40. Band of Outsiders

Author’s Note: This one stalled me out. Maybe it will be clear why from how I talk about the movie, or maybe it’s some unrelated anxiety or brain fog. Trying to write a post about this movie just shut me down, and I feel like that’s part of the story here, too (whatever this story is shaping up to be).

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I don’t think this film actually cost me a slot in AFI’s grad program, but it’s a moment from my interview for the school that I remember. The two interviewers asked about my favorite movies, and I mentioned this one. I brought up the scene where they all agree to sit in silence for a minute, and then all the audio for the film cuts out.

One of the interviewers asked me if I’d ever actually timed the “minute of silence.” I said no. He told me it was only 36 seconds.

Am I saying that this trivia knowledge failure knocked me out of contention for the school? No. Did I worry that I appeared incurious and like I was putting on a performance of what I thought they wanted? Yeah. Which was heightened by the fact that the interview was in NYC and I had about 32 hours in the city to drink some coffee, see a few friends, get pizza, and go to a barcade. I was exhausted, anxious, and not sure how to put myself forward as someone worthy of paying an extraordinary chunk of money in tuition for a second film degree.

But then I think about my other answers. I talked about Adaptation and Charlie Kaufman. I talked about experimental film from my time working at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. I think I could have made myself seem like someone who liked disruption and novelty, and maybe that wasn’t what they were looking for in a student.

I think about the way that I would display my DVD collection in undergrad, so people who came over to where I lived would get that slice of what I was into. And I think about the way that this blog—not just this series—is a collection of things I like that also might suggest something about me.

I didn’t go to AFI, but I still went to grad school. Life moved on. But this is a reminder about a tension between the different things I love, and the different standards I set for myself. I’ve tried to put myself into lots of different boxes as a film lover, a writer, and so on. But that was a choice. Those were ideas that I chose to believe at a given time.

Is the joke better for understanding all of it, or can you understand just enough to laugh? Do I need to know all the nuances of the “minute of silence” to truly appreciate it? Do I need to be able to condense myself down to an effective log line? Does the puzzle need completion?