If you weren’t paying attention, it’s entirely possible that
mumblecore has passed you by unnoticed. I use the past tense because,
depending on whom you ask, mumblecore is either over or never
happened.
What the New York Times called “the sole significant American
indie film wave of the last 20 years to have emerged outside the
ecosystem of the Sundance Film Festival” in 2007 refers to a loose
group of young, white, middle-class filmmakers whose projects are
purposefully self-reflective. The films are made dirt cheap, relying on
a cast and crew of friends, often without a script. They center on the
awkward, sometimes boring tension of being a twentysomething,
over-educated, under-employed, semi-creative, sex-obsessed
dilettante.
Some of the main players are Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha,
Mutual Appreciation, Hannah Takes the Stairs), Joe
Swanberg (Kissing on the Mouth, LOL, Quiet City,
Nights and Weekends, Hannah Takes the Stairs), Aaron Katz
(Dance Party, USA, Quiet City), and the “Duplass
brothers,” Mark (The Puffy Chair, Hannah Takes the
Stairs, Baghead, Humpday) and Jay (The Puffy
Chair, Baghead). It’s a spaghetti bowl of collaboration,
with any one person sharing acting, producing, writing, and directing
duties in any number of films.
Typical to the underground, early adopters declared mumblecore’s
moment over long ago, even though it’s just now approaching mainstream
recognition. Amy Taubin declared that it “has had its 15 minutes” back
in late 2007 for Film Comment, but David Denby’s paternally
optimistic treatise on the movement ran in the New Yorker as
recently as March. Compared to everything from the French new wave to
The Office, mumblecore has been attacked for laziness,
homogeneity, and worse. It’s always had a sense of potential that
hasn’t been realized.
This week marks the release of Humpday, an earnest,
hilarious, natural film starring Mark Duplass and directed by Lynn
Shelton (who also appeared in Nights and Weekends). Showing
signs of maturity and good intentions, if anything can fish mumblecore
out of its flophouse and find it a real job, Humpday is most
likely it.