ARTICLE 6 : THE SUBURB

One night in Cannes, when we left the Silencio night club in the early morning, we were so tired and far from our villa that we started wandering the streets. After an hour of walking, we ended up in the suburbs. Around us, the street was deserted and the detached houses were still dark. We felt like the teenage characters of Gregg Araki or Gus Van Sant: bored young people with nowhere to be, tired of having to pass time in nightclubs to escape the gloom of their Midwestern suburb that never really lets you go.

In fact, a suburb shown in a film is always a great way to make the audience feel the boredom: The Bling Ring, Totally Fucked Up, Under the Silver Lake, My Own Private Idaho, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, Project X, Virgin Suicides are that kind of film in which all characters try to reinvent their lives inside an empty space. In American Movie, Chris Smith films Mark in that kind of place. He and his best friend Mike, seem to always be going in circles. They do the same rides, have the same conversations and repeat to whoever wants to listen: “we are making our film”.

But something resists them and maybe it is the suburb itself with all its parking lots – like Télérama once called with contempt in French, “la France moche” – its streets built for cars: it is a space designed for passage, not for human movements. Despite that, Mark is a dreamer and his dream has to progressively survive the suburb. Thus, Mark tries to turn Milwaukee as an advantage. In American Movie and Coven, the suburb creates the story and allows the storyteller to show the dreamer’s difficulty. For instance, Mark and Mike's bodies are assaulted by debts, alcohol and their family scepticism. Unlike The Doom Generation by Araki in which the characters move forward without a specific destination, Mark is always looking forward for his films. He never leaves Milwaukee because Coven is his gateway in an environment with no escape. Like Mark said at the beginning of American Movie:

“I was a failure. And I get very sad and depressed about it. And I can’t be like that any more. I really feel I betrayed myself big time. When I was growing up, I had all the potential in the world. Now I’m back to being Mark, who has a beer in his hand, and is thinking about the great American script and the great American movie. This time I’m not gonna fail. This time it’s most important not to fail. Just to drink and dream but rather to create and complete.”

We thought about all of this, sitting on a low wall, somewhere in the suburbs of Cannes, waiting for the first bus to take us back. It never came, we ordered a limo.