I uploaded a short film to YouTube a couple months ago, and here’s a quick intro to it. (Or watch first, read after….It’s your life).
Influences?
French New Wave filmmakers. I really like how they use handwritten titles. I’m one of those dudes that grew up with cool Tumblr images of couples in bed and subtitles at the bottom saying cool stuff. I really like that aesthetic, and I think for a whole generation of people that type of imagery has really become one of the main ways we express ourselves. Nothing says, “I’m feeling pretentious and vulnerable right now” more than sharing a B&W image of a woman smoking a cigarette and saying something weirdly poetic like, “Hurt. heal. Four letters, different words.”
In the future I hope to make more French New Wave inspired movies. I never gave a shit about French classes at school, but now I’m an adult and think it’s the coolest shit!
Why’d you use that music?
The song at the beginning (Ducktails), borrowed from the song at the end (Astatke). I think it’s cool to have the original song, and a song that borrowed from it in the same movie. It sort of begins & ends the whole thing pretty nicely.
Why is it called that?
I was thinking about the fact that life is meaningless, and how global warming is killing the planet and all of us everyday. And then I had the thought, “Well, since life is so awful…that means the shit we have left is automatically beautiful.” By virtue of the fact that they’re all we have left and they’re disappearing right in front of our fucking eyes, places like Venice are “automatically beautiful” right now.
I tried to depict that philosophy in the film: that’s what I was getting at in the end when I say global warming might be a good thing. Of course it’s not actually a “good thing,” but tragedy has given me a new perspective on life a little. It’s like what I always say regarding the phrase “life is meaningless,” it has become an optimistic thing for me.