Modern love. Here’s one rendition of it: youtu.be/FDjJpmt-wzg
And, below, is another [less surreal] version.
Indeed, compare relationships now with those that once existed. Back when we lived in a world where there was a place for everyone and everyone was in their place. In other words, you followed the script [everyone did] from the cradle to the grave.
Not anymore. There is no script. But even though the world increasingly revolves around pop culture and consumption, there are still those more “sophisticated” folks who try to rise above it.
But there are just so many godawful narratives – lifestyles – from which to choose. Still, one thing is clear: Youth rules!
Here, Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are no longer young. And they’ve been married long enough now for things to get “stale”. What to do? Well, they meet Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried. They’re younger, hipper, more adventuresome. But, in their own way, just as fucked up. Especially Adam. A real phony we might call him. Think Bill Hurt in Broadcast News.
The personification of “American youth”. Just a lot “cooler”.
And then this part: To have or not to have kids?
Jeez Louise.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/While_We%27re_Young_(film
trailer: youtu.be/NRUcm9Qw9io
WHILE WE’RE YOUNG [2014]
Written and directed by Noah Baumbach
[b]Cornelia [to the baby…not hers]: There were three little pigs and they made a house out of twigs and the wolf came…
Josh: He blows it down?
Cornelia: Yeah, but what happens in the middle?
Josh: I keep wanting to do ‘This little piggy went to the market, but that’s with the toes’.
…
Josh [to Cornelia]: Well, maybe the point is we have the freedom. What we do with it isn’t that important.
…
Ira Mandelstam [from Josh’s documentary]: There was a poll conducted in 1987 in which people were given a series of phrases and asked which ones could be found in the U.S. Constitution. One of the phrases that got the highest percentage of votes was, "From each according to his ability, “to each according to his need.” Of course that is not in the Constitution but is the famous communist credo popularized by Karl Marx.
…
Josh [in the classroom]: “Documentary is about someone else. Fiction is about me.” This is a quote from Jean-Luc Godard. Now, what do we think about this? Can a documentary be personal? Documentaries, I want to say to you today, can and should be about me. Me meaning all of us.[/b]
He makes those kind of documetaries. Think Cliff Stern. To wit:
[b]Jamie: Josh, what’s your new film about?
Josh: Well, I’m trying to solve the problem that Eisenstein never solved, that is, how to make a film that is both materialist and intellectual at the same time. Uh, it’s about the distinctly American relationship between biography and history, theory and method and how that relates to power and class in our country, particularly the political, military and economic elite.
…
Jamie: I really loved your film. That scene with the dogs around the garbage. How did you stage that?
Josh: I said ‘Hey, shoot those dogs’.
…
Josh [to Fletcher and Marina]: You should see this guy’s record collection. It’s Jay-Z, it’s Thin Lizzy, it’s Mozart. His taste is democratic. It’s The Goonies and it’s Citizen Kane. They don’t distinguish between high and low, it’s wonderful.
Fletcher: When did The Goonies become a good movie?
Cornelia: And it’s like their apartment is full of everything we once threw out, but it looks so good the way they have it.
…
Jamie: …instead of responding to them on Facebook, see, I’m going to go find them in person. With my camera.
Josh: Okay.
Jamie: Like make Facebook real. It’s like, you want to talk to me, let’s talk.
Josh: Kind of just like real life?
Jamie: Exactly.
Josh: Well, real was there before Facebook.
…
Doctor: You have arthritis in your knee.
Josh: Uh, is arthritis a catch-all for some kind of injury to the…
Josh: No, arthritis is a degradation of the joints.
Josh: Yeah, I know what traditional arthritis is. But…
Doctor: I’m not sure what you mean by “traditional”, but this is arthritis.
Josh: Arthritis arthritis?
Doctor: Yes, but I usually just say it once.
…
Josh: I like our life as it is.
Cornelia: Yeah. I mean if we wanted to take off to Paris tomorrow we could.
Josh: If we’re gonna do it, we should plan it with at least a month in advance.
Cornelia: A month is still in the realm of spontaneity.
…
Cornelia: We’ve got this Ayahuasca ceremony this weekend with Jamie and Darby.
Marina: What’s an Ayahuasca ceremony?
Cornelia: You drink this sludgy liquid and you hallucinate and vomit up your demons. [/b]
No doubt this sort of New Age bullshit really does exist.
[b]Josh: Oh, my God, I see a fucking pyramid. And a sphinx. It’s true, you see Egyptian shit. Honey, what are you seeing?
Cornelia: I’m in a deli in Bensonhurst.
…
Cornelia: I wish you’d look at me the way you look at Jamie and Darby. When we first met, you wooed me with romantic e-mails.
Josh: It wouldn’t make sense for me to send you e-mails now that we’re in the same room all the time.
…
Kent: Why do we stop doing things? Life happens I guess, huh?
Jamie: Life is other plans.
Kent: Yeah.
Josh: Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.
Kent [to Jamie looking over at Josh]: Who is he?
…
Cornelia: My dad likes saying, “The more, the more.”
Josh: That’s because your dad has everything and then he gets more.
…
Josh [pitching his documentary to this hedge fund scumbag]: The three sections correspond to the three nodes of what Mills called the power elite. The political, military and economic. But, and this is key, each part has to interconnect to show how none of three nodes functions without the other. It’s a linear film of course, but I imagine it as kind of a hypertext. To be clear, the film is really about the working class and I can’t speak on behalf of the working class. I can’t make their film, of course. But they have to be felt as the impossible subject of the text. If that makes sense. But it isn’t even really about the power structure but about what it means to make a film about it. It’s about the very possibility of making this film. It’s really about America.[/b]
Let’s just say the pitch doesn’t work.
[b]Josh: Do you think that Jamie came to my class because he knew that I was married to you? That this was all so he could meet your dad?
Cornelia: Josh, you know, the world isn’t a conspiracy against you.
Josh: You know, fuck you. Fuck you.
Cornelia: Don’t talk to me like that.
Josh: I’m saying “fuck you” the way Jamie and Darby say it where it’s not a real “fuck you,” it’s a semi-playful “fuck you.”
Cornelia: We’re not Jamie and Darby. We don’t talk to each other that way. If you say fuck you to me it feels like a real fuck you.
Josh [coming clean]: It is real.
Cornelia: Fuck you. And not semi-playfully either!
Josh: Fuck you. Total real, cutting to the core, fuck you.
…
Cornelia: Where were you last night?
Josh: I was dancing with Darby in an after-hours gay club.
[gesturing towards Jamie]
Josh: Is this some kind of a private meeting?
Cornelia: Did you follow me here?
Josh: I follow him on Twitter! We can’t lie like we used to lie anymore. Everything’s reported. Nothing is private.
…
Josh [of Jamie]: It’s all a pose. It’s like he once saw a sincere person and he’s been imitating him ever since.
…
Fletcher: Before you have a kid, everyone tells you, “It’s the best thing you’ll ever do.” And as soon as you get the baby back from the hospital, those same people are like, “Don’t worry, it gets better.”
…
Josh: I was just with Kent.
Darby: Oh, Kent! I love Kent.
Josh: I saw your ice cream in Jamie’s video.
Darby: Well played, sir.
Josh: He let me think I was the one who found out about Kent in Afghanistan.
Darby: Jamie doesn’t wanna disappoint you. None of us wanna disappoint you. You’re such a purist. Jamie would never have made the movie without Afghanistan. When I told him about Kent and the massacre, he thought it would make a good movie. He just had to figure out how to tell it.
Josh: But why not tell it honestly?
Darby: It’s more entertaining this way. And now it has a before and after which, as you know, Americans love.
…
Josh: But you really will do anything to be successful.
Jamie: Success isn’t my thing, Josh. It’s yours.
Josh: Yeah, you’re right, it is my thing. I’ve got a fucked up relationship with success. I want it and I don’t have it. But what you have scares the shit out of me.
…
Josh: I do know that documentaries are over.
Jamie: Are you kidding? It’s what everyone is doing.
Josh: Leslie’s documentaries are over. What you’re doing is something else. If everyone is filming everything, what’s a documentary anymore? It has no meaning, it’s just some shit you recorded!
[pause]
Josh: Is that old man talk? Maybe it is. You kids have been told you can do anything. You think everything is out there for you to take. It’s not.
Jamie: Nobody owns anything. If I hear a song I like, or a story, it’s mine. It’s mine to use. It’s everybody’s.
Josh: No, it isn’t! That’s not sharing, Jamie, that’s stealing.
Jamie: That’s old man talk.
…
Cornelia [looking at a magazine interview of Jamie a year later]: It’s out there. The evil is unleashed.
Josh: No, you were right, he’s not evil. He’s just… young.[/b]