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CineSource Collective Narrative
The Problem of Making Films About Hipsters
We have been discussing the problem of hipster films for some months now – since the annual August exodus of media workers to Burning Man, to be exact [see article: "Burning Man: What Story Should Be Told?"]. The problem is how to make them meaningful without being narcissistic, narcoleptic or nauseating.
We looked at the innovative “The Burning Opera – How to Survive the Apocalypse” at the Teatro Zinzani in October (produced by Dana Harrison, libretto Eric Davis, music by Mark Nichols); we talked to indie filmmaker Rob Nilsson, who finally went to his first Burn, at age 69 (he loved it), to research a film to be co-produced with Lauren Le Gal; and in the December issue of CineSource, writer/director James Dalessandro takes up the topic of books and movies about his friend Ken Kesey.
Hipster films are perennially problematic. If San Franciscans could crack the code, we'd make a mint exporting them alongside the music. From Brazil to Bucharest, California symbolizes a certain romantic longing, and hippies the height of it, which films can show rather than tell. But the really good films on the subject can be counted on one hand, or even one finger: “Easy Rider,” written and directed by Dennis Hopper and starring same, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson – his first acclaimed film (after ten years of B pictures).
Enter “Humboldt County,” a 2008 film that is finally getting to theaters, perhaps tailored to the inebriated Christmas season audience. By newcomers Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs, both of whom wrote, directed and acted, “Humboldt” is about a disillusioned medical student in LA who wakes up on a drive with his distraught girlfriend to discover she has taken him home to her family in, you guessed, Humboldt County. (Since it could be anywhere in Northern California and in light of the business's 17 billion dollars-a-year revenue, perhaps it should have been titled “The California Green Rush.”)
I saw the “Humboldt County” trailer at the theater last week and it seemed interesting enough but judging long dramas from a series of snippits is of course absurd. Fortunately, I met some folks from the northern agricultural realms who had seen the film, in a limited local release evidently, so I asked them about it.
“The protagonist didn’t capture my attention, I didn’t want to watch him,” said the diminutive Lynsey Moore, a budding actress and experienced sommelier, no relation to the oversized doc maker. “I know it’s sort of mean but he was not attractive. I need something more in my leading men. He doesn’t have to be heroic, or hot, he just has to have some ‘je ne sais quoi.’”
“I liked the mom, she was sweet,” granted Lynsey, a self-admitted chick flick addict who loved “Knocked Up” and “Juno.” “But I was never invested in the characters at all. No attachment. When that guy went off the cliff, I was like: ‘whatever.’”
Lynsey's friend X also chimed in. (He doesn’t want his first OR last name used for the obvious reason that a first name cross referenced with Lynsey would identify him).
“It was weak and non-representive. They are showing the ganga [marijuana] under the redwoods, with not enough light. The directors seemed like growers and the movie was supposed to explain how the herb thing goes down but the details were not realistic. This one guy, Bill, from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ he goes into this rant: 'We are real people, not greedy, just mom and pop, with less then 25 plants, who are trying to save the forest or buy some land instead of growing hundreds of plants to make a bunch of money to go to Mexico for the winter.' I thought that was commendable. But it seemed like a B-movie.”
“What stories would you prefer to see from that scene?” I asked them.
“One of my biggest distresses in the situation,” said Moore, “Is a lot times [the police] know where the meth houses are – there is so much meth up there – but, when they bust on the meth, they suddenly have a super fund site on their hands, which needs millions of dollars. But when they bust on the herb, everyone is all chill, and there is money and weed that the cops probably sell. Naturally, they bust on that and it makes me mad.”
“I was at a bust,” Moore continued fearlessly, probably because she now works as a sommelier. “The police had all this money and the higher-up cop said on his cell, ‘Is it OK if I just say there were five bags of cash?’ They declared 70,000 but we know there was 150,000.”
“Did anything happen to those arrested?” I asked.
“Nothing of any consequence,” Moore said. “That night they were in jail and there was a warrant but nothing came of it. A lawyer made a bunch-a money, they had to go to the court house a bunch-a times. But all the trimmers – there were Israelis and an Australian – got to leave the scene [and not get arrested].”
“So what would your movie be about?”
“A movie should be made about the cops and their views and corruption. I like Sheriff [Thomas] Almond – have served him wine a few times and the growers all voted for him – but he says one thing and does another. He says, ‘We are not going after the small growers,' but they busted tons on indoor – right on my street! – for having more than six mature marihuana plants on any given property, which is the new interpretation of the law. They harshified it.”
“Official corruption, OK, anything else?”
“Kids having all this money, all these souped-up trucks and [the town’s] streets are all fucked up because no one is putting money into where they are from. They are going to India, Costa Rica (she smiled at the girl next to her), Bali, or what-have-you. But they are not paying their taxes.”
The girl at whom she smiled, “Y,” agreed: “On ‘The Ridge’ [Grass Valley] people are starting hemp stores, something for people like us, from the community, but you don’t see that [up north]. They lack that.”
X, the young man, agreed, “They assume you are taking your money somewhere else.”
“Anything else?”
Y: “I have been complaining about the whole vibe is just to get fucked up and hooked up. I was talking about it happening at that ‘decompression’ [After Burning Man] party on the skunk train.”
Moore: “You need to decompress because you wish you could always live like that, on ‘the playa’ [Burning Man], but now you have to go to the grocery store and if you can’t handle that you might not be able to get your groceries.”
“So cop corruption, hippies out to make it rich, and problems with the 'up' culture – fucked up/hook up? These narratives would be more interesting to you?”