Featuring ‘Hannah Takes the Stairs’ & ‘Nights and Weekends’
If there is something that I particularly found peculiar about contemporary filmmaking, then it would be the death of movies that delve into the intricacies of everyday life.
I had seldom seen existential themes about living—the questions, the anxieties, the vulnerabilities—make it to cinema realistically until I stumbled upon Funny Ha Ha (2002) by Andrew Bujalski in the early months of 2020 amid the pandemic. Touted as the first ‘mumblecore’ film, Funny Ha Ha is about students in their 20s trying to figure out their lives. Without sounding overly sentimental, I must admit that the film resonated deeply with me, making me feel seen. With a loose plot and characters who appear to be going through several internal dilemmas, it felt as if the filmmaker caught the pulse of the twentysomethings and their apprehensions.
But Funny Ha Ha is not an anomaly. In fact, it set in motion a tradition in American cinema wherein filmmakers began delving into non-mainstream topics and personal issues through naturalistic storytelling. The movement, albeit brief and now looked at skeptically, became called mumblecore. It made ripples in the American indie cinema movement as films traveled globally to film festivals. Most importantly, mumblecore was a gateway into filmmaking for several talented writers and directors—like the Duplass Brothers (Jay and Mark), Joe Swanberg, and Greta Gerwig. The films they made served as a training ground through which they honed their skills and learned the art of filmmaking, all while contributing significantly to the characteristics of the mumble movement.
Between 2002 and 2010, these filmmakers created works prioritizing characters over plot, spirit over form, and not making sense in their stories. The films, made with meager budgets and heavily dialogue-driven, have narratives typically centered around the youthful characters’ professional and personal journeys. This includes their often unsuccessful attempts to launch themselves into the realm of adulthood and their struggles with navigating romantic relationships and friendships. Consequently, the mumblecore movement comprises a body of films that address very intimate emotions like jealousy, romantic confusion, self-esteem issues, etc., giving the movement a hyperrealist characteristic.
The movement gained attention again after the release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023), which became the 11th highest-grossing film in Hollywood. Everyone was suddenly interested in Gerwig’s past works, significantly as the it-girl of the mumblecore movement and how she contributed to the same. Gerwig worked in close nexus with Joe Swanberg, another prominent figure in the mumblecore film movement, which resulted in the duo’s co-writing Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007) and sharing both writing and directing duties on Nights and Weekends (2008). Through these films, both Gerwig and Swanberg became known as critical figures in the rising mumblecore film movement, further pushing the boundaries of the genre.
Films Trying to Make Sense of the World
“I am a nihilist now,” says Mike (Mark Duplass), who has recently left his job. Mike is still determining what makes him happy. He knows his career doesn’t. Mike has recently discovered that music doesn’t bring him the satisfaction he thought it would. “I am always seeking something that makes me happy,” he tells his girlfriend Hannah (Greta Gerwig). “Nothing makes anybody happy,” comments their friend.
Hannah Takes The Stairs (2005) is about a recent college graduate, Hannah, who works at a production office and finds herself torn between three men: her boyfriend Mike, and Matt and Paul, a screenwriting duo. The film was shot on digital video while the primary characters stayed together in a Chicago flat—the camera zooms in and out abruptly. The frame is tight. The film is driven by conversations that seem to be never-ending. It is like any other routine exchange, borderline banter, between friends—almost natural. Very early on, the film raises the eternal uncertainty regarding happiness. The film was a collective endeavor, with the opening credits attributing its creation to a group of individuals: Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig, Kent Osborne, Andrew Bujalski, Ry Russo-Young, Mark Duplass, Todd Rohal, and Kevin Bewersdorf—each of whom has since become a notable figure in the American film industry.
Most of them were amateur actors who frequently took on acting roles in each other’s movies
and collaborated on the screenplay, as seen in Hannah Takes the Stairs. Thus, a bunch of young minds had come together to tell a story that evolved from between them. In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Swanberg mentioned that the film was highly personal. He realized that he was like Hannah, who felt this constant disappointment and perpetual dissatisfaction, not in relationships but in his work. “It became clear that the relationships she’s [Hannah] going through are very similar to how I’m making these films. I get excited about them and get way, heavily into them for a while, and then my attention shifts to the next project, and I move around looking for satisfaction, but ultimately not finding it.” Therefore, since the film has developed from the personal space of a twentysomething, it may also feel relatable for other twenty-somethings.
Even though the plot, superficially, is about Hannah and her three love interests, we get to learn more about them as individuals and their dilemmas. The characters are developed as if they are fragments of real people or the writer themself. They talk too much about what they think, like, dislike, and wish. All of them are striving to establish themselves both in their careers and romantic lives, all while staying authentic to who they are.
Long awkward pauses, incomplete sentences, and repeated sighs further add a sense of rawness to the film. The performances are laid back, riddled with improvisations, and thus away from conventional acting. Peter Bradshaw writes in his review for The Guardian that the film has “a passive-aggressive quality in its quirkiness” that may sometimes appear saccharine. Yet, the film exhibits a sense of self-satisfaction—another feature fundamental to indie cinema.
The film has strong philosophical undertones to it. As Matt establishes his nihilistic tendencies initially, the film almost unfolds on the same philosophy as a blueprint. Hannah’s character asserts the inherent meaninglessness, and her actions closely depict the lack of objective value in life and human existence. As she moves from partner to partner, we realize that she seeks to fill a void within herself while she responds to this existential despair and struggles with the belief that life is devoid of meaning.
The movement was a product of technological advancement as video became cheaper. Swanberg and his peers solidified their low-fidelity approach by embracing inexpensive high-definition video (HDV) cameras. This transition from standard-definition MiniDV to HDV improved the quality of their work. It maintained the flexibility and portability needed to shoot in real locations and utilize available natural light (Aldredge, 2020).
However, even during its peak, Mumblecore continued to be hidden from the mainstream masses for long. Andrew Northrop, in an article for British Film Institute, cites the rise of Judd Apatow’s powerhouse productions, who were already making films with slacker narratives — Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Get Him to the Greek (2010)—as to why Mumblecore stayed confined to film festival audiences. In my opinion, the same can also be because most Mumblecore films are reflections of a filmmaker’s mind and their trepidations, and thus, they may feel outrightly incoherent to the lay audience. Nevertheless, the movement can also feel like a warm hug—case in point, Frances Ha (2009).
Rawness, Honesty, and Pushback
I still wouldn’t say that Hannah Takes The Stairs is one of the best mumblecore films. It gets stuck after a point and may feel but is significant to the movement. A better watch that is also better representative of the movement would be Nights and Weekends (2009), a film about a couple in a long-distance relationship navigating their individualities while still navigating how they fit into each other’s lives.
In a particular scene in Nights and Weekends, Mattie (Greta Gerwig) reclines with her head resting on the legs of James (Joe Swanberg) while the two discuss if saying “I love you” to their significant other out of excitement and not feelings, is correct or not. “You need to be precious with these things,” James tells her. Over the course of the night, they discuss how they may end up just another story—“just another soundbite,” Mattie quips—in each other’s life. The second half of the film shows them as a separated couple who maintain a friendship. They are emotionally torn between whether they can continue being together or if further romance will only bring them more pain.
Nights and Weekends transpires like a film that is very close to Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, all while keeping the hyper-realism intact. The writers have got very intricate, minute details right with this film. You learn that the couple is in a long-distance relationship twenty-ish minutes into the film. They cannot miss a single opportunity to touch each other, eat together, or take a shower in each other’s presence. There is sporadic fighting, a lot of sex, and equal amounts of talking, with both exhibiting this desire to be around one another. They don’t talk about the distance that keeps them apart when they are together. Since it is a mumblecore film, the lighting is natural, the camera is handheld, and the budget is visibly low. Thus, what draws you into the film is none of the cinematic elements but the actors’ performance and the characters’ conversation. Given the low-quality visuals, mumblecore greatly thrives on acting and storytelling.
Nights and Weekends does not attempt to make its characters interesting. They are ordinary, just like any other couple, and in this “usualness” lies the magic of this film and, thus, mumblecore. A striking aspect of both Hannah Takes the Stairs and Nights and Weekends is the complete nudity of both the male and the female protagonists. Gerwig is naked several times in the latter film. Yet, this nakedness does not seem forced, exhibitionary, voyeuristic, or glamorized. It is performed as if it is not a big deal, a normal, everyday spectacle. There is intimacy, which is not always pretty either. Actors usually have the need to be captured flawlessly when naked on camera, but mumblecore dismisses this whitewash. It thrives on realistic, routine depictions that are in stark contrast to most films that lie outside of the mumblecore genre.
Over the last two decades, the term mumblecore and the movement have come under the scanner. In fact, Mumblecore is a label that the group of filmmakers who started the movement have grown to hate. Bujalski argues: “It was something said as a joke that has been taken out of context” (Independent, 2010). Eric Kohn, in an Indie Wire article, stated that there were apprehensions that mumblecore might pigeonhole filmmakers into a limited niche. The movement faced pushback and allowed its creators to diversify their work, as in the case of Andrew Bujalski’s Results (2015), with his film retaining his knack for capturing awkward human interactions but doing so on a larger, more polished scale.
The world also stays conflicted about mumblecore—some (like me) find it raw and honest, while some simply dismiss it on account of being lazy filmmaking. Irrespective of both groups, it is given that mumblecore opened a space for filmmakers to bring the ordinariness of life to the screen and explore themes that are about life in complete rawness. Especially today, when we are more torn than ever, struggling to find a purpose amid the hustle, films about every day would make this generation feel seen.
Article Courtesy of Anjani Chadha
Feature Image from ‘Funny Ha Ha’ (2002) via Decider; Credit to Sundance Films
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