Contemporary Theories of Happiness and Films
about Fictional Musicians
Nicole Akkermans - 10324682
Delftstraat 52-0215
2015 BM, Haarlem
+31637475561
nicole_akkermans1992@hotmail.com
MA Media Studies: Film Studies
Supervisor: Maryn C. Wilkinson
Second reader: Eva Sancho Rodriguez
Date: 23 June 2016
Amount of words: 19.639
Begin Again (2013) Frank (2014)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) Whiplash (2014)
Abstract
This thesis examines happiness and the way in which it is constructed in contemporary films revolving around fictional musicians. I challenge the idea that happiness is a given concept by investigating the way in which films are able to provide certain structures of happiness, particularly when they include musical performances. By considering the narrative structures of four films (Begin Again, Frank,
Inside Llewyn Davis and Whiplash) as pursuits of happiness, I hope to locate the space of happiness in
these films. I will combine the investigation of narratives with contemporary philosophies of happiness, such as Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘happy objects’, and with the audience’s enjoyment of musical performances. The aim of this thesis is to find the structural recurrences of happiness in film.
Content
Introduction 6
Chapter 1: Happy Attachment? 11
The Four Axis of Unhappiness 13
Actual Problems 15
The Promise of ‘Happy Objects’ 18
Affect Alien Andrew 21
Conclusion 22
Chapter 2: The Space of Happiness 24
Locating the Happy Objects 25
The Space of Happiness 29
Inside-Out 32
Expansion of the body? 32
Conclusion 34
Chapter 3: The Audience and Musical Enjoyment 36
Musical Happiness Bubbles 37
The Affective Community of the Viewer 42
Music and Film as Happy Objects 44
Conclusion 47
Introduction
“I thought singing was a joyous expression of the soul!”, exclaims Lilian Gorfein (Robin Bartlett) in response to Llewyn Davis’ decline to play the company a song after dinner. In this scene halfway through Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) responds that he is not a trained puppy but that he “actually has to earn a living” by performing music. In this way, the film illustrates a tension between the socially constructed idea that music is an (individual) expression of the soul, and the idea that music is a world that for musicians becomes a community/industry in which he/she has to earn money to support oneself. These contradictory perceptions of music (and its relation to happiness) create a conflict between the two characters in this film. What interests me here is this link between happiness and music. For indeed where does happiness reside here; in self-expression and communal enjoyment, or in personal success and excellence? Is the expression of enjoyment and happiness through musical performances enough for the characters to be happy, to get by? Or can they only be happy after they have become rich and famous? This essay is about how films about fictional
musicians function as narratives about happiness. Along with discussing happiness for the protagonists of the film, I am concerned with the construction of happiness for the viewer of the film. My research question is therefore as follows: How do films about fictional musicians construct structures of happiness, and what are the recurring strategies to bring the viewer into these structures?
To answer this question, this essay will turn to contemporary philosophies of happiness such as those posed by Sara Ahmed in the Promise of Happiness. In the introduction to this book, she discusses the ‘new science of happiness’ as a strand of popular, contemporary philosophy that tries to determine what happiness is through measuring the way in which people describe that they feel good (4). Through researching how and why certain things (and not others) are associated with good feelings, Ahmed is interested in figuring out how subjects are positioned in contemporary society. Furthermore, Ahmed argues that describing happiness as ‘feeling good’ is a site of ambivalence, for there is no such thing as transparency and/or clear distinctions when it comes to feeling something,
describing what you feel, and categorizing what distinguishes feeling good from feeling bad (5). For
example, it is possible that a subject feels multiple feelings at the same time, to feel both good and bad. Another complication to defining happiness that Ahmed mentions (by quoting Csíkszentmihályi) is that:
happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random choice, it is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and defended privately by each person (my emphasis, Csíkszentmihályi in Ahmed 31)
What interests me about this is, if in fact happiness is something that has to be learned rather than that it is something that is inside of us from the moment we are born, then how do we become cultivated
and prepared for it? If there is no consensus as to what happiness is, then how is it constructed? Here, I will look at films and the way in which they structurally manufacture certain
conceptions of happiness, since films are a site where meanings are produced and put into circulation. Happiness is one of the topics that everyone in the world at some point talks about, aspires to, thinks about, longs for, feels, discusses, dreams about etc. As such, it is a topic of major importance in culture, and narratives of happiness are often (re)presented in media such as on television shows, but also through art and literature. If contemporary culture is filled with narratives of happiness, then the plots of cultural products must most commonly revolve around (fictional) characters (the hero) who long for it and that have to overcome obstacles or difficult tasks in order to get the happiness that they want. However, having, being or doing what one wants to have, be or do does not implicate that the character is then happy. Think for example of films or television shows where the villain succeeds with his evil plan: is he understood to be happy?
Considering reoccurring tropes in narratives (patterns) has its origin in structuralism and Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale. As Roland Barthes writes:
the Russian formalists, Propp, and Lévi-Strauss have taught us to identify the following dilemma: either narrative is a random assemblage of events, in which case one can only speak of it in terms of the narrator’s (the author’s) talent, or genius – all mythical embodiments of chance; or else it shares with other narratives a common structure, open to analysis, however delicate it is to formulate (my emphasis, 238).
In this thesis, I want to lay bare these underlying (‘common’) structures in the narratives of happiness in films about fictional musicians. More specifically then, this thesis will focus on contemporary American films featuring (more or less) fictional musical artists to see in which way they present a certain idea(l) of happiness, and to see in which way what makes the protagonist happy is negotiated. I will consider these films as representing a sub-sub genre that contrasts with established genres such as documentaries about musicians, biopics and (Hollywood) musicals. The difference between the films discussed here and biopics is that they don’t create expectations of narrative development, since the stories are fictional rather ‘real’ stories of real musicians that might be known by the audience in advance of watching the film. Narratives of musicals, on the other hand, are different from traditional narratives (of Hollywood films) since “values like causality and motivation, and the conventional opposition between narrative and numbers, are displaced by structures and devices of comparison and contrast whose role is to articulate the dualities with which any particular film is concerned” (Neale 111). Despite the fact that the films discussed here are not musicals either, I will discuss whether or not the structures of contrasts that Neale mentions in regards to this genre might be a trope that holds ground for them as well. This is because, just as is the case for musicals, the films about fictional musicians too feature a narrative combined with musical performance, which is a defining trope for
the musical genre (Feuer 68-9). What is interests me about the films discussed here is the way in which they present the viewer with narratives of (the pursuit of) happiness as a theme of the genre. In order to explore this, I will compare the narrative structures of four films and the way in which they establish what is desirable (what will lead to happiness?) and what not. I have chosen to pick four contemporary films (two films from 2013 and two from 2014), since these can help to establish the way in which happiness is constructed at the present moment. What these films have in common is that their protagonists are on a journey or quest for validation as musicians; whether that be as musicians, singers or songwriters. Frank (2014) is a film about Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), an aspiring keyboard player and songwriter who through luck becomes member of an eccentric band that is led by Frank (Michael Fassbender)), a man who always wears a giant papier-mâché head. Secondly,
Whiplash (2014) is about nineteen year old Andrew (Miles Teller), a drummer at a music conservatory
who tries to make it as a jazz musician but is mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student’s potential. This film won three Oscars; one for J.K. Simmons in his role as mentor, one for editing and lastly one for achievement in sound mixing. Begin Again (2013) by John Carney is a film about a chance encounter between disgraced music producer executive Dan (Mark Ruffalo) and a young and talented female singer-songwriter Gretta (Keira Knightley), who together manage their personal issues as well as collaborate on recording an album. Lastly, the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn
Davis is about a singer (Llewyn Davis) in the New York of the sixties who tries to make a living as an
authentic folk artist. All the four films are about the aspiration of the protagonist as musicians1, but whereas Andrew is fixated on the idea of becoming one of the best jazz drummers there ever was, Gretta is more worried about being ‘true to herself’ rather than selling out. Despite these differences, all the characters promise themselves happiness through the prospect of validation of their talent and aspiration as musicians. However, as I will discuss in this thesis, it is exactly this aspiration that might stand in the way of and complicate the characters’ actual happiness.
While Lauren Berlant is concerned with the reflection of (among other things) happiness in our contemporary neoliberal society, her argument about a subject’s attachment to objects might hold true for the protagonists of our films as well. Berlant opens her book Cruel Optimism with stating that: “A relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your
flourishing” (1). While I am aware that films present constructions of people and events, the idea that Berlant presents here could be put to work in narratives as well. If attachment to a certain idea(l)s impose obstacles in regards to happiness (‘actual flourishing’), it can actually create those barriers that postpone happiness to a future if and when this happens or that is gained. Berlant furthermore argues that “[Optimistic relationships] become cruel only when the object that draws your attachment actively impedes the aim that brought you to it initially”. In this project, I will discuss whether or not the drive
1 I am well aware that Inside Llewyn Davis, as part of the Coen Brothers’ oeuvre, ridicules the classic Hollywood narrative of romantic drama and comedy films. It is included here because despite its irony, it still features the same kind of of drives and desires to compare and contrast it to the other films.
of the heroes to become successful artists poses a threat to their happiness, since attachment to certain goals can actually create those obstacles to happiness in the first place.
However, I am not only interested in the way in which happiness is at stake for the
protagonists of the films, but also in the way in which films cultivate (or construct) what happiness is
for the viewer. This is also where my project deviates from that of Lauren Berlant and Sara Ahmed:
whereas they are concerned with critiquing the philosophy of happiness in general (Ahmed) and the crises imposed upon subjects by the neoliberal society (Berlant), I am concerned with films, their viewers, and the way in which they complicate contemporary understandings of happiness. Therefore, rather than using the films to exemplify Ahmed and Berlant’s theories on happiness, I will put them in dialogue with structural analysis. By doing this, I am following Robert Sinnerbrink’s view that researchers should have a pluralist approach to films as both works of art and as experience to reflect upon, making films “communicate with philosophy in more aesthetically receptive ways” (Sinnerbrink 8). By combining philosophies of happiness with structural analysis, I hope to see in which way the films add to these theories. For example, rather than only discussing the way in which the narratives of the film present the characters to be happy or not, I will look at the way in which the films negotiate the rhetoric of happiness. Films are exactly such a site where ambivalence towards what happiness means is created. Through analysing them, I want to expose how they can create confusion in regards to the values, ideas and objects that promise happiness, both for the characters and for the viewers of the film. This also includes discussions of representation and ideology, as the films engage with the politics involved in the construction of happiness. However, in this thesis, it is not my aim to make larger political claims about the discourses constructed by the films of happiness; I am not concerned with, for example, gender theory or feminism. Rather, through combining structural analysis of films with the philosophies of happiness, I will discuss the way in which the films more generally work for the viewer: what is it that they offer them that is specific about films featuring musical performances? In “Entertainment as Utopia”, Richard Dyer has argued that musicals (as just one form of entertainment among others), offer the viewer utopian sensibilities through such performances: “It presents, head-on as it were, what utopia would feel like rather than how it would be organized. It thus works at the level of sensibility, by which I mean an affective code that is characteristic of, and largely specific to, a given mode cultural production” (20). Performances juxtapose both the narratives of the films, and the actual social shortcoming of the audience of the film by offering a sense of utopian relief in spite of the contextual (political) hardship of the viewer (Dyer 23). Dyer categorises five types of shortcomings (scarcity, exhaustion, dreariness, manipulation and fragmentation) and five
complimentary utopian solutions to this which are offered by entertainment (abundance, energy, intensity, transparency and community) (Entertainment 26). What interests me here is that these sensibilities all seem to evolve around happiness: the utopian fantasy that musical performances present in a utopian sense is thus about happiness. By using this theory, my project then presents a philosophical exercise to see how films that use music in a similar fashion work (or don’t work) in the
same way.
Before going into the structure of this thesis, I need to state that the project presented here is concerned with one specific construction of happiness. This is because, while I earlier argued that people everywhere in the world are concerned with happiness, the construction of what happiness is, is culturally (and I would also argue, historically) specific. As Uchida, Norasakkunkit and Kitayama state in their essay “Cultural Constructions of Happiness: Theory and Empirical Evidence”:
[Indeed], people everywhere are likely to prefer the desirable over the undesirable and the pleasant over the unpleasant (Diener, Diener and Diener, 1995; Michalos, 1991; Veenhoven, 1991). However, it is also likely that exactly what constitutes the good and the valuable varies substantially across cultures (Diener and Suh, 2000; Kitayama and Markus, 2000). As a consequence, we may expect considerable cross-cultural variations in meanings of happiness” (223-4).
Because all the films discussed here are American, I expect that the way in which they construct the meaning of happiness is coherent, providing a singular conception of happiness linked to the American idea(l) of happiness. This idea(l) is phrased in the United States Declaration of Independence as the ‘unalienable’ right to “Life, Liberty and Happiness”, and has come to be represented as the American Dream. The Pursuit of Happiness is considered a fundamental right in American culture, and is thus the one specific structure of happiness with which this project is concerned. By limiting this project to one particular culture, I hope to be able to define one particular recurring structure of happiness.
In what follows, I will start with examining the way in which the hero’s unhappiness is established in and by the films. We will see that not all the obstacles that the characters face are created by the fact that they are musicians. After this I am concerned with what Ahmed in the first chapter of her book calls “happy objects”: ideas, values or objects that in one way or another have become associated with happiness (Happy Objects 21). Ahmed describes the dialectical process between the subject and the object and the way in which object promises happiness to the subject by its association with causing a good feeling (23). Here, I am interested in what the objects are that promise the subjects of the films happiness, and I will compare what the differences and similarities between them are in the four films. But what do the films themselves add to the narratives of heroes desiring happiness through happy objects? Do they complicate the narrative, contradict it, or do they in some way work together? The second chapter of this thesis is concerned with these questions, and it will start off by locating the happy objects of chapter one in a certain space in relation to the subjects of the film. This is because, I will argue, distance causes the unhappiness for the characters (Ahmed 25). If unhappiness is created through a gap between the subject and the object, is the contrary true for happiness? Does proximity to happy objects create happiness? And what is so specific about the way in which these films than represent this happiness? In relation to Dyer’s theory on the opening up of
spaces of happiness in the musical2, I will consider the space that is opened up by music(al
performances) as expansion of happiness. This will lead me to question whether or not the viewer of the film understand the protagonist to be(come) happy. At the same time, the third and final chapter of this essay is concerned with happiness and enjoyment of the music for the viewer, and the way in which this contrasts to their everyday life.
.
1.
Happy attachments?
In the opening image of the film Frank, we see the protagonist Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) as he looks out over the sea that he is facing (see figure 1.1). Jon is trying to compose a song in his head, and he sings about the things that he sees in this opening image: children building castles in the sand, “endless rolling waves” of the sea, and women passing by on the street. After returning home, Jon realizes that the song that he has composed is actually an existing one by Madness, which he picked up as someone was listening to it in the bus. In this way, the film introduces the hero of this film as someone who is constantly looking for inspiration, someone who is always composing. The crisis of creativity and originality sets up the narrative for the film, in which Jon is on a quest not only for inspiration but also for validation and recognition as a (talented?) musician.
However, Jon’s lack of inspiration is just one example of the many difficulties musicians can encounter in their job, along with lack of creativity or lack of originality. In this chapter, I will argue that a lot of the obstacles the protagonists face here are caused by the fact that they are musicians: problems/arguments/fight or discussions with other characters and personal life (family, friends) arise and are about the fact that they are musicians. For example, they can get accused of lack of social involvement in family life due to hours spend practicing, performing or recording, which as a
consequence can cause problems in intimate (romantic) relationships.The struggles the characters face create barriers between them and their happiness. What differentiates the films discussed here from other (Hollywood) films in which the protagonist also face obstacles to overcome, is that the problems musicians face seems to arise along four different axis: (I) personal life, (II) financial situation, (III) talent, and (IV) the music industry. But how do the films present these problems and obstacles? And how do the characters perceive they should live, what is it that they think they should acquire in order to become happy?
In this chapter, I want to argue that even though all the narratives are structured around the problems that arise along the four axis, these problems are more complex and can work in
contradiction to the processes of what it really is that the characters lack in their current position in order to be(come) happy. To argue this, I will first discuss the problems the characters face as musicians, so those that do the arise along the axis. After that, I will look at what the actual problems are that keep the characters from being happy, and I will state that these problems are quite individual and different from one another. Both the problems of the characters as musicians and their actual problems are constituted at the opening sequences of the four film. In the second part of this chapter, I will use Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘happy objects’ in order to analyse what the characters perceive as their ‘happy objects’, the things they desire and aspire to because they think if they have it or are near it, they are able to move out of their current unhappy position to a promise of happiness in the
future.These objects are in one way or another made to represent causing a good feeling for the characters, and thus they think that these are what will make them happy. The films then revolve around the protagonists’ quest for these objects, rendering the narratives pursuits of happiness.
The Four Axis of Unhappiness
Whiplash opens with a black screen and the sounds of drumming that keeps going faster and faster.
The tension and sense of anticipation is built. Then, we hear the drummer playing the base drum. The drumming stops when we suddenly see a young drummer from across a long hallway (Andrew Neiman, played by Miles Teller), adjusting his hi-hat (see figure 1.2). The screeching of the
instrument echoes on the floor as he moves it closer. The camera moves through the hallways closer to Andrew while he continues his practice. He stops playing again when he notices a man standing in the doorway. This is the first meeting we see between him and Mr. Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the man who leads the Jazz Studio Band at Shaffer Conservatory of Music, the ‘best music institution in the United States’. In this scene, the relationship between Andrew as a student and Mr Fletcher as an instructor is established: Fletcher is presented by the film as a dominant and overpowering man while Andrew is shy and obedient to Fletcher’s instructions. The film does this by using lighting to focus on Fletcher’s hands (see figure 1.3): while the scene takes place in a dark room (wherein the background has become almost invisible) and Fletcher wears dark clothes, after he takes of his jacket, his face and hands are clearly visible. What Fletcher does with his hand makes Andrew stop playing; overpowering Andrew’s drumming silently by using his body. The opening sequence of Whiplash in this way sets up the premise of the rest of the film: the conflict between Andrew and Fletcher about musical
Figure 1.3 Lighting emphasizes Fletcher’s hand Figure 1.2 Opening image of Whiplash
performance. In this film, Andrew represents the hero who is looking for happiness by a drive to become an excellent drummer, while the obstacles he faces are caused by Fletcher. However, this does not necessarily mean that Fletcher is the antagonist that Andrew has to defeat, for he too, in his own way, strives for greatness and is not afraid to push people in order to get there. In this way, Fletcher is an externalisation of Andrew’s inner struggle and drive for perfectionism. This is already set up by the scene described above: the film shows the closing of the distance (crossing of the hallway) between the two characters, bringing them together in the practice room, a space associated with music.
Whiplash revolves around the conflict between Fletcher and Andrew (and their aspirations linked to
music). The obstacles that Andrew faces are then both Fletcher’s dominance and his own talent and strength to overcome it. In line with what I argued in the introduction to this chapter: the protagonist of this film has problems that are caused by the fact that he is a musician, along the axis (which I introduced) of his own talent.
In much the same fashion, we see that in Frank too the protagonist experience problems that are caused by his aspiration as musician: we already saw that Jon is looking for inspiration in his everyday life for the songs that he is trying to compose on his keyboard. This problem is challenging, for there is no clear solution as to how and
where inspiration is to be found. The opening sequence of the film establishes this problem by contradicting Jon’s problems as a musician with his daily life as an employee in an unspecified office job (see figures 1.4.1 – 1.4.3). While the film shows a close-up of the poster saying “To Jon. Don’t stop believing” (figure 4.3), we faintly hear the cheering of an audience. In this way, Jon’s fantasy of
becoming famous as musician is established. Furthermore, Jon is introduced as a twenty-something year old who still lives at home with his parents, and the way in which he during a lunchbreak describes having a cheese and ham panini for lunch as “#livingthedream”
emphasises, ironically, his unhappiness with the way things are in his live at the moment. In this way, Jon’s dreams an desires as a musician are established in the first few shots of the film.
In Begin Again however, it is precisely through a musical performance that Gretta’s unhappiness is established. While the film opens with the sound of cheering, we then see the conversation between two friends in which the man pushed the women to go on stage and perform a song in bar packed with people. Gretta eventually start to play ‘Step You Can’t Take Back’,but the
Figures 1. 4.1 – 1.4.3 Jon’s daily office life, decorated with a poster that indicates his desire of becoming famous
performance is unsuccessful, for Gretta is shown to sing hesitantly and unconvincing. While we see and hear Gretta performing, the murmuring of the crowd almost overwhelms the sound of her voice and guitar. Other than that, the film isolates Gretta from the other people in the room by
showing close-ups of her face with the empty stage as background, and whenever we do get a shot of the audience, they are out of focus (see figure 1.5). This indicates that Gretta is not getting through to the audience, there is no connection between her and them. In this way, the performance establishes the way in which Gretta experiences a barrier that causes (or as we later learn, is only part of) Gretta’s unhappiness.
Whereas we have seen that Andrew and Jon are struggling with talent and inspiration in relation to music, we learn later in the film that Gretta’s unhappiness is caused by her concern with true, honest and authentic self-expression as a songwriter. For Llewyn Davis too are his obstacles linked to his job as musician: while Inside Llewyn Davis opens with him performing ‘Hang Me, Oh Hang Me’, immediately after, his life spirals down as he is beaten up in the alley behind the café, crashes on the couch of friends and let’s their cat escape while he leaves. Here too is it only later that the viewer learns that Llewyn’s problems are created because he is a musician (rather than having ‘a proper’ job), and that most of these problems have to do with his financial instability.
In conclusion, all the opening sequences of the films discussed here establish the protagonists and their problems/obstacles in relation to music. These all fit within the four axis of personal life, financial situation, talent, and the music industry. However, these problems can also easily be resolved throughout the rest of the plot, and sometimes they do. For example, Andrew becomes such a good drummer that in the end of the film he manages to really impress Fletcher and overpower him. But does achieving the goal that he has set himself mean that he can (personally) be happy? Or does this go against the idea that excellent music and enjoyment of it is a goal in itself?
Actual problems
I would like to argue that the unhappiness of our characters is not necessarily and only caused by their aspiration and lives as musicians, but that through the way in which the films present the narratives, other concerns and problems are created. For example, Gretta’s aspiration seems not so much to be a successful, famous musician, but rather to be her true honest self, to have her own feet to stand on. This is established by the conflict that she has with her boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine), who suddenly becomes interested in becoming rich and famous rather than staying true to himself. It is because of the fact that her boyfriend does aspire to become famous that she loses her intimate relationship with
him, and it was this, the film later on shows, she perceived as providing her ‘real happiness’, rather than the desire to become rich and famous as a musician.
So far, we have seen that the problems that the characters face, even though they all seem to be caused by the fact that they are musicians, are not always the actual and more urgent problems. If we look more closely to the other three films discussed here, it will become apparent that the opening sequences of these film also establish deeper concerns for the protagonists that cannot so easily be resolved as their music related problems. For example, Gretta is longing for a way of expressing herself in an authentic way, Jon is looking for a way to change his current life for something else, something more exciting, and Andrew has to overcome his own inner demons. The deeper issues however relate to the larger concerns of the diegetic society, which is in three of the films mentioned here the twenty-first century3. As Lauren Berlant argues in Cruel Optimism, what happened in the second half of the twenty-first century is that the state has withdrawn from the “uneven expansion of economic opportunity, social norms, and legal rights”, and as a consequence the fantasies of the good life that are usually provided by culture started to fray (3). These fantasies are, for Berlant
“particularly, upward mobility, job security, political and social equality, and lively, durable intimacy” (3). I will here look at the four films as examples of culture that should be (but according to Berlant are not any longer) concerned with these fantasies. In contradiction to Lauren Berlant, I will argue that all four films discussed here still provide the viewer with fantasies, rather than that they are fraying. Chapter three of this thesis is concerned with the way in which these film do or do not offer the viewer a utopian fantasies, but for now, I would like to argue at least that the fantasies that Berlant mentions are still there to be dealt with.
In Whiplash, we have already seen that one of the biggest concerns for Andrew is his talent and the conflict with Fletcher as his own inner demon. Related to music then, the “fantasies” that this film deals with are upward mobility (in his job as musician) and social equality. Since both equality and upward mobility are presented by the end of the plot (in which, as I mentioned, Andrew
overpowers Fletcher by giving the performance that will help propel his career forward) one could argue that at least two fantasies are provided. However, outside these problem that are related to music, the opening titles of the film (after the establishing of the social inequality) present yet other concerns related to the twenty-first century. This is because the film presents New York as a
Metropolis, through a quick succession of shots a lot of which pan from side to side or top to bottom (or vice versa) (see figures 1.6.1-1.6.3). These shots are rhythmically edited to up-tempo jazz music, which introduce the type of music that the film is dealing with to the audience. In this way, issues linked with city space such as fragmentation, alienation and loneliness are raised. These themes return
later in the film, both explicitly4 and implicitly (see my analysis of the dinner scene at the end of this chapter). Thus, the beginning of the film sets up what problems Andrew is facing, both his problems as an ambitious jazz drummer and as a person who is part of a certain society/community.
In an equal fashion to what we saw in Begin Again, does Frank present Jon’s deeper concerns.
Whereas I earlier argued that Jon’s unhappiness is constructed by the film through the juxtaposition of his daily life and his dream of becoming a successful musician/songwriter, the film emphasizes this juxtaposition in Jon’s first performance with ‘the Soronprfbs’. After coincidentally being at the place where the keyboard player tries to drown himself, Jon is invited to be his substitute in the concert that they have that night. This performance is for Jon a chance to come closer to his fantasy of becoming a famous musician. Because of this, the film presents it as ‘a dream come true’: at first, Jon is uncertain about his part in the band and he does not know what song and what accords to play. Later, he becomes more certain about his place in the band and is able to enjoy performing. Furthermore, the film emphasizes Jon’s joy in performing by purposely not showing that there is almost no audience in the concert hall. In this way, Jon’s longing to belong somewhere else, to a community of which he was not currently a part, is emphasized by the film. His actual happy object is a sense of belong in a
4 For example, after the establishing with Fletcher with which the films opens, we see how Andrew goes home, and rather than joining in the party at in the flat by his dorm room, he chooses to lock himself up in his room instead.
Figures 1.6.1-1.6.3 New York as a metropolis in Whiplash
community: whereas the opening has established that Jon lives in a happy family situation, the community in which he is presented to sense true social interaction with others is through music. In a different way, the opening of Inside Llewyn Davis sets up Llewyn as someone who is constantly miscomprehended by the society of his time. This is because we see that he is beaten up by a (seemingly) random stranger, and neither the viewer of the film nor Llewyn himself seems to know why this happens. The film presents Llewyn’s life as constant struggle: he is continuously looking for a place to sleep and money so that he can buy food (or afford an abortion!). Also, he too is struggling to achieve upward mobility, which is pointed out explicitly by Jane who says to him that: “you’re the one who is not going anywhere”. In this way, the film enters into a dialogue with the concept of
impasse, which is described by Laurent Berlant as:
a stretch of time in which one moves around with a sense that the world is at once intensely present and enigmatic, such that the activity of living demands both a wandering absorptive awareness and a hypervigilance that collects material that might help to clarify things (4)
Berlant furthermore argues that the ordinary life as a state of impasse is in contemporary society “shaped by crisis in which people find themselves developing skills for adjusting to newly
proliferating pressures to scramble for modes of living on” (8). I would like to argue that in all the four films discussed here, the narratives present the protagonists as being in this state: they aspire to move away from their current position in the world of the diegesis as it is established in the premise/opening sequence of the films. In this way, there are boundaries set between the characters and their worlds that prevent them from getting/being what they want (to be), and hence, they are represented to feel unhappy. The result is that, in opposition to the problems the characters face because they are musicians, the actual problems that the films deal with are quite different from one another. I would now like to use Sara Ahmed’s theory of ‘happy objects’ to see how this works in the films and for the protagonists.
The Promise of ‘Happy Objects’
Sara Ahmed discusses the way in which happiness is not always located on the inside (within the subject), but rather is often located elsewhere, in a space outside the subject (29). She argues that this is because of our modern association of happiness with feeling (5): to say that you are happy implies that you feel good about something, rather than implying that something has happened to you that affects you in a good way (Ahmed 32). Considering happiness, for Ahmed, thus involves not only affect, but also evaluation or judgement (what is considered good and what is considered bad?) and intentionality, which she describes as “end orientated” (29). In this way, she writes, “it is not just that we can be happy about something, as a feeling in the present, but some things become happy for us, if we imagine that they will bring happiness to us” (Ahmed 33). Objects can become ‘happy objects’: values, ideas and objects that through association with causing (affecting) a good feeling in the
subjectcan become associated with causing happiness, and thus, the objects are valued in a positive light. Ahmed provides John Locke’s example of the man who loves grapes: if someone during a previous experience has learned that he likes the taste of grapes, grapes come to be associated with tasting good, even though this might not always turn out to be the experience. The person can then become attached to the grape as the thing that promises him the experience of a nice taste. So, subjects can become attached to objects, since they become the means through which the end of happiness is promised after we are close to the object. Ahmed locates the problem with this in the contagiousness of association when objects are passed around in a community (36). For example when the man’s association of the grape as tasting nice can become attached to the object, and the whole community then values grapes in a positive light. This is the ‘sticky’ affect that Ahmed describes: when an object is passed around a community, the affect is sustained or preserved through connection. People can than either be in line with the way in which the objects are valued in the community or they can disagree with this judgement, for instance when they don’t feel that grapes provide pleasurable taste. In this way, a gap is created between the promised affect of the object and the experience of the subject. This gap, for Ahmed, “can involve a range of affects, which are directed by the modes of explanation we offer to fill this gap” (37). What interest me here is the way in which the heroes either (try) to adjust to the world(s) and objects that are circulated in them as having a positive affect, or if they choose to go against what the other characters perceive as happy objects. In other words, I want to see in which way the characters position themselves in relation to their diegetic communities by their choice of happy objects, and I will compare the narrative structures of the films to see in which way they are similar or different from one another.
I would like to start of this investigation by describing the ‘happy objects’ in the films to further explain how the films suggest that the lack of possession or proximity to these object makes our protagonists unhappy. This is because the characters are not promised happiness in the future by lacking ownership or nearness to the objects that are in their relative (diegetic) communities circulated as causing happy feelings. It is then through acquiring these objects that the characters think they can move out of their present state of impasse into a better future. In this way, the objects affect the subject; happiness here moves from an object on the outside towards a subject that then anticipates
feeling happy on the inside. When objects help us to get out of this impasse and help us to gain skills
to move to ‘a mode of living on’, they become some sort of event5. Since I am discussing films here, the narratives of (more or less) fictional people helps to understanding/analyse the happy objects as some sort of event that serves as a radical break from the impasse. It also helps us to understand in which way the characters understand and adjust to the worlds they inhabit. To exemplify this, I will here discuss what the objects are that the character perceive as their happy objects to compare and
5 I am aware that event is often associated with the Badiou’s definition of it in Being and Event. Here, I am using the term to describe an intervention which changes a situation.
contrast the drives and desires in their pursuit of happiness. Furthermore, I will discuss in which way the films are able to value these objects as happy objects (and that thus they can contradict or
complement the narratives of the film).
While I argued that the problems the protagonists face are similar in regards to music, we have also seen that their deeper concerns differ from each other. The fact that all the characters have
performing, writing and playing music in common binds them together in terms of unhappiness, which makes that music must have something to do with the characters’ own experience of happiness. For example, in Frank, we have already seen how Jon’s first performance with ‘the Soronprfbs’ is represented through his eyes as (one could say) ‘a dream come true’ by emphasizing the good things about it. Something similar happens in Begin Again: while I earlier stated that the opening
performance of ‘Step You Can’t Take Back’ by Gretta construct her unhappiness, it is Dan (Mark Ruffalo) rather than Gretta whose character is first introduced to the viewer. Dan is the disgraced music producer that Gretta meets after her performance in the bar. We see him as he wakes up late for a meeting, drinks and drives while picking up his daughter at school, and listens to and judged the tapes he has received to listen to as ‘pure crap’. The sequence ends when, at the end of the day, Dan goes to the bar where Gretta is pushed on stage
by her friend Glen (David Abeles). This time, Gretta’s performance is differently visualized from the first time that we have seen it: the focus here is on Dan as he listens get drunk by the bar and listens to the performance. The film shows Dan’s misery by showing him alone in the shot (see figure 1.7), drinking a glass filled to the top with bourbon. When Gretta starts playing, Dan’s
experience as a producer allows him to see her potential and creativity while the rest of the audience does not. In his (drunken) fantasy, Gretta’s performance overwhelm the noises of the crowd; he imagines the other instruments standing on the stage being played. In this way, the enjoyment of music sets Dan free from his personal problems to create a private bubble of musical enjoyment for himself. I will expand on this idea in chapters two and three, but for now, I want to argue that what these films have in common, then, is that music has the ability to offer the characters and the audience in the film happiness, and in this way music comes to be associated with happiness. Therefore, music could be seen as the ‘happy object’ that is circulated through all this films as connotating happiness. However, this is complicated by the actual concerns of the characters, which I argued are individual. Therefore, besides music, the characters are also shown to attach their happiness to other and different (from each other) objects, goals and values.
While music serves Dan the possibility of happiness, for Gretta’s own perception, music is shown to be a complex concept. This is because it was the different perspectives of music’s function
that she and her boyfriend have that caused a conflict, and as a consequence, their break-up. Gretta’s
actual concern then, is lacking lively and durably intimacy to another character. What happens in the
scene described here (in contrast to its earlier presentation) then is that the fantasy of the (potential) romantic unity between Gretta and Dan breaks Gretta’s current state. In this second representation, Gretta’s perception of the audience is not as an obstacle, since the crowd (and Dan in it) are in focus (see figure 1.9). The barrier between Gretta and the audience is in this way broken Dan. The film furthermore foregrounds Gretta and Dan’s potential unity by showing them in two-shots after her performance (see figure 1.10).
Affect Alien Andrew
As I already stated, Sara Ahmed has argued that: “when we feel pleasure from such objects [ happy objects], we are aligned; we are facing the right way. We become alienated - out of line with an affective community – when we do not experience pleasure from proximity to objects that are already attributed as being good” (37). In the last part of this chapter, I am concerned with what happens when the protagonist goes against the value judgement of the diegetic community.
In Whiplash, we already saw how Andrew retreats from the diegetic community by not going to the party at his dorm. In addition to this, he positions himself in contradiction to his diegetic community by desiring an object that is not valued as good by the diegetic community, especially the one of his family. For Andrew, happiness is promised to in the idea of being a an excellent drummer. He himself states this literally halfway through the film, for example during a family dinner with his father, aunt, uncle and two nephews. Before this scene, Andrew has just become the new ‘core’ drummer in Fletcher’s Studio band after giving an excellent performance in a competition. However, rather than being complimented by his family on this achievement, they get into a conflict on what is more important in life: being successful in music (or sports, for the nephews) or being remembered by friends and family. For the entire family except for Andrew, happiness is to be found through
belonging to a community (of friends/family). In this way, the film presents a conflict in regards to what Andrew perceives will make him happy versus what the other characters of the film value as good. He becomes alienated from the other characters. However, in Whiplash, it is not just one moment in which Andrew becomes a stranger, an affect alien, but throughout the entire film is he
Figure 1.9 The barrier has been broken by Dan Figure 1.10 Two-shot of Dan and Gretta, framing them
established as refusing to share an orientation towards the objects that are in his community valued as being good.
The film emphasizes Andrew’s position outside of the affective community of his family by positioning him literally outside their community. An example of this is the dinner scene, where Andrew is cut out of the family despite the fact that he sits at the middle of the table. At the same time as Andrew tells his family about his achievement, his nephew comes home. The film then cuts
Andrew out of the shot, and favours showing the nephew coming in (see figure 1.11). In this way, both the family (who stop listening to him as the nephew arrives) and the film (the shot from the light-blue arrow) cut out Andrew out. In chapter three, I will continue this discussion to consider the affective community of the viewer as well.
Conclusion
So far, we have seen how the protagonists in our films aspire to certain objects, ideas, or values
because they perceive them as promising a happy affect in the future. While Jon in Frank and Gretta in
Begin Again both desire to be(come) successful songwriters, for both Gretta, Jon and Llewyn their
aspiration as musicians is complicated by deeper concerns such as financial instability, lack of
intimacy or the sense of belonging in a (certain) community. Only for Andrew is happiness completely and only linked to his idea of success as a musician, which makes him the affect alien of his
community. The films introduce the subjects as attached to objects, which for them become ‘happiness means’: a way through which happiness is promised in the future. Since the objects are situated outside the subjects, there is a distance between them and these objects. As mentioned, proximity to the objects is what the subjects think they need in order to become associated with the happiness that is promised in them. There is thus a promise in the anticipation of the association. Ahmed describes this retrospective causality of affect as anticipatory causality: the sense that we anticipate that objects will affect us in a certain way when we get closer to them, become associated with them (40). This anticipation thus feeds the desires that drives the subjects to cover the distance towards their
Figure 1.11. At this moment, we hear Andrew telling the family about his achievement. This is drown out by the nephew greeting the family
objects. Even though the four films discussed here are all centred around musicians, the characters are all linked in different ways to music and happiness. For example, Andrew’s ultimate desire is to excel as drummer, while for Gretta, music is a way of self-expression, creating the potential of intimacy. The differences between the musicians here is further complicated by the way in which they position themselves in relation to the other characters (the ‘community’) in the films: they either (try) to adjust to the world(s) they inhabit, or they choose to go against what the others perceive as happy objects. It is through the choice of the objects that the characters either decide to adjust to life (by gaining skills to understand this life), or that they chose to go against this grain. In the next chapter, I am concerned with the way in which space, as it is constructed by the films themselves, positions the subjects in relation to their objects. Do the films contrast with the characters pursuit of happiness by creating even more obstacles? Or do they negotiate a different conception of what happiness even is?
2.
The Space of Happiness
So far, we have seen how certain objects or goals can become happy objects for the characters in our films, making the narratives of the film represent pursuit of happiness. Since I am discussing films about fictional musicians, what these films have in common is the centrality of music and musical performances in these narratives. I have also discussed in which way Begin Again offers both Dan and Gretta the possibility of transcendence through music, while Jon in Frank experiences his first
performance in a band as a fantasy. In this way, music is linked with the construction and perception of happiness, and could therefore be considered a happy object in itself (I will return to this idea in the next chapter). Along with Sara Ahmed, I have further argued that it is through nearness to happy objects that the characters perceive they will be affected in a good way. In the same fashion, Lauren Berlant in Cruel Optimism describes the way in which (optimistic) attachments to objects involves a sense of space:
[A]n optimistic attachment involves a sustaining inclination to return to the scene of fantasy that enables you to expect that this time, nearness to this thing will help you or a world to become different in just the right way (my emphasis, 2).
Despite the difference between Berlant and Ahmed goals in describing attachments or links to objects, they similarly describe that the promise of happiness through attachment to an object is linked to a notion of space: to come near (or in other words, in close proximity to) it will change the current position of the subject. While Sara Ahmed is concerned with happiness in the ‘real world’, her statement about the distance or gap between subjects and their happy objects is also applicable here. She states that “we move towards and away from objects through how we affected by them” (32). Happy objects, which we associate with affecting happy feeling in us, are thus something that we turn to. We try to move closer to the objects, so that through proximity we as subjects become associated with the association of these objects as happy (32). In this way, she writes, happiness plays a crucial role in shaping our near sphere, since we tend to surround ourselves with objects which we like, value as good and provide us with pleasure (32). However, what happens if the object of desire is
(still) situated in a space different from that of the subject? This is why considering happiness
inherently involves a consideration of space, for closeness to a thing is what is desired and considered ‘better’ than distance from it. In this way, a gap is created between the object and the subject. This gap then creates the barrier between a subject and his/her happiness as it is located in the (here, diegetic) world.
However, all conventional (Hollywood) films require narrative structure. Bordwell and Thompson, for example, write that “when we speak of ‘going to the movies’, we almost always mean that we are going to a narrative film – a film that tells a story” (68). Therefore, it seems only logical
that the characters of the films face obstacles between themselves and the objects that promise them happiness. Since happiness is a right in American, the goal to achieve it (pursuit) make it a natural given that the end goal is to become happy. But where do the films locate the happy objects? And how are they positioned in relation to the characters? In other words, in which way do the films themselves position the happiness in relation to the subjects? Having in chapter one established how and why the subjects of the four films discussed here desire objects as a means to get out of the impasse of the present moment, I will now discuss the way in which the films present/construct the space in which these objects are located. This is because (as Richard Dyer argues), happiness in relation to music is linked to space (Space of Happiness in the Musical 101)6. Since I’ve argued that the opening
sequences of all four films establish the protagonists’ unhappiness, we will see how the films establish in these (or others scenes) a gap between the protagonists and the objects. Not only space, but also time is an issue here: we will see that happy objects carry the promise of happiness in the future by positioning the characters in a certain space and time in relation to them. By doing this, I hope to show what part music plays in the construction of happiness.
But how can we locate the space (and time) of an object of desire? An actual object (as in, a physical thing, for example a guitar that one could want) is situated in a certain space and at certain time. But how about the happy objects of desire, when they are (as is the case here) an attachment, a value, a thought or idea? In the first part of this chapter, I will start with locating the happy objects in the diegetic world of the films. More specifically, I will look again at the opening sequence of Frank to argue in which way Jon’s happy object, for his own perception, is represented through the idea of extraordinary experience. After that, I will consider the way in which Inside Llewyn Davis positions the protagonist towards his happy object (or as we shall see, objects). After this discussion on space, proximity and distance, I will move closer to Richard Dyer’s idea of the ‘happy expansion’ in the space of musicals. I will argue that, even though I am not concerned with the musical genre, in some of our four films too music creates an utopian space of expansion. By linking space and movement to concepts such as utopia, I will make a first move towards the audience, which will be the subject of the last chapter of this thesis.
Locating the Happy Objects
In the previous chapter, we have seen that all the protagonists of our four films aspire to a certain object and that they associate this object with affecting them in a good way. Objects become ‘happy objects’; things that through association create a promise of happiness (in the future). This is because happiness is anticipated when the subject comes in proximity to it. I have further argued that despite the fact that all the protagonists are musicians and the films are about their lives and struggles as a musician, the ‘happy objects’ they desire differ from each other and are not necessarily and only
related to music: for both Gretta, Jon and Llewyn their aspiration as musicians is complicated by deeper concerns such as financial instability, lack of intimacy or the sense of belonging in a (certain) community. So when the object of desire is not only about music, then what could it be? And where do the films locate and position such things?
As mentioned earlier, Frank is mostly concerned with issues such as belonging and
community. We have seen how the protagonist in the opening sequence of the film is established as someone who aspires to move out of his daily life to be become a famous musician. The film there already emphasizes Jon’s lack of inspiration by showing his struggle with being original and creative. As stated earlier, the first image of the film is Jon standing on the beach (see figure 1.1), singing (inside his head, audible to the viewer through voice-over) about the ‘endless rolling waves’ of the sea. By positioning Jon in a long-shot right in the middle of the frame, the film foregrounds the balance in Jon’s life: he is within the confines of normativity, which is made explicit in the film by following him around on the streets and in the bus. Furthermore, (in the same way as is the case for Gretta) Jon faces an impenetrable space (the sea) that is hollow and empty. After this, we see how Jon tries to write songs about all the day-to-day experiences that he encounters, for example a lady walking with her baby down the road (“ladies, have babies, that’s how it works”). He then returns home to his family, while the film emphasises again how conventional his life is through Jon’s voice-over singing about the ‘little boxes’ that are the houses on the street that he lives in, and showing his living situation (with both his parents). The film in this way shows how Jon is struggling with his conventional life and establishes how he perceives that his lack of out-of-the-ordinary experiences is an obstacle to his desire to become a famous rock star and a good songwriter. His happy object is represented as extraordinary experience.
Whereas Jon is struggling with this, Llewyn Davis is on the contrary struggling with job security and upward mobility. Moreover, he lacks the skills to adjust to and to be understood by the (diegetic) world that he inhabits. However, in regards to music, his desire is more or less the same as Jon’s: to be acknowledged for his talent as an authentic musician. In order to move towards this goal, Llewyn attaches value to objects that could help him move closer to this goal and therefore become associated with happiness for him. An example of such an object is the, or rather a, house. The film presents Llewyn as being in a constant struggle with lacking owning one: halfway through the film he even has to ask Cody (Adam Driver) if he can sleep on his couch, even though they only just met each other. Owning a house would represent overcoming the problem of adjustment and implies being financially stable enough to be able to afford a house, and thus to have less problems to deal with. His desire then, is to have the ‘normative’ American Dream as something better than simply being, namely success and recognition/validation.
However, the film’s plot and cinematography problematize Llewyn’s ability to come closer to his happy object. For example, Llewyn needs his solo record to be a success, not only to be recognised for the musician that he is, but also for money to be able to afford Jean (Carey Mulligan)’s abortion.
However, when visiting his producer Mel (Jerry Grayson), it becomes clear that this is not the case. The film here emphasizes the distance by a shot of a staircase from above, which from this angle seems to be never ending (see figure 2.1.1 + 2.1.2).
Another example of an object that Llewyn desperately needs in order to move on with his life (after giving up his career as a folk singer) is the Union Card that he needs in order to ship out again as a fisherman. This object is thrown away by his sister, whom he told to throw away all of his stuff that was left in his parents’ old house. While his lack of success as musician is a problem created by the film industry, the loss of the Union Card is his own fault. The loss of happy objects makes that one path on the pursuit of happiness closes for Llewyn, and he needs to find different ways (and thus different objects to attach to) to become happy. Llewyn keeps on needing to attach to different objects instead of chasing just one which would have made him feel happy. The plot of the film thus provides a constant
shift from one object to the next. While at first these objects are linked to his goal of being (recognized as) a folk singer, they later become more linked to his need to be a part of society. In this way, the film engages with Lauren Berlant’s theory that the struggle with attachment to objects could be harmful. She describes this as follows:
To phrase “the object of desire” as a cluster of promises is to allow us to encounter what’s coherent or enigmatic in our attachments, not as confirmation of our irrationality but as an explanation of our sense of our endurance in the object, insofar as proximity to the object means proximity to the cluster of things that the object promises, some of which may be clear to us and good for us while others, not so much (original emphasis, 23-4).
In the introduction to this chapter, I have already stated, along with Berlant, that attachment to objects can be harmful in this way: the desire to the promise of happiness associated with the object could be an obstacle for the actual concerns the subject is facing. Since I am concerned with the way in which films construct happiness, it is important to consider the way in which the films present happy objects as happy or as constraining the character. In Inside Llewyn Davis, we see how a subject could be constrained by his desire of certain objects. In this way is the film about repetition and cyclicality7:
7 By Glen Kenny on Roger Ebert’s website, for example, called “the most satisfyingly diabolical cinematic structure”
Figure 2.1.1 and 2.1.2: staircases emphasize the distance between Llewyn and his happy object(s)
Figures 2.2.1 – 2.2.3. Long corridors & repetitive shots in
Inside Llewyn Davis
promises of happiness are offered through objects, the objects are lost in one way or another, and Llewyn is made to attach to different objects once again.
The film presents this cyclicality by literally featuring loops and repetitions of the same shots at different times in the film. One example of this is Llewyn’s arrival at Jim and Jean’s apartment (see figure 2.2.3): both the first time (going to the apartment with the cat) and the second time (returning from Mel without money) that Llewyn goes here, the film shows this through exactly this same shots from the same angles of Llewyn as he presses the buzzer, talks to the people downstairs about Jim and Jean’s absence, and him walking up the stairs. Furthermore, the film visually underscores the
postponement gratification of happiness through accentuating the gap between Llewyn and the objects. On the one hand, this is emphasised (as we have seen) through longshots of long spaces such as hallways and staircases (see figures 2.4+2.5). On the other hand, objects are literally pushed away from Llewyn by the film.
So far, we have seen what the happy objects are that promise the protagonists happiness and in which way they can be represented in the perception of the characters. We have seen how Jon
perceives his happy object through its representation as ‘out-of-the-ordinary experience’. For Llewyn, the object that is happy keeps on shifting from the register of ‘promising’ to ‘lost’, and so the object itself also changes constantly and Llewyn’s happiness is postponed every time. While Sara Ahmed is concerned with happiness outside of film, her statement about the distance or gap between subjects and their happy objects is also applicable here. I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter that according to her, happy objects (which we associate with affecting happy feeling in us) are something that we turn to (32). We try to move closer to these objects, so that through proximity we as subjects become associated with their good feeling. In Inside Llewyn Davis we have seen in which way film is able to position the objects in relation to the subjects of the films, and the way in which they are able
to create or emphasise the gap that exist between them. Because, as I have stated earlier, films require narrative structure, plots involve the pursuit of happiness by characters through a pursuit of a happy objects. But what happens then in Inside Llewyn Davis, where one could speak of multiple objects?
One consequence of the multiplicity of
happy objects in this film is that they create a duality of worlds; one in which Llewyn currently lives (and is unhappy), and the one that the objects promise he will get whenever he has managed to acquire them. Since happiness is situated in the ‘second world’ through the promise of the objects, it becomes a utopian world in a future time. In this way does the film not only position objects in a certain space relative of the subject, it is also concerned with time as a movement from the present into the future. Space is separated into two, the world of possibility (promise) of what could be, and the world that is (present). Inside Llewyn Davis thematises this through featuring doubles (see for example figure 2.3): they emphasise the ambiguity of the world. One example of a double in the film is the cat: there is the Gorfein’s real male cat Ulysses, and there is the cat Llewyn finds on the streets and believes to be Ulysses. After Lilian Gorfein discovers that the cat is not actually theirs, Llewyn takes the surrogate cat with him on his trip to Chicago (where he performs for Bud Grosman (played by F. Murray Abraham)). The ambiguity between the two worlds leads us to question ‘the space of happiness’, not only as the location of where happy objects are situated, but also the way in which the films engage with space in relation to happiness and music.
The Space of Happiness
The link between space and happiness in film involving music has previously been explored by Richard Dyer. In “The Space of Happiness in the Musical”, he has written about the way in which musicals use music and dance as a means of expressing enjoyment, and he argues that in this way, enjoyment is constructed as an expansion of space (Space 101). The problem with this, he argues, is that this expansion is ideological: happiness is defined and expressed through the values and sense of identity of a particular social group (101). He argues that: “[This] feeling of expansion is utterly blissful; it is also the feeling form of geographical expansion, of male going out into the world, of imperialism and ecological depredation” (101). Whereas the films discussed here are not musicals, I am interested in the way in which music and its performance is able to function in the same way, as expanding space. I do not, in contrast to Dyer, want to make a claim about the ideology that is at play here. Rather, I want to know what music’s function is when it is featured in films that revolve around a pursuit of happiness.
As we have seen in the previous chapter, in Begin Again the link between music and happiness is presented as complex for Gretta. On the one hand, she associates being a successful songwriter with causing happiness, while on the other hand the music industry (and the position of her ‘former’-boyfriend in it) has made her unhappy; it has caused her intimate relationship to end, since he left her for success in this industry. I have further argued that the opening scene established the way in which the promise of a new romantic relationship is represented as the fantasy, a utopian enjoyment in Gretta’s performance. In this scene, music opened up a gap of possibility in a space that was previously closed; it created the possibility of
connection both between Gretta and the crowd, and between Gretta and Dan. The film then presents a new happiness in a sequence in which we follow the ‘couple’ as they wander through New York City. What happens in this scene is that Gretta has asked Dan about the splitter (an item that can split the signal of one device into two signals, here the phone and two sets of
headphones) that hangs on the rear mirror of his car. The film has already foregrounded the
importance of this item earlier by showing a close-up that is focussed on it (see figure 2.4). Gretta’s question has caused Dan to reminisce about the relationship between him and his wife, since their first date was wandering through New York listening to music via the splitter. What follows is a
re-enactment of this date between Dan and Gretta. The repetition of the happy, romantic past is returned in the present, only to become the utopian promise of a happy social and intimate relationship in the future. In much the same way as Dyer has argued for musicals in “the Space of Happiness in Musicals”, happiness radiates from the promise then expands space; the entire city of New York is appropriated by the couple as they walk through it. The fact that Dan and Gretta listen to one devices using multiple headphones makes that the couple must stay in close proximity to one another. The film emphasizes this by creating obstacles that could split them apart, but they then actually move closer in order to avoid them (see for example figure 2.5.4). Moreover, the film frames the two of them together in two-shots in every shot and every environment of this sequence (see figures 2.5.1 – 2.5.4),
emphasising that the couple now is together. This is ideological, since it the promise of the heteronormative couple that expands and appropriates this space through the expression of their happiness.
Figure 2.4 The importance of the splitter foregrounded by the film
