Investigation: ‘Real’ Affect (and Justin Timberlake)

Ok, I lied. I am writing a post. I’m on hiatus from my hiatus.

I have other writing to do, but in the spirit of procrastination I would like to share a wee investigation into a film I can’t get out of my head. The film is Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales.

This film surprised me. After reading a brief online synopsis and perusing the list of names that make up the ensemble cast (an ex-pro-wrestler, a pop star, and a former vampire slayer to name a few), I thought I had an idea what to expect from this film. Action-packed sci-fi/drama, right? I mean, just look at this movie poster!

Yes, that is The Rock, J.T. and Sarah Michelle Gellar. But, it is also directed by Kelly, of Donnie Darko fame. Well, maybe not fame, but cult status for sure. So, apparently people HATED this film. Not me! I can’t stop thinking about it!

The reason behind the haters’ hatin’ and my lovin’?

In a few words: this film is ridiculous.

However, I think that this is one of the points the director is trying to make. ‘Hollywood’ is ridiculous. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, my reaction to this film was strong. Especially my affective response, one which was very difficult to process into any coherent or clear meaning. This, for me, is the key to this film.

The ‘real’ affect.

“Why?” you are asking. Well, lemme tell ya!

Using the action/sci-fi genre, Kelly has created a world inspired by our present moments and our relationship to media, technology, politics and celebrity. This story takes place in Los Angeles and recounts the happenings of an alternate timeline, one in which the U. S. of A. is involved in World War III, the government monitors all internet activity, the mediated image is what creates both power and identity, and a possible apocalypse looms above all. Wait…this doesn’t seem that futuristic after all…

Anyways, as Steven Shaviro points out in his article on Southland Tales, “the conceit of an alternate timeline allows Kelly to explore, in exacerbated and hyperbolic fashion, our actual current condition of ubiquitous surveillance, restricted civil liberties, and permanent warfare” (Shaviro, 2010, p.65). (If you like film and theory you should definitely read Shaviro! So good.)

The story told by Kelly is not unfamiliar or completely shocking (one may think of other apocalyptic war/action movies that warn us of our potential demise), but the way in which it is told is what makes this film exciting. The disconnected, hyper-active, plethora of images, stories, characters and plot points move the viewer through a space that it is at the same time flat and extremely complicated. As participants in this film, we are never exactly sure what we should be looking at or paying attention to. This lack of hierarchy is one of the major elements criticized in the film, in addition to the fact that the film is not edited according to any “traditional cinematic logic” (Shaviro, p. 73), but it is also what makes this film so compelling. Shaviro points out that this “looseness or arbitrariness” and the fact that it is difficult to make the leap from “affect to concept” is the very point of the film. This was exactly my experience while watching Southland Tales. On several occasions, I experienced affective moments that I could not fit into any conceptual framework. I tried to make things fit, either into some sort of narrative or thematic structure, but often times I was left with extra pieces.

O.k. blah-blah-bi-da-blah… let’s get a move on and look at some scenes. (P.S.: watch this entire film if you get the chance!)

Scene 1: A hallucinatory sequence where Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) injects a dose of Liquid Karma and then proceeds to lip-synch and dance to the Killers’ song “All These Things I’ve Done”.

Watch!

O.M.G.

I don’t even know what to say sometimes… Film, music, bud light, J.T., so many things. What did you think? I want to know. This scene, called the “heart and soul of the film” by Kelly himself (Peranson as cited in Shaviro, 2010, p. 83), was for me (at the same time) eerie, kitschy and mesmerizing. This scene breaks away from the diegesis of the film — although thematic links could be drawn if necessary— and instead acts as an affective focal point.

Affect, ‘real’ affect. All I could do was watch, and then it was over. Like a car crash.

Scene 2: The sequence in the “megazeppelin” when porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her entourage dance to Moby’s “Memory Gospel”.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Memory Gospel Dancers!”

Um…what? Whatever just happened, it was magical. Or, in one word, CLIMACTIC. In this six minute scene we see a group of beauty queens in sparkling gowns dancing in front of the American flag; a posse of “neo-marxists” take down the government agency US-IDent, guns blazing; an ambulance spinning through the air propelled by a cop who is literally beside himself; and a love triangle play out through a slow-dance while an impending apocalypse looms. Once again, this scene is ridiculous. It brings together all of the typical elements of ‘Hollywood’ film — action, violence, romance, heroism – and places them next to each other as disparate pieces that have seemingly little connection. The dislocated nature of these elements, in addition to the music, was both unsettling and gripping.

Affect, ‘real’ affect. All I could do was watch, and then it was over. Like a car crash.

“Have a nice apocalypse!”

Shaviro, S. (2010). Southland Tales. Post Cinematic Affect (p. 64-92), Winchester: Zer0 books.