours long. The official
runtime is 2.88 hours — 2.88 hours
filled with Austrian mountainside,
German prisons and little else.
Though the contrast between a
peaceful farming village and bare
prison yards help create jarring
transitions,
the
scenery
adds
nothing to the plot. The mood of
the film was often affected by the
cloud cover, but one can only stare
at on-screen clouds for so long.
The film is eventually split
between two viewpoints — that of
Franz in the German prison after
having refused his position as a
soldier and that of his wife, Fani
(Valerie Pachner, “Bad Luck”).
The
couple’s
letters,
provided
as voiceovers between scenes,
narrate their feelings and longings
as they grapple with Franz’s
strained relationship with the
Germans and Fani’s increasing
loneliness. But even as they pour
out their feelings, there is little to
no emotional connection between
the characters and the audience.
Even though Fani bursts into tears
while tilling the fields and the
audience takes Franz’s point of
view while being beaten by a Nazi,
there is little passion. Instead of
tearing up at the tragedies Franz
and his family faced, most in the
audience, myself included, just
watched indifferently as these
moments unfolded.
Eventually, this leads to a pair
of
one-dimensional
characters
whose only distinctive quality
is their farm in Austria. There is
little nuance to the film’s message
— Franz is nothing more than
a man dying for his cause. And
maybe that’s exactly just who he
was. The simplicity doesn’t take
away from the nobility of his
actions, but it does mean that his
story should be saved for World
War II documentaries watched in
high school history classes.
The intent of the story is not the
problem here. It’s still incredibly
important to remind ourselves
that our individual actions have
consequences,
no
matter
how
small. Unsung heroes from wars
should be remembered. But not at
the expense of a plot. With further
research, or even just a basic
understanding of how Hollywood
works, it becomes increasingly
clear why Franz’s story was told:
he is a man. God forbid we make
movies about women during the
war that aren’t an American Girl
Doll story. It’s obvious that the
Austrian farmer’s story should
be told before the women who
cracked key Nazi codes and helped
win the war.
It is important to discuss men
like Franz, the ones who quietly
sacrificed their lives to stand up
for their beliefs. We obviously can’t
all be the next Greta Thurnberg or
Gandhi. But that also doesn’t mean
we have to devote a three-hour
film and $7 million to $9 million,
according to Wikipedia, to a story
that could be told in a 15 minute
segment in a Netflix documentary.
‘A Hidden Life’: a film that
should have stayed hidden
FILM REVIEW
I watched a video about five years ago that
detailed how states in the U.S. would be affected
by climate change in the next 50 years. Moving
from west to east, I saw the expected: more
droughts and wildfires on the West Coast, intense
hurricanes in the East and rising sea levels all
throughout the continental U.S., with large
areas of Florida and North Carolina underwater.
But what about the Midwest? Many hold a
misconception that climate change will affect the
Midwest less severely. The video affirmed this,
concluding that Michigan would be one of the
safest states to live in the near future. While this
may, in part, be true, we often overlook one key
factor: the Great Lakes.
Water levels of the Great Lakes have been
steadily rising, with a record rise in water levels
from 2014 to the present. News feeds are cluttered
with images of entirely submerged lakeshore
properties, or staircases and ceilings being swept
away by the passing water. Many of us may
recognize that climate change is responsible
for these rising water levels, but will they ever
return to normal? And if not, won’t our Michigan
shorelines suffer?
The Great Lakes Theme Semester, hosted
through LSA, tries to give us some answers. This
past Monday was the first panel in a series of six
intended to give the public perspective on issues
surrounding the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes
Theme Semester also includes museum and
photography exhibitions, among other events
featured throughout campus.
Speakers at this first panel, titled “Dynamic
Lakes and Lake Dynamics,” included Drew
Gronewold,
professor
in
the
School
of
Environment and Sustainability, Guy Meadows
of the Great Lakes Research Center at Michigan
Technological University, Susan Och of Leland
Township Parks and Recreation and James Clift,
deputy director of the Michigan Department of
Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.
Effects of climate change are startling, which
is why some of us avoid thinking about it unless
we have to. Climate change is also a slow process
(remember, climate not weather), making it hard
to directly observe unless an expert points it
out to us. The term “eco-anxiety,” anxiety about
natural threats such as climate change, has
been coined in the last decade, and it’s easy to
understand why. Large scale global changes are
stressful, even more so when options seem bleak
without policy change. But I’ve found something
strangely reassuring in talking about climate
change with my friends, colleagues, experts or
even roommates. This is the conversation that
“Dynamic Lakes and Lake Dynamics” intended
to continue.
The panel offered both scientific and political
perspectives on the Great Lakes, contrasting topics
like the hydrological cycle and shoreline erosion
with local and state-wide policies. Gronewold
said the water levels of the lakes tend to oscillate
between extreme highs and lows (unlike sea
levels, which have been rising consistently for the
last 150 years). Lows occur when higher average
temperatures cause evaporation to increase, and
highs occur when this increased moisture falls as
heavy rainfall. It’s hard to predict the water level
of the lakes in any given year, a trend that climate
change is responsible for (this tug of war between
extremes is the same reason that Michigan has
extremely cold winter during some years, but very
warm winters during others). This fluctuation
between high and low water levels, as well as
increased wave energy, has devastating effects
through the process of shoreline erosion. Beaches
and cliffs are being pushed further back each
year, blurring the line between public and private
property along the lakes.
So, what can we do? In truth, not much. Water
levels are dependent on continental moisture
patterns, which by nature are challenging to
predict. Aside from building lakeshore properties
further from the shore, controlling one of the
world’s largest reserves of freshwater is no easy
task. Our best bet is to curb the effects of global
warming at the individual and national level.
Michigan will likely become a state that lives along
the extremes, as will many other states in the U.S.
As much as we like to believe it, the Midwest is
not exempt from climate change. The Great Lakes
Theme Semester opens up an important and
accessible dialogue that I urge everyone to be a
part of.
More information about the Great Lakes
Theme Semester and future panels can be found
at https://lsa.umich.edu/greatlakes.
LSA ‘Dynamic Lakes’
explores climate change
TRINA PAL
Daily Community Culture Writer
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
This past Monday, after attending Kiley’s Reid’s
book signing at Literati Bookstore and hearing her
read from her hit debut novel “Such a Fun Age,”
I spent my night reflecting on the nature of art,
authorial intent and what I have appreciated so
much about my recent reads.
I didn’t anticipate this book signing to be as
evocative and engaging as I’ve heard Reid’s novel
to be, especially not as I awkwardly jostled in
between other attendees to the only available seat
in the front row — but I found myself surprised. I
haven’t had the pleasure of reading “Such a Fun
Age” yet, so this won’t be a review (for that, see
fellow Arts writer Verity Sturm’s review here), but
rather a reflection on how the event highlighted the
transformational nature of a work of art, and how
art ceases to be limited by authorial intent once the
work takes on new meaning for someone else.
In many ways, Kiley Reid’s journey as a writer,
as she outlined it throughout the Q&A segment, is
emblematic of how a piece of writing can take on a
life of its own, often in unexpected ways. Before her
writing career, Reid was trained as an actress; she
cited her love of telling stories as the underlying
motive of this lost dream. In her early twenties, she
landed a role in a commercial for a search engine
and thought that the opportunity would finally be
the gateway to a many-storied acting career, only
to realize… she hated it. So, she decided to explore
writing (again, citing her passion for stories), and
set out on a journey that would lead her here. She
applied to graduate school — two years in a row —
nannied and, of course, wrote.
Though not exactly a comprehensive biography,
the portrait Reid presented of herself was as
unpredictable as the way she characterized her
novel’s journey. Reid began with a few fundamental
ideas she wanted to explore — racial fetishism,
awkward interactions and a weird three-person
transactional relationship — but as the story
evolved, it mutated in unexpected ways and took on
a life of its own. Reid elaborated on a few things
that surprised her, but what stuck out the most
was how she seemed to continually underscore the
autonomy of her characters. For example, veering
away from using children in her story as convenient
plot devices, Reid let “Briar be Briar,” who, like
many other 3-year-olds, was basically “a useless
person” in terms of contributing anything. And that
naturalistic characterization was OK with Reid.
Kiley Reid’s comfort with
allowing characters and plots to develop in the most
natural way reflects an embrace of the interpretive
and applicable nature that art is inclined toward.
Thankfully, it’s something she allowed her novel to
do as well. At the start of the event, she reflected
on her surprise upon hearing what others have
said about “Such a Fun Age.” Readers have taken
away themes and messages far beyond the original
vision Reid meant to broadcast. The novel’s value
to readers has gone far beyond the insights into
class, race and awkward relationships that Reid
originally intended. To some, it is also a gateway
into the mind of a privileged but well-meaning
individual, a meditation on friendship, the tension
between a nanny and the mother of the child she’s
nannying and so on.
Regardless of what it meant to Reid, her readers
or anyone else, the book has a commentative power
that is typical of well-written fiction. Complex
and comprehensive literature is able to grow and
flourish beyond the author’s original vision and in
turn undergo various transformations in the eyes of
each reader. In so many literature classes, we focus
on authorial intent when analyzing a work, but
when reading for pleasure, what the book means for
you ultimately determines your level of enjoyment.
I’m one of those unbearable English nerds, so I’m
reminded of a lot of boring old literature when I think
about what writings have taught me something.
But there have also been recent releases that have
demonstrated the same thematic transcendence,
books from which I’ve gained wholly unintentional
messages from. Maggie O’Farrell’s “I Am, I Am, I
Am” is one such book and Matt Haig’s “Notes on a
Nervous Planet” is another, but listening to Kiley
Reid has truly made me realize how much we need
to appreciate art that is able to do this. With these
lenses on, I look forward to reading Reid’s hit, and
seeing what other masterpieces she will create.
Kiley Reid on her new novel
TATE LAFRENIER
For The Daily
BOOKS EVENT REVIEW
The “What’s the Use?” music video was slated
to shoot the day Mac Miller tragically died of a
drug overdose in September 2018. His wounded
fifth studio album Swimming was a month old.
It’s a work of introspective resignation, a plea to
stay afloat amid depression, substance abuse and
heartbreak. There was a lot to look forward to for
the forlorn, 26-year-old Mac. “I just wanna go on
tour,” he tweeted the night before his death.
In a strange, surreal sense, it feels as though
Mac never left. In the 16 months since his passing,
he’s been immortalized through the gestures
and actions of a music community that felt a void
after his loss. Even more than the music he made,
his fans grieved his lost potential. Each album
was its own era, a monumental improvement
from the last. The posthumous release of Circles
continues this legacy. Conceived as a sister
album to Swimming, Circles was nearly complete
before Mac’s death. The album is scheduled to be
released on Jan. 17 and it feels odd to leave an era
as fresh as Swimming behind.
Circles’s lead single “Good News” was
released earlier this week directly following
news of the album. The song itself is a dejected
portrayal of the isolation and indifference Mac
felt during those last few months of his life. And
while it’s definitely in the same headspace as
Swimming, the song reveals Mac succumbing
to his shattered interiority. He is exasperated,
lonely and depressed. He doesn’t want “to find
a way” as he did in “Ladders” and questions
“Why does everybody need me to stay?” These
jarring, surreal thoughts are accompanied
by soft optimism in a sparse, plucky and
breezy instrumental with some gentle bass
embellishments.
The music video is just as hazy and ambient
as its instrumentals. The six minute video is
bookended by clips of Mac entering and leaving a
recording studio. This takes viewers on a journey
through trippy, ethereal animated scenes that
depict a desert, garden and ocean among many
other scenic destinations. There are videos
and photo clips of Mac dancing, joking around
and playing instruments as he sings wearily of
his trials and tribulations. A sense of comfort
accompanies every image, almost pastel colors
standing out despite the despondent lyricism
that carries them. Flowers, birds, horses and
other lively images scatter every scene.
“Good News” is just as comforting and
gorgeous as it is jarring. No one anticipated a
posthumous release as personal as a Swimming
track. This puts us in the same position many of
us were in back in September 2018; Circles was
produced in the same headspace as Swimming.
They allow us to revisit the idea of legacy as we
enter another era of Mac without him, just days
before what would’ve been his 28th birthday.
Mac Miller’s emotional
new video ‘Good News’
EMMA CHANG
Daily Arts Writer
Colony House is back
on ‘Where I’m From’
Leave What’s Lost Behind, the upcoming
album from the Nashville-native quartet
Colony House, is lyrically fit to be a best-
selling novel. In just a few pre-released songs,
the band has already crafted an inspiring
account of their own dealings with the
past, filled with vivid imagery of expansive
landscapes and the notion of playing a role in
something much larger than yourself. “Where
I’m From,” their latest single off the new
album, adds to this narrative by describing
the beauty found in both joyful and painful
moments.
The song begins with steady finger snapping
before opening up to an electric piano riff.
With a mellow, resonant register, lead singer
Caleb Chapman sings of “the scent of cedar”
and “the warmth of a fire,” reminding us
of the simple things about where we come
from. The song as a whole is plain in nature,
only incorporating a few musical elements
and keeping the tune rather modest, but its
simplicity pairs well with the soothing lyrics
and creates a stunning sense of peace.
“Where I’m From” offers vulnerable
sincerity and freedom in playing a small role
in a bigger picture. Unlike their previous
albums filled with catchy chants and abrupt
transitions, Leave What’s Lost Behind is more
mellow and reflective. It’s an opportunity for
the band to take a step back and meditate on
the past few years as an indie group slowly
climbing up the charts.
DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer
KAITLYN FOX
Daily Arts Writer
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
MUSIC REVIEW
“A Hidden Life
Fox Searchlight Pictures
State Theater
The film lacks any
intruige beyond the
typical violence of
Nazis
FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS