Creativity in the Age of COVID-19

I've been thinking a lot about editing lately. I've been thinking about the ways a single cut can render itself invisible, and the ways another cut can call out for your attention, demanding that you slip inside of it and bathe in its juices until you've nearly drowned in its wealth of meaning, magic, and manipulation. Editing is about decisions, and decisions, it turns out, have consequences.

It all started when I sat down to watch Ron Fricke's Samsara, followed by its predecessor, Baraka. Fricke has made a career out of these sorts of films: quasi-video essays devoid of narration. Both Samsara and Baraka rely on their editing to convey meaning, traversing different geographical and cultural landscapes en route to completing a complex portrait of our increasingly isolated world. Both films succeed in this effort, albeit to different degrees.

I found Samsara, whose title refers to the Hindu cycle of death and rebirth to which life is bound, absolutely gorgeous, but not necessarily bursting with substance. This, one might guess, is a matter of editing. For these films to succeed, their individual images must collide with one another in such a way that the resulting debris is rich with thematic flavor. Samsara does not quite achieve this kind of collision, perhaps more interested in a sort of seamless flow (a cycle, if you will) that carries us from one image to the next with seemingly invisible cuts and dissolves ushering us on our way.

"Baraka" refers to a continuity of spiritual presence and revelation, so it feels appropriate for the film which bears its name to, like its successor, follow a sort of smooth and natural flow. Wonderfully, however, the film does not simply glide from place to place, culture to culture. Its various segments do feel mostly separate and distinct, but they remain in constant conversation with one another. I felt struck by a gorgeous dolly shot through the Mesa Arch at Canyonlands National Park, where I was blessed to visit just a couple of months ago. From Canyonlands, I was carried just a few miles down the road, to Arches National Park. The film perfectly captures the beauty of the American Southwest, but refuses to let the viewer grow too comfortable. Soon, I was assaulted with images of a desecrated village, presumably far away Moab, UT. The implication here is that the village has been torn apart through war, perhaps even at the hands of American interference. And yet, no location is ever labeled or identified for the viewer, deemphasizing place and pulling the film's many locations closer and closer together, until they have collided into one. Baraka achieves a sense of spiritual continuity through editing, despite tackling perhaps the least continuous of cinematic projects imaginable.

To submit to Baraka's continuous yet complex nature, one must remain acutely aware of the film's editing. The editing in Baraka serves as a creative partner, in search of another half. You, the viewer, are invited to fill in the blank left by each and every one of the film's cuts and dissolves. This responsibility is played out in all films. Editing is nothing without our creativity. It needs us just as much as we need it. In a more traditional narrative film, we likely don't even notice our creativity at play. A shot of Beth Harmon in Netflix's hit miniseries The Queen's Gambit is followed by a shot of her competitor. Next, an overhead shot may show the chessboard. The editing laid out three images for us. We did the rest. We filled in the blanks and created a story in which Beth is playing chess against someone. This may seem elementary, but consider some of the more unique ways in which The Queen's Gambit takes advantage of its editing.

The plot of the show is far from innovative. It follows a traditional "rags to riches" arc, culminating in Beth triumphing over her elusive rival, Russian chess phenom Vasily Borgov. There is also, however, a worthwhile subplot regarding Beth's childhood. We know she grew up an orphan after her mother died in a car crash, but very brief flashbacks slowly reveal more info about Beth's mother throughout the course of the show. The show never fully settles into a flashback, dedicating just a few seconds at a time to glimpses of Beth's past. The Queen's Gambit always moves forward in chronology, yet there is a lot that can be pieced together through its few fleeting flashbacks. For example, we know that Beth's mother has a PhD in Mathematics, which helps explain how Beth could be such a quick learner when it comes to chess. We also learn that her mother intentionally crashed the car, feeling hopeless and lost and likely dealing with mental illness in some way. Again, none of these revelations are narratively groundbreaking, but the way they are revealed is baked into a deceptively complex editing structure, one that asks for the viewer's cooperation in piecing together small fragments of Beth's memory.

I've seen similar versions of this editing structure in several shows and films over the past several week, including the FX miniseries Black Narcissus, which has made me embarrassed to admit my lack of familiarity with the original Powell & Pressburger film. Why, then, is this sort of editing so effective? Again, because it invites our participation. It stokes our creativity. It forces us to look away from our phones or whatever else might be distracting us from the screen in front of us and says "LOOK." There are, of course, much more aggressive forms of this approach, which I have found myself increasingly attracted to. Spike Lee is an obvious example of an aggressive editor; his films almost always reach out and slap you across the face with their rapid succession of images. I recently watched arguably his most aggressive film, 2000's Bamboozled. The turn-of-the-century satire is absolutely bonkers, but ultimately feels necessary for its willingness to confront American media head-on. With editing, more is not always better, but there is a certain revolutionary spirit baked into these kinds of films that I find crucial in a moment severely lacking in new ideas.

Besides, consider what happens when a show fails to recognize the power of its own editing.

As you can probably tell by now, I've been on a sort of miniseries kick as of late. I find them much more attractive than traditional TV shows. For starters, they are much more digestible, but I also find them to be of a generally higher quality. I have watched some excellent miniseries over the past couple of months, including HBO's Years and Years and Showtime's The Good Lord Bird, which is without a doubt the greatest piece of television I have watched this year and perhaps one of the greatest of all time. The show has drawn comparisons to the works of Quentin Tarantino or the Coen Bros., but it remains something markedly different, namely because the show's vision of the pre-Civil War United States is naturally realized by a black director in each of its seven episodes. Its editing is mostly straightforward, which is completely acceptable. The point of this post isn't to diminish simplistic styles of editing and champion complex ones, but rather to highlight the various forces that, when done right, activate an audience. The Good Lord Bird taps into an altogether different form of creativity, one that is more about recalibrating our sense of our nation's history and less about linking together a series of cinematic chains.

The Good Lord Bird deserves its own post on MustReid, and perhaps I'll give it one in due time. Anyway, all this talk about miniseries is really here to set up just how terrible Hulu's Normal People is. Never mind the show's Emmy nomination; it is a truly awful piece of television. Its failures are rooted primarily in its paper-thin script, but I want to talk about the show's editing.

Normal People follows the ups and downs of the relationship between Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan. In case the names don't make it obvious enough, this show is very Irish. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with that, although Normal People is such an inept piece of television, that I genuinely worry it has inadvertently instilled in me slight anti-Irish sentiments.

Normal People is very interested in sex. You know, because it's about normal people, and normal people have sex! In some ways, I do respect the show for treating sex as an important part of relationships, and depicting how essential communication is to the act of making love with your partner. Still, sex plays a rather inconsequential role in the story of the show, no matter how much the editing wants you to believe otherwise. Each episode - and I mean EACH EPISODE - includes some sort of montage in which Connell and Marianne have sex with either each other, a random stranger, a new boyfriend/girlfriend, etc. It really doesn't matter, as long as they are having sex. These montages are, of course, complemented by a random slow pop song, because that is the only way the show can think to forge any emotional connection between us and its characters. Olivia Wilde's Booksmart did the same thing a year prior. I hated it then and I hate it now. That's not to say that a needle-drop in a film or TV show is always a bad idea, but that it needs to come about naturally. The use of a licensed song in a piece of media should feel supported by other aspects of filmmaking, particularly the writing. Normal People never earns an emotional response from its audience, yet it thinks it can use these songs as some sort of cheat code to receive that response nevertheless.

The montages in Normal People are also underwhelming in their relationship with time. The series covers several years in the lives of Connell and Marianne, so each episode represents a major leap in time. The show illustrates these jumps in time via its montages, introducing entirely new characters and settings without warning. Whereas The Queen's Gambit complicates time so as to develop its characters and welcome its audience into interacting with the plot, Normal People opens up and resolves entire narrative threads solely through montages, giving the audience little reason to engage with or care for what is happening onscreen. If I only ever met a character by seeing their lips move while a sad instrumental plays, why should I care when they are gone just a few seconds later? The editing in Normal People does not stoke the viewer's creativity. Rather, it stifles it.

Of course, stimulating editing does not guarantee the overall quality of a film. The 2018 documentary Hale County, This Morning, This Evening employs a particularly complex style of editing, behaving much more like an experimental film rather than a traditional documentary. While I admire filmmaker RaMell Ross' attempt to weave together an intricate tapestry of a small Alabama community, Hale County ultimately lacks any organizing principle. Further, Ross' extensive footage introduces us to a lot of different Hale County residents, but keeps us at a bizarre distance from them all. The film has a lot to say about perspective and its limits, but surprisingly little to say about the socioeconomic issues bubbling beneath its surface. It reminded me of Khalik Allah's Black Mother, although I enjoyed the latter and its beautiful layering of images and sounds much more. Black Mother felt like a Terrence Malick film, recognizing the difficult task of fully representing any one subject and evoking a powerful feeling towards that subject instead. Hale County makes this same observation, but nearly admits defeat in the process.

I've been thinking a lot about editing lately. About its ability to encourage our creativity, demand it even. About its ability to communicate that which words cannot. About its ability to instill a sense of urgency. About its ability to paint richly colored portraits with limited resources, and remind us what is possible.

I've been thinking a lot about editing lately because I've been watching a lot of movies lately.

In case you haven't heard, we're in the middle of a global pandemic. I emphasize "middle" because it seems so many Americans have concocted their own reality, one in which COVID-19 is no more, when it has in fact never been worse. Cases of the virus continue to surge, with each day introducing roughly 7,000 new cases, a number that could soon rise as we learn more about the impact of so many Americans gathering for Thanksgiving.

Amidst all my thinking about editing, I've been thinking about COVID-19. I've been thinking about six months ago, when the virus was understood to be the threat that it is. In April and May, Americans swallowed their pride and adapted to unprecedented circumstances. Sure, there was resistance from closed-minded conservatives, and the United States did not take nearly enough precaution in combating coronavirus, but for a brief period of time, it felt like we all were going through this together. Our media reflected that too. Late night talk shows exercised their creative muscles and put together new approaches, new packages, and new ideas to keep us entertained and informed. Every major network understood its unique responsibility, and created content accordingly. Plenty of it was corny and plenty more of it was probably unnecessary, but again, it spoke to the broader sense that we are all in this together. For a brief time in 2020, American society felt creative.

Where has that creativity gone?

Our society has largely returned to normal, despite there being little reason for doing so. Americans are dining in restaurants. They are shopping for Black Friday deals. They are gathering with their families for Thanksgiving and other holidays. Local, state, and federal governments have demonstrated a startling lack of creativity. Where are the restrictions that were put in place just a few months ago? What about a stirring, uniting speech as opposed to the deflective drivel put forth in recent weeks by so-called leaders like New York governor Andrew Cuomo? And most importantly, where is another stimulus package for the millions of Americans who have been so devastatingly impacted by the COVID-19 crisis? America needs creativity and urgency now more than ever, and we have never had less of it.

I believe, as I so often do, that this lack of creativity begins with our media. News networks, for example, may report on the worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they do little to highlight the several institutional failures that have led us here. Even with Donald Trump officially established as a one-term president, networks continue to waste time on his bogus accusations of election fraud, rather than focus on the Senate's pathetic handwringing over a second stimulus check.

The American media has never been on the side of its people; that was clear in the summer and it remains clear now. Still, COVID-19 feels like the rare crisis that could truly unite Americans. Has America's increasing polarization truly reached the point of no return? Can the deaths of millions, and the economic struggles of millions more, still not rally us together and encourage us to consider creative, progressive solutions? I fear that I know the answers to my own questions, and still I am flabbergasted by the extent of American incompetence in 2020. Many, myself included, blame Trump for the seemingly irrevocable damage that 2020 has done to this country. And yet, it has become chillingly obvious that Americans at all levels - from public officials to working-class citizens - lack the creativity and the sense of urgency necessary to combat COVID-19.

I too bear some of the responsibility. Like I said, I've been thinking a lot about editing. But is thinking enough? For all my talk about creativity and urgency, I have never felt less creative, less motivated in my life. It is a feeling that I imagine many others can relate to. Fortunately, this is an excuse that I, a recent college grad living with his parents, can somewhat afford to fall back on. I don't extend that same patience and understanding to the elected officials who have demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the American people, and for the virus itself. My girlfriend recently described the coronavirus as "nature finally fighting back." I love this observation, however unsettling it may be. Beyond COVID-19, we are dealing with an even greater existential crisis in global warming. If we cannot trust our chosen leaders to answer nature's call now, I shiver at the thought of what their leadership may look like just a few years from now, when our planet screams out for us louder than ever before, and our leaders continue to plug their ears.

I am angry. I am insulted. And, like editing at its very best, I demand creativity.

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Thanks for reading! While I have only posted to this site sparingly over the past several months, I have been doing plenty of writing. You can read much more of my stuff at www.screenrant.com, where I recently switched from covering Reality TV to writing features on film and television. I also recently added a link to my Letterboxd account at the bottom of the site, where you can see what I'm watching on a weekly basis, and hear some additional thoughts of mine. Of course, you can also stop reading and get off your ass and do something. It's not my thing, but I won't be offended.