So, I have this theory. Protagonists Christine “Lady Bird”
McPherson of the 2017 film, “Lady Bird” and Frances Halladay
of the 2012 film “Frances Ha” are the same character. If you’ve
seen both of their eponymous movies, maybe you’ve instinctively
understood their superficial connections to one another; Both
are from Sacramento, attend school in New York and explore the
concept of youth with unmistakably bright verve.
Yet, to pretend that their connective tissue is coincidence would
be silly. They are both pieces of Greta Gerwig’s own experiences
(she wrote and directed “Lady Bird” on top of penning “Frances
Ha”). For me, it’s impossible to totally separate the characters,
because, despite their myriad differences, they speak together
in a pricklingly honest way about what it means to become an
adult amid the brilliance, failures and compromises of one’s own
dreams.
“Sophie and I are the same person with different hair.”
Let’s be clear about something. Where Frances and Lady
Bird are similar — in their confident insistence on their own
goals, the economic constraints on their passions and a clarity
in communication that leaps out of them even when they aren’t
speaking — they are vastly different too. Lady Bird is frequently
stoic, incessant and self-certain about her desires, while Frances
often holds back with immeasurable wisdom.
But these divergent character inflections are what make their
connection so fascinating. If “Lady Bird” explores the idealism
and the beckoning promise of growing up, then “Frances Ha”
admits the necessary, all-consuming strife that comes with that
pursuit. Lady Bird’s dreams are soaring, luminous promises more
than they are tangible things. She wants to move out of what
she dubs “the Midwest of California” and expand her cultural
horizons. She wants the world to know who she is.
Frances, while never explicitly shying away from any of
these hopes, finds herself constrained by her (literally) gray
surroundings. For her, the steps in achieving what she wants are
often sacrifices. Staying on a lease with her roommate means
damaging her relationship with her boyfriend. Flying to France
for two days to see a colleague is an utter and lonely waste.
Moreover, while Lady Bird’s friends possess a similarly
unbridled optimism towards their dreams, Frances’s become
stilted and hideously practical with adulthood. Nearly every word
out of Lady Bird’s mouth is a declaration, a fact or an idea she
means to make fact, whether it be her own stern insistence of her
nickname or a heated blow towards her mother: “You give me a
number for how much it cost to raise me, and I’m going to get
older and make a lot of money and write you a check for what I
owe you so that I NEVER HAVE TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN.”
Perhaps Frances’s only comparably open moment is her
monologue about love: “sort of like how they say other dimensions
exist all around us but we don’t have the ability to perceive them.
That’s ... that’s what I want out of a relationship.” Yet, upon this
profound offering, her adult friends (mostly couples) merely nod
and stare in silence. For them, the reality of love is likely a shade
of Frances’ moving characterization. And regardless of whether
her words are a futile wish or a demonstration of her mystical
patience, it doesn’t matter. Lady Bird’s proud and electrifying
defiance strikes eager, convivial peers. Frances’s words bounce
off of deaf ears.
“I just got a tax rebate. You wanna go to dinner?”
Gerwig has demonstrated an uncanny ability to weave in
threads of economic anxiety into her characters in a way that
feels simultaneously real, essential and somehow optimistic.
This is integral to both films; despite the differences in how Lady
Bird and Frances articulate their wishes, they both encounter
formidable financial obstacles in realizing them.
For Lady Bird, this economic anxiety manifests in the struggle
of paying student loans. For her, the higher cost of attending
school in New York is about so much more than the monetary
value; she sees the city as a vibrant expression of the eccentric,
marrow-deep creativity she has harbored inside of her for her
whole life. For Frances, New York holds all of the same promise
— it’s a stage where Frances can pursue her dreams of dancing. At
the same time, the everyday economic struggles she faces come
at direct cost to her — both socially and professionally. Moving in
with her new friends means risking their frustration when she’s
fired from a Christmas show at her dance company. In the midst
of achieving her true aspirations, the limits of paying her bills
have bitingly real consequences. On the other hand, Lady Bird’s
ignorance about her own family’s financial burdens lasts until
those burdens implicate her directly — refinancing a mortgage to
pay student loans, shame at the comparative appeal of her house
compared to her classmates.
The sacrifices Frances and Lady Bird must make due to their
socioeconomic statuses may differ, and so do their ultimate
outcomes. For Frances, adulthood salvation comes in the form
of compromise, keeping an artistically meaningless office job at
her old job in order to also hone her choreography skills. Lady
Bird’s reckoning in the last few moments we see her — or perhaps,
Christine’s, since here she reverts to her given name — are less
overtly economic, but imply a transaction too. At a greater cost to
her own family, she has moved far away from Sacramento. That
distance should be freeing, but Christine’s ambiguous, unsure
expression suggests otherwise.
Gerwig, Master of the Self-Portrait
One pleasant surprise from the ending of Gerwig’s “Little
Women” was the juxtaposition of the character Jo March onto
the life of source text author Louisa May Alcott. The writer-
director turns Jo into the narrator of the story we’re watching,
which demonstrates Gerwig’s understanding of the relationship
between art and the artist.
For Gerwig and those that love her work, that journey is surely
worth the price. Beginning as a New York actress, in circumstances
not dissimilar to Halladay’s, she has become without a doubt one
of the most exciting directors today.
To create films centered around their author is a bold and
impressive feat if executed with the indelible care that Gerwig
has. And between Lady Bird, Frances Halladay and Jo March,
Gerwig shows genuinely impressive vulnerability in articulating
the kinds of obstacles that the creators of art face. But in the
search for an optimistic ending, perhaps one has to look no further
than Gerwig herself, who has championed her own experiences in
service of a parable that her whole career has been building to: the
harrowing, surging, all-consuming process of making art can be
artful in itself.
Sometimes an album’s lyrical content alludes to themes that explicitly
or tangentially reflect the experiences and mentalities of younger
people. Sometimes an album features a sound that evokes a youthful
energy, like through springy chords or energetically chaotic melodies.
Often the mere happenstance of an album’s release date aligning with
the listener’s childhood can grant it a youthful quality in and of itself.
MGMT managed to fulfill this trifecta as they unearthed the anthology
of adolescent anthems better known as Oracular Spectacular. Though
this quality of the album is obvious enough in isolation, it is impossible
to ignore when the album is held alongside MGMT’s most recent full-
length creation, Little Dark Age.
The differences in age begin to reveal themselves long before the first
second of audio is played. Oracular Spectacular’s tracklist alone sets the
tempo for the type of energy the record conveys as tracks like “Kids”
and “The Youth” catch the listener’s attention as they hover above the
play button. Conversely, “When You Die” and “Days That Got Away”
indicate that Little Dark Age lacks the upbeat, carefree emotions of its
predecessor of 11 years. But the forwardness of these indications does
not undermine the substance of the actual songs, which further their
titles’ indications of distinct points of maturity while contributing to
equally distinct and high-quality albums.
In the very first verse of Oracular Spectacular, MGMT wastes no
time caricaturing themselves as reckless young adults; they do so in a
manner so hyperbolic that one would expect their words to come from
a sitcom elder before telling the neighborhood delinquents to vacate the
lawn. In the opening seconds of “Time to Pretend,” after asserting that
they’re in the prime of their lives, MGMT have laid out their goals —
getting rich quick, driving luxury cars, doing a medley drugs, marrying
models, the works. As fluttery synths continue to remind the reader not
to worry, MGMT defend their shortsightedness, pointing out that a short
but eventful life beats out a monotonous job anyday. The song then goes
from adolescent to altogether childlike, with the lyrics now reminiscing
of playground days and an ultimate carelessness that couldn’t even be
touched by later aspirations of living carelessly. Those were the days.
MGMT’s discussion of what they wanted to do takes on a sharply
different meaning when it appears in the Little Dark Age song “One
Thing Left to Try.” The more distorted and solemn synths that permeate
through this album help the group convey their maturity and mortality
on this track and others. MGMT profess their fear of dying knowing
they had something left on their bucket list and imply that there will
inevitably be something left on this list. Yes, this is the same MGMT
that wants nothing more than to die young after a bout of euphoria and
could not be less interested in the nuances of adulthood. But dying young
and experiencing highs still remain on their mind, as though MGMT
are unsure if they are fully ready to abandon their prior thrill-seeking,
indifferent-to-death mentality. The bridge of the song finds itself in a
tug-of-war as “Do you want to keep us alive?” and “Do you want to feel
alive” are repeated over and over, as though the two are paradoxically
mutually exclusive. This segment may hint that MGMT are scantly more
mature than they were 11 years ago, but really, it parallels the nostalgia
they expressed in “Time to Pretend.” Just as they once fantasized about
the comfort of a childhood lacking responsibilities, they now remember
the excitement of being a reckless, adrenaline-seeking adolescent.
There is always something in the future left to do, and there is always
something to reflect on from the past.
And there truly are concepts worth reflecting on from MGMT’s
past. There are insightful moments throughout Oracular Spectacular,
but they can be overshadowed by the more pervasive and less overtly
thought-provoking dialogue. Perhaps this is reflective of adolescents
— we are capable of birthing great ideas when we put our minds to it,
but we’re not always putting our minds to it. There’s no denying that
the notions of living in the moment established in “Time to Pretend”
play a key role in the duration of the album; their interlockings with
upbeat chords and psychedelic, dream-like sounds and imagery give the
album its recognizably youthful sound. But the progressive warnings
and beliefs sprinkled throughout the record are equally representative
of the un-aged vigor that the album exudes. Throughout “Kids,” MGMT
repeatedly urge the listener to be sustainable and wary of their usage of
the Earth’s resources. “Control yourself, take only what you need from
it.” Their proposed wariness extends to monetary resources as well. In
“The Handshake,” MGMT stresses that people’s losses in the acquisition
of great wealth can outweigh the wealth itself. “Black credit cards and
shoes / You can call all the people you want / But it’s you who’s being
used.” Maybe they’re more than just adolescent heathens.
The problems tackled in Little Dark Age tend to be more
individualized, but they are also the ones that younger people —
especially those described in MGMT’s debut album — are content
not to concern themselves with just yet. The younger MGMT seem
more than content with lustful, passionate exchanges like the one in
“Electric Feel,” but Little Dark Age is punctuated by the mixed results
of sought relationships. “She Works Out Too Much” and “When You
Die” highlight the frustrations of someone who is at the age to settle
down but can’t find success. Fortunately, the cycle might be broken in
the `80s sounding piece “Me and Michael,” as the title pair are “solid as
they come” and may end up having the enduring long-term relationship
that many in their thirties yearn for.
There is another recently-developed, close attachment analyzed
in Little Dark Age. “TSLAMP” stands for “Time Spent Looking At
My Phone,” and it is time that MGMT resents. Often disregarded as
a boomer-centric ideology projected upon younger generations, the
condemnation of phone usage in the song is actually self-critical for
MGMT. The group expresses personal disgust — over an inability to
look away from the phone, over a terror at the prospect of its battery
dying, over a love for the inanimate object. This exemplifies the
album’s overarching nostalgia. MGMT recognize that their struggles
with mortality, relationships and phones were much less prevalent in
Oracular Spectacular’s 2007. But they accept that they’re at a little dark
age, and they’re working and willing to get past it.
Youth, nostalgia and growth in MGMT’s albums
B-SIDE: MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Youth as a process in ‘Lady Bird’ and ‘Frances Ha’
B-SIDE: FILM NOTEBOOK
ANDREW PLUTA
Daily Book Review Editor
ANISH TAMHANEY
Daily Film Editor
The song then goes from adolescent
to altogether childlike, with the lyrics
now reminiscing of playground days
and an ultimate carelessness that
couldn’t even by touched by later
aspirations of living carelessly. Those
were the days
For me, it is impossible to totally
seperate the characters because, despite
their myriad differences, they speak
together in a pricklingly honest way
about what it means to become an
adult amid the brilliance, failures and
compromises of one’s own dreams
A24
4B —Thursday, January 30, 2020
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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