Mark Cousins’ epic 2011 documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey was an essential yet strangely divisive investigation into the first century of the art of cinema. Consisting of 15 hourlong episodes, that documentary foregrounded Cousins’ remarkable skill at drawing unusual yet frequently fascinating connections and parallels between films from vastly different periods and regions of the world. His tendency to wax poetic, along with his oft-monotone Scottish drawl, however, proved to be too grating or soporific for some—a quality that his sequel, The Story of Film: A New Generation, also fully leans into. But for those drawn to Cousins’ pensive yet egalitarian approach to films of all genres, styles and nationalities, this new entry in The Story of Film, covering the last decade of film history, serves as a fitting epilogue to the director’s magnum opus.
As if trying to immediately disarm any viewers standing ready to accuse him of cinematic snobbery, Cousins opens his latest film discussing two of the last decade’s biggest global box office hits, Todd Phillips’ Joker and Disney’s Frozen. But Cousins remains unconcerned with the monetary side of the business and instead hones in on the aesthetic parallels of Joker’s now-infamous dance down a set of stairs in the Bronx and Elsa’s own liberating movement while singing “Let It Go.” Despite the massive rift that lies between these two characters, Cousins sees similar expressions of defiance in their body movements, and juxtaposing clips from the two films, he makes a pretty compelling case for it.
Of course, Cousins’ eye is trained not only to peruse the ubiquitous blockbusters but unsung gems from around the world that even those keeping up with the endless string of festival releases may have missed. For every mention of an obvious choice like Jordan Peele’s Get Out or Tim Miller’s Deadpool, Cousins counters with something more under-the-radar, such as Sami van Ingen’s experimental short, Flame, Slavko Martinov’s Propaganda and Anand Patwardhan’s Reason. But the breadth of scope in A New Generation is only part of its appeal. Cousins’ willingness to celebrate all sorts of films would be considerably less valuable if he were not so effectively able to provide a meaningful taxonomy of certain aesthetic traits and technological innovations along with his surveys of various genres.
Cousins’ examinations of genre are intriguing, especially as films like Nabwana I.G.G.’s Crazy World and Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur are given as much thoughtful attention as more widely revered action spectacles like George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. But it’s during the film’s diversions that it makes its most compelling cases for the enduring importance of modern cinema. In his discussions of films shot with cell phones, such as Sean Baker’s Tangerine, and for VR, like Tsai Ming-liang’s The Deserted, or various films using motion capture technology, Cousins convincingly argues that technological innovation has spurred on further aesthetic experimentation on a global scale in the past 10 years.
Cousins reminds us that, of course, such advances have occurred throughout film history, but he spins his arguments in such an optimistic manner that it’s enough to give one hope for cinema in a time when theaters are struggling to stay open and studios like Warner Bros. appear to be willfully self-destructing. Throughout A New Generation, Cousins includes shots of people, both famous and unknown, closing their eyes, as he attempts to bring his audience into the collective dreamspace of film. It’s a tactic that grows a bit cloying, but as Cousins takes us on a journey through nearly 100 different films from recent years—as well as a dozen or two older films that he sees echoes of in modern cinema—he often achieves the hypnotic effect that he sees as one of the artform’s most universal and enduring qualities. If the film isn’t comprehensive (how could it be even at nearly three hours?), it’s still a celebratory work that will both introduce you to important yet undersung films and help reveal the connective possibilities between even the most micro-budget works and enormous blockbusters.
Photo courtesy of Music Box Films
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