Quiet City & Dance Party, USA

It’s premature and perhaps not entirely appropriate to make comparisons to Ozu and Bresson when attempting to describe the low-key nature of US indie directors loosely grouped together under the label of “mumblecore”, but there are certainly points of commonality in their use of non-professional actors living out everyday situations, and their extraordinary ability to bring out essential characteristics of human nature and behaviour through superficially simple techniques. The first two features by Aaron Katz, Dance Party, USA (2006) and Quiet City (2007) demonstrate this ability with a great deal of accomplishment.

On the surface, both films would appear to be rather commonplace stories of regular young people attempting - not always successfully - to find ways of relating to others and the world around them. None of characters in Quiet City or Dance Party, USA are particularly well-educated, eloquent or worldly-wise, and their lifestyle could be described as “alternative” – students, musicians and artists, maybe working part-time in a restaurant, hanging out at each other’s house or getting together at parties. They can say stupid things and behave badly, making mistakes as they stumble along, but maybe they learn something from their experiences – or then again, maybe not. There are no dramatic incidents, no life-changing events, no moments of sudden blinding realisation in these films.


Neither Dance Party, USA nor Quiet City have any great statements to make about the state of the world or original insightful observations to make about human nature and behaviour. Aaron Katz’s films neither idealise nor criticise his characters, their behaviour or their lifestyles, but rather show that for all their flaws and inarticulacy, these people and their lives are no less worthy of attention, since they demonstrate real, human values that you won’t necessarily find in big-budget dramas with contrived situations and glamorous movie-stars.

The production values of the films may be zero-budget, the scripts seem improvised and the dialogue is often crude and banal, but Aaron Katz – capably assisted by a strong filmmaking team – clearly has an ability to reach below the surface and show the inner lives of the characters, their relationships with each other and with the world around them. If comparison to Ozu and Bresson is perhaps premature and overstating the case, Katz’s delicate, funny and beautiful tales of inexperienced youth attempting to find their feet in the world can certainly stand up alongside the films of Richard Linklater and even Eric Rohmer.

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Quiet City (2007)

Aaron Katz’s second feature film holds true to the basic tenets of “mumblecore” filmmaking - finding a simple situation with ordinary people in regular everyday locations, and telling their story as simply as possible without contrivance and without a great deal of unnecessary exposition. Filmed on hand-held Digital Video, Quiet City furthermore has that shaky indie feel, but any question of the story being slight or of the zero-budget filmmaking values being in any way amateurish are put beyond question by the director’s ability to draw so much from such a simple situation.


It all starts when Jamie (Erin Fisher) arrives in New York, having travelled all the way from Atlanta hoping to hook up with her friend Samantha. She asks a young man at the subway station for directions to the diner where she is supposed to meet her friend, and he takes her there. Her friend doesn’t show up, so Charlie (Cris Lankenau) offers to put her up for the night at his apartment. He’s got nothing better to do, so they hang out for a while the next day, as he helps her try to find her friend.

There’s no doubt that Richard Linklater is major influence and inspiration for this new generation of US independent filmmakers – far more than the often cited John Cassavetes – and the influence of Before Sunrise in particular can certainly be seen in Quiet City’s 24-hour story of a boy and a girl who meet randomly and spend some time together talking about regular things that reveal facets of their personalities. Unlike Linklater’s film however, Jamie and Charlie don’t look like models and are not particularly eloquent, articulate or expressive – they’re regular people and their conversations are about mundane everyday things, punctuated heavily in the characteristically mumblecore way with the use of “like” after every other word. It’s more a case here of “so, like, you know, do you like, maybe want to, you know, like, hang out or something?”.

Unexpectedly however, for a director of what is generally considered a minimalist school of filmmaking, Aaron Katz manages to make far more of what happens between Jamie and Charley through the cinematography, the music and the locations - values that are often underrated in this type of low-budget filmmaking. There is no need for contrived, coincidental or dramatic situations or any deep philosophising or exposition delivered through cleverly worded speeches. Katz, as writer and director, however gets to the essence of what makes Jamie and Charlie’s relationship – and that of many other people who don’t live their lives like in the movies – click. The everyday things a person does on their own suddenly become transformed by the presence of another person. An apartment of familiar objects suddenly becomes a treasure trove of playthings; that piece of music played into a tape recorder when sitting alone in your room isn’t nearly as fun or exciting as improvising a little tune with someone else; and a park, suddenly bathed in the most beautiful autumnal sunset, becomes the venue for an impromptu race.


Like an Eric Rohmer film, you get to know these people for a little while, get used to their mannerisms and speech patterns. They don’t force themselves upon the viewer, seeking attention or asking to be liked. They’re ordinary people, are flawed and do stupid things, but the DV photography allows a certain intimacy to be achieved in getting close to the characters, doing away with the need for the script to calculatedly devise some manner of endearing them to the viewer. The spaces that are left in the intentionally awkward inarticulacy of the dialogue are also effectively filled by cinematographer Andrew Reed’s shots of Brooklyn skylines bathed in impressionistic sunsets and by Keegan Dewitt’s simple but evocative piano rhythms.

Quiet City doesn’t have any great revelatory moment or point to make, but for 80 minutes the viewer is skilfully and naturalistically taken into the confidence of these characters, their problems, their shared view of the world, and allowed to witness the small changes they undergo – and that’s no small accomplishment.

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Dance Party, USA (2006)

Aaron Katz’s first feature from 2006 is a fine companion piece to Quiet City, and one that is no less accomplished in its intent and execution. Set in Portland, Dance Party, USA is another 24-hour boy-meets-girl story, a simple low-key encounter that subtly alters their perception and perspective on life.


For a group of Portland teenagers, life consists of nothing but skipping from one party to the next, looking for something - underage sex, drugs, drinking until comatose - to alleviate the tedium of what lies in-between. Everyone understands the rules, and there is no need for excuses or a sense of moral responsibility – and for seventeen year-old Gus (Cole Pensinger), it’s all just material to be exaggerated into wild stories to further enhance his reputation when he recounts them to his friend Bill (Ryan White) the next day or at the next party. Gus however is coming to the realisation that there might be more consequences to his actions than he would like to acknowledge. At one of an endless series of parties, he gets talking with the sullen and remote Jessica (Anna Kavan) – a friend of his ex-girlfriend Christie (Sarah Bing). Jessica has heard all the stories from Christie and is not at all impressed by his reputation. When Gus realises that it is a waste of time trying to hit on her, he lets his persona drop and finds himself revealing the real person beneath through a shocking confession.

If you were to regard the film on a surface level, Dance Party, USA would seem to depict a pretty appalling picture of American youth through a series of banal situations and unappealing characters, but even when working with such material (and with minimal filmmaking resources), Katz still manages to draw out a more nuanced position, without any dramatic contrivance or emotional manipulation. There’s neither condemnation of his characters behaviour, nor attempt to make them at all sympathetic. He doesn’t make any effort to depict his characters as lost and misunderstood or attempt to appeal to the viewer’s sympathy by showing some hidden depths. There aren’t any. These are young teenagers and they aren’t interested in anything that doesn’t provide immediate physical stimulus and gratification.


The point however is that they are young people, and like most young people, they make mistakes. They are also normal people with regular feelings and emotions – they just haven’t gotten to grips with it themselves, never mind realising that “fucking with other people’s shit” can have very real consequences. Gus is starting to come to this realisation, but it’s not something that comes suddenly or naturally. His behaviour in the past has been less exemplary, but until he sits down and talks to Jessica, he has never been given the opportunity or incentive to question or modify his actions. Why would anyone be interested in that “fag shit” anyway?

What is marvellous about Dance City, USA is that this disparity between the apparent crudeness of the surface and the richness that can be detected beneath is reflected in the whole ethos of the – for want of a better label – mumblecore movement. The faith the director puts in his characters is also placed in the viewer. He doesn’t need to put words into his character’s mouths to have them express feelings that they can barely rationalise, never mind have the vocabulary to articulate – and there is similarly no need to patronise the viewer with conventional dramatic devices and direct verbalised exposition so that they can “get it”. The naturalism of the performances, the poetry of the cinematography and music score, allow the simple, essential truth of a meaningful situation to speak for itself.

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DVD
Quiet City & Dance Party, USA are released in the US in a handsomely packaged 2-disc set by Benten Films. Quiet City is presented on a dual-layer disc, while the shorter Dance Party, USA is comfortably placed on a single-layer disc. The set is in NTSC format and is not region encoded.

Video
Quiet City is presented anamorphically at the original aspect ratio of 1.78:1. Shot on DV and transferred digitally to DVD, the image is, in a word, perfect. Evidently, the nature of the digital medium shows in the fact that it doesn’t have the same clarity and detail as 35mm stock, the image is consequently looking slightly soft and not so accurately toned or coloured, with blacks in particular tending towards flatness. The film looks however exactly the way it is meant to look, and it’s impressive nonetheless. Colours are strong – in a film where the use of light and colour is important – the image is perfectly stable and there are few digital artefacts of any kind. There may be some slight jagged edges, but in all likelihood, this is down to the original materials. Essentially, this looks fantastic.


Dance Party, USA was also shot on regular Digital Video. It’s presented in a non-anamorphic transfer, letterboxed at the original ratio of 1.85:1. Again, its limitations with colours and sharpness are defined by the medium, but in terms of transfer, apart from not being widescreen enhanced, the image is perfect, showing neither analogue nor digital artefacts of any kind.

Audio
Both films come with straightforward Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks and both are reasonably clear. It can be a little difficult to discern all the dialogue in Quiet City, particularly when there is music in the background or simply through the characters simply mumbling their lines (nothing wrong with that – that’s how real people speak). If the odd word slips past you however, you can flick over to the optional English subtitles provided. I didn’t notice any particular difficulties in following the conversations in Dance Party, USA, so perhaps the sound recording is better or maybe the dialogue is spoken more clearly, since there is not as much improvisation here. In both cases however, I would imagine that the soundtracks reflect the original recordings as accurately as possible.

Subtitles
Optional English subtitles are provided for anyone with hearing impairment, or for anyone who just wants to check what is being said through more difficult accents or mumbled passages of dialogue. It’s nice to see this included as not every studio provides subtitles for English language films.

Quiet City - Extras
Director Commentary
The first commentary is a group commentary featuring all the main figures behind the film’s making – the director, producers, composer and cinematographer. There isn’t being much talk about what they were attempting to achieve, but instead they spend a lot of time talking about locations – mainly friend’s houses – and their favourite scenes. They do indicate how much of the performances were improvised and provide some anecdotes on how scenes were filmed, but nothing in the commentary is really essential information.

Cast Commentary
Erin Fisher and Cris Lankenau talk about the whys and wherefores of each scene, about the amount of improvisation that was used and about how much didn’t make it to the final cut.

Joe Swanberg’s Quiet City (3:49)
Joe Swanberg (the director of LOL), put together his own mini version of the film based on Aaron Katz’s script as a prank before Katz had even finished his own film. Filmed apparently on the movie function of a still camera, it inevitably has a genuine rough-and-ready underground feel, but transfers to DVD surprisingly well.


The Music of Quiet City (8:27)
Keegan Dewitt talks about his method of composing film music and the choices he made when adapting it specifically to the mood and character of scenes.

Quiet City, The New York City Premiere (14:40)
Director Aaron Katz explains briefly how the script was developed before handing over to the audience for a Q&A with himself, technical crew and cast. The producers suggest that the film was pretty much made for nothing, while the cast confirm that lack of acting experience was actually an advantage here. There are clearly no egos involved, and it makes for an entertaining feature.

Trailer (1:54)
The trailer for Quiet City looks simple and gorgeous at the same time – although the sound seems to cut out for the last 20 seconds or so.

Dance City, USA - Extras
Director Commentary
There’s a bit more to talk about in the commentary for Dance City, USA. The director and producers recount how, immediately after graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts, they wanted to make their first film, and discuss how they went about borrowing equipment and casting to get it made for no money. Whereas Quiet City was largely improvised, Dance City, USA was completely scripted and worked on considerably in editing. There is a little bit of talk about equipment and lighting used, and some background on the actors used, and what the editing process brought to the film, but not a whole lot about its motivation or purpose.


Cast Commentary
Aaron Katz joins Cole Pensinger, Anna Kavan and Ryan White for the cast commentary. This, as you would expect, consists of discussions on amusing incidents, improvisations, favourite scenes and how they approached some of the more difficult scenes in the film.

Alterative and Extended Scenes (32:31)
Five deleted scenes are included, some of them full length improvisations that were cut back from the final film. They are often hilarious and very well played. It must have been a difficult decision to leave them out of the final film, but it’s good to have them included here. Aaron Katz and Zach Clark provide a commentary for each of the scenes. With less people involved, it’s a little more focussed than the feature commentaries, discussing the process by which the film was edited and the decisions behind the cutting back of these scenes.

The Lunch Hour (4:52)
An early short film by Aaron Katz, in black-and-white, 4:3 ratio, is a Peter Sellers home-video kind of skit, where Dewitt sets up a table, makes and eats a sandwich in an unusual fashion. It’s a curiosity more than anything. Like everything else it also comes with a commentary by Katz and Dewitt.

Booklet
The DVD set comes with a booklet with an essay on Quiet City by Ray Carney and an essay on Dance Party, USA by Ray Pride. Both essays are excellent, examining scenes in the films and interpreting what Katz manages to bring out of them.


Overall
The second DVD release from the US independent label Benten Films, once again fully lives up to their promise (already demonstrated in their first DVD release of Joe Swanberg’s LOL) of bringing work by some of the most important new American filmmakers to the general public on DVDs that meet the highest possible standards. On the surface, these two zero-budget films by Aaron Katz, Quiet City & Dance Party, USA might appear rather ordinary boy-meets-girl situations filmed very cheaply, but the director turns these limitations to his advantage, finds beauty in the commonplace and uses it to more meaningfully say something about how we live our lives and how we relate to other people.