Retrospective: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight

Trilogies are an important part of the film lover's repertoire. They become a feature length blur of ideas and feelings; each installment influences the way the others are interpreted. and together they almost form a cinematic personality. This personality is what generates the bizarre sense of loyalty and connection people have with films - we invest in them and care for them, in exchange for a glimpse of something escapist and idealistic. Culty art-house type trilogies include Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours series or Satyajit Ray’s Apu films, but for me, the finest of them all has just been decided by the release of the final installment in Richard Linklater's 'Before' trilogy.

In 1995, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater began what would be a 18 year project, spanning three countries, three films, and influencing countless young romantics with a taste for introspection and a fondness of talking about it. Jesse is your typical young American, full of ideas and brimming with bravado, Celine is a flighty Parisian student, a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a melancholy twist. They meet on a train, engage in pseudo-philosophical verbal acrobatics and spend a day and a night getting lost in Vienna. Their meet-cute is whimsical, their characters seemingly clichéd, and in any other context their patter could be vastly irritating. But somehow, Linklater, Delpy and Hawke have created an environment in which the characters can soulfully filibuster the big questions in life whilst outwardly attempting to answer them, in a way that is charming, tender, and most importantly, interactive.

The intricacy and wonder of the series lies in this attempt at an interactive viewing process. It begins simply; they are young and in love - you want to be young and in love. They wander around Europe spouting extremely interesting and insightful nonsense about the world under a canopy of consistently good weather - you also want this. It is romantic, it is dreamlike, but it is not wholly unrealistic. Who wouldn't want this? On a superficial level, the films allow you to superimpose yourself into the dream. However, it is the acknowledgment of flaw, condition and sheer bloody humanity that make the characters seem so real, so tangible. The characters are a Gatsby-like embodiment of self-performativity - they let you understand them exactly as you want to; each person is moved in a different way, and each viewing inspires different emotion. As the series progresses, the characters grow a little older and a little more weary, with a middle installment of 30-something cynicism, until we reach Before Midnight, which as Linklater suggests is a "harder pill to swallow", where love has become a "brutal kind of beast." The very nature of the films, produced over such a long period of time, necessitates the growth of the characters and the growth of the audience. Equally, the production cultivates the type of obsessive analysis that Jesse and Celine are inclined to themselves - nine years is a long time to wait for the next film, and to attempt to predict its outcome.

I don't want to reveal that outcome, as you should all sit down and watch the trilogy immediately, but I'll happily say that Before Midnight is a beautiful piece of cinema. Like its predecessors it is talky and indulgent, and so appeals to those, like myself, who often feel like talking makes them indulgent, which is something one should probably talk about. What makes them so magical is the way one can go on interpreting them, understanding them, obsessing over them. Shameless attempts to draw out similarities between yourself and the characters are inevitable, but they also inspire some of the best conversation and the best experiences, once you get past the semi-pretension of it all. Linklater has created something intensely personal, and his love of story and talk of all kinds (small, big, poetic...) has spawned a fan-base who have experience their own versions of the tale as a result of that intimacy. I for one can't wait to weep over Before Sunset in my thirties, and re-experience Before Midnight as a gin soaked forty year old. Both create visions of a potential future that for Jesse and Celine began 18 years ago in a serene 80-second unbroken shot, and for us lowly mortals began the first time we peeped at their intimacy.

What Lee Halpin's death should teach us about homelessness

This is an article I published in conjunction with a homelessness discussion event at my university. The event included the excellent short film The Truth About Stanley, and talks from formerly homeless ambassadors of Crisis, which is both a charity and an advocacy group. 

In April this year, 26 year old Lee Halpin was found dead in a derelict hostel. Halpin had been sleeping rough for three nights, and it is believed that he succumbed to hypothermia. However, it wasn’t just the news of a tragic death that caused this story to hit the national press. It transpired that Lee Halpin was not in fact a homeless person, but an aspiring journalist attempting to sleep rough in Newcastle for a week, in order to make a film for the Dispatches’ “Fearless Journalism” competition. The prize was a 12 month internship. Halpin used the platform to raise awareness about the rising homelessness rates, and the repercussions of welfare cuts. “I will sleep rough, scrounge for my food, interact with homeless people and immerse myself in that lifestyle as deeply as I can”, says Halpin in a YouTube video, now seen by over 180,000 people. Halpin’s ambition to raise awareness was a truly admirable one, and in death his message has reached a huge audience. However, this story goes well beyond the death of one man, however tragic. It raises uncomfortable questions about problems at the core of our society; namely the public attitude towards homelessness, and the provision of welfare for the country’s most vulnerable sectors.

Living in Oxford, we are faced with homelessness every day. The disparity in the city is undeniable – Oxford has the highest housing costs outside of London, and the fourth highest homelessness rate. Alongside the number of people sleeping rough on the street there are the “hidden homeless”, those living in hostels, temporary accommodation and shelters. Oxford City Council’s ‘No Second Night Out’ initiative and the excellent work of local charities goes some way to offering immediate help, but with cuts to welfare provision and the impact of the bedroom tax, the problems can only get worse. Crisis report a 31% rise in the average number of people sleeping on the streets per night, and this increase suggests that the £6bn cut to Housing Benefit has eroded the safety net meant to defend the vulnerable against the economic downturn. These figures are genuinely frightening, but the ripple effect of these reforms can only really be understood when we pay attention to each individual we see on the street.

Percentages and politics aside, homelessness is humanised. Lee Halpin’s investigation hinged upon engaging with homeless people, and experiencing the dangers that they face every day. When we step out of the door and see a person on our street, how do we react? In most cases, we either walk away, or uncomfortably offer our coppers before shuffling off to Tesco. Both acts are quick, even easy, but neither really helpful. Local charities warn against giving money to homeless people, as it can perpetuate substance abuse, or prevent the individual from seeking out institutions that offer more permanent solutions. The act of giving money is often a manifestation of guilt. In the very human desire to form a connection – money is the simplest way to do so.

Of course, the wish to interact is no bad thing, but how inclined is the average person to actually talk to a homeless person? Sadly, I’d say it’s unlikely. Public attitudes towards the homeless are highly disconcerting; presumptions as to the causes of homelessness are easy to make, and extremely reductive. For example, a recent incident in London saw the police confiscate the food and possessions of a group of homeless people. When asked to comment, CI John Fish stated that “the public rely on police to reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers.” These people are not victims; they are not even human. They are a “negative impact.”

What CI Fish neglects to realise is that rough sleepers are the public. Homelessness is not just vagrancy, the lack of a roof, or the violation of squatting laws. It is a condition of isolation, of complete social alienation, and as Crisis put it, it constitutes loss of a “legal and social dimension.” The experience is destructive, difficult to escape, and even harder to recover from. The average age of death for a homeless person is just 47 years old. Lee Halpin was far younger than that, but the sad irony of his story is the fact that we heard of it in the first place. If the body of your average, 47 year old homeless man was discovered in a derelict hostel, would news of it have reached the national newspapers? Would anybody notice, or even care?

It all comes down to that question. Who cares for the homeless, and who is responsible for them? On a day-to-day basis, we are. Get involved with the Oxford Homeless Action Group, with Crisis or Oxford Pathways. If the issue moves you, do something! Halpin wanted to engage with homelessness as a “frontline journalist”, but for what it’s worth, I believe we should all be on the frontline when it comes to this issue. All it takes is a walk down the street and the problem is right there, embodied by every man and woman who sits in a doorway, and on the fringes of society.

NB: Since this article was published I have spoken to several homeless people and  looked further in to the aforementioned "No Second Night Out" policy. The homeless people spoken to commented that the system is extremely flawed, and as such I will be trying to find out more information as to why this is.

Dear Dr Status Update...

A few days ago the BBC ran a news story about Facebook's latest technical glitch. "Millions exposed" as "personal details" were made available on the site, officials apologise, damage limitation, will never happen again, all that jazz. In the grand scheme of things the problem was a minor one, but there's something inescapably ironic (and really quite revealing) about the BBC's choice of words. Exposure of details. Personal exposure. Isn't that exactly what Facebook is? Isn't every newsfeed or timeline a systematic exposure of personal details? You say where you're going, what you're doing and who you're with. More than that, you say what you feel and what you think. By its very nature, even as a basic mode of communication, Facebook necessitates the exposure of personal details.

Before this gets a bit too dramatic/despairing/downright depressing, I should make a confession. A disclaimer, if you will. I have absolutely no control over my Facebook habits, I'm aware that I don't particularly like them but they exist nonetheless. However, Facebook and other social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram are asking  more and more of their users. The world is a increasingly public one and we are inevitably becoming a more public people. Much has been written on the way social media influences our interactions with others, but what does the personal exposure mean for the ways in which we view ourselves?

Social media has moved far beyond communicative purposes. Blogs such as Tumblr, Myspace and somewhat embarrassingly, this Blogspot, offer a chance to create a whole identity and a space where that identity can be projected and its voice can be heard. Status updates have become the modern equivalent of diary entries - a digital record of our activities and opinions, not unlike a written journal. These snippets and fragments of life can seem fairly innocuous; nothing much can be read into "On my way to Nandos", or "BEST NIGHT EVER LAST NIGHT!". However, it's not exactly what is said, but the fact that anything is said at all. To be hyper-cynical/go all Stewart Lee about it, recording your every move in a public forum is akin to creating a kind of contained celebrity - in the mini-world of your Facebook friends, your actions and thoughts are valuable and worthy of record. Even if you have just nipped down the pub with your mates. #nothingspecial.

To avoid this sounding like an ill-advised bout of self-righteousness, I have an example that both encapsulates the idea of a life lived on Facebook, and reveals how easily one can be sucked into it. In a case of mistaken identity, I once added a complete stranger as a 'friend'. She accepted (which itself was weird) and I never got round to deleting her (probably weirder). Three years later and she's become a bizarre stock figure in my cyber-life. I've witnessed the birth of her two children, her relationship woes, her day to day activities and her plans for the future, all of it posted online like a personal scrapbook. It is sheer voyeurism and nosiness; the modern day version of peeping over your neighbours fence, but with far more juicy results. The uncomfortable truth is that a good proportion of us probably have someone like the poor woman who accepted my friend request, or maybe we actually are that person.

An extension of Diary-Facebook is Therapist-Facebook. We're not just asked where we are and what we're doing, but how do we feel and why? If you're having trouble expressing it to Dr Status Update, there are even handy little Myspace relics which depict a variety of emotions.

This attempt to concretise the whole range of human emotion is pretty grim, and symptomatic of the whole problem with Facebook therapy and Facebook diary entries - it forces a complete removal of complexity, subtlety and nuance. More than that, it manufactures introspection whilst paradoxically removing any sort of personal insight, as this most personal process is laid bare for the world to see. And, of course, for them to comment on.

Whatever your opinion on social media, there is surely an undeniable loneliness, even poignancy in the system. It's not a perfect diagnosis, but there are definitely hints of it in even the most normative status updates. Wishing the world "Goodnight.xxx", or letting people know exactly where you are ("Home sweet home!") is like an attempted affirmation of one's place within a network of human connection. It says, "I am here and so are you". There seems to be some value in that, even if it's just a basic indication of the human desire to interact, to take interest, even to be nosy. However, the online attempt to reveal all generally reveals that there isn't in fact that much to reveal in the first place  - such is the hermeneutic circle-jerk produced by any attempt to analyse  Facebook. Ah, so it is.

Articles which influenced this attempt at one- 

"From memory to sexuality, the digital age is changing us completely."

"Internet anonymity is the height of chic."

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Fashion, Fun and Play

In her seminal work A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist, philosopher, all around great gal) states:

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” 

Just over two hundred years later , one would expect that a  woman who was one of the founding feminist philosophers, a social activist and a political radical, would be remembered exactly how she desired women to be treated - rationally. Her work has influenced hundreds of key political and feminist thinkers, from George Eliot, to Virginia Woolf, to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who references Wollstonecraft frequently in his theory of Asia's missing girls. As with many renowned writers, Wollstonecraft's life came with its fair share of excitement, and as well as being remembered for her work she is also known for her tempestuous love life, her unorthodox marriage to anarchist William Godwin and her bouts of depression. Fascination with these particular 'graces' is inevitable, but on the whole her legacy is as it should be - influential and necessarily respected.

Imagine then how surprised / bemused / reluctantly entertained I was to discover that the children's website 'Stardoll' has also tapped into Wollstonecraft's legacy. Stardoll is an online dress up site, and have very kindly honoured the world's first feminist with her own page. Just look at those bloomers:

Yes, there she is, staring at her interactive wardrobe with a fabulously ironic expression of distaste. Dollstonecraft comes with several outfits and a whole range of accessories - with brains, beauty and a clothing line like this, this really is 'have it all' all feminism. I should at this point admit that I stumbled across the site in a desperate bid to dress up as Mary Wollstonecraft (long and pretentious story), and that my initial reaction was unbridled laughter, but her presence on the website is really very curious. Sandwiched between MIA and 'McFly Tom', and across from Camilla Parker-Bowles we have an 18th century political writer in nought but her underwear.

Perhaps this is a strategic move by the website. Perhaps somewhere a child got bored of styling members of JLS and decided to Google this Mary lass. For all I know Stardoll could be starting an educational phenomenon of nine year old girls burning their Barbies and trading in their Unofficial Harry Styles biographies for some straight up feminist discourse. We can hope, but the more likely outcome is that, like me, they'll sit and ponder whether the mustard skirt, fan and headdress combo is a bit too much for afternoon tea with Mr Godwin. 

For all its light-heartedness, there is something truly unsettling about a website that quite literally dolls up the woman who called for the end of femininity being treated like domestic ornamentation. Reducing any figure to a silent 2D image and a series of dresses is surely a bad thing - it is a literal representation of style over substance. Wollstonecraft may be remembered rationally by most, but Stardoll have certainly restricted her to the "perpetual state of childhood" that she sought to defy. I wonder what she'd have made of it?

Social Networking

This is a piece I wrote for the Cherwell Student Newspaper in the days of yore. It's old, noisy and a bit rudimentary, but I loved writing it and am reassured by the fact that still I agree with my self of 8 months ago. 

I remember a golden time when a dinner was just a dinner, having coffee was exactly that, and employability meant running around town desperately shoving C.V's into Topshop employees' faces. However, after one and a bit years in Oxford, these seemingly innocent pastimes strike the fear of Alan Sugar into me. What will I do when I graduate? How do I make the right impression at a function? Will Topshop take me back?! It appears that university life, academic life, is inextricably caught up in that most sleazy of grown up business words: networking.

Yes, I am being dramatic, and yes, I am well aware that I cannot run around Oxford waxing lyrical about the nice pointy rooftops forever, but still, there is something about the idea of socialising with intent which I fundamentally cannot get my head around. According to Wikipedia, it is a 'socioeconomic activity by which groups of likeminded business people recognise, create or act upon business opportunities.' This probably covers the finance and law events we all too often receive emails about, which are inevitably slightly uncomfortable parades of fixed smiles and fixed interest rates. At least the business events, those which favour the Randolph Hotel and seduce you with promises of canapés and an office with a view, accept what they are. They unashamedly market themselves as 'networking' events, they unashamedly say 'FEMALE OXFORD GRADS, WE WANT YOU TO DIVERSIFY OUR COMPANY', and they unashamedly bribe you with wine to attend. It is not this type of networking that we should approach with caution. It is the networking that filters down through university, from society recruitment events to desperately trying to befriend the latest treasurer of OUDS in order to get funding.* When does it all end? At what point does a drink with a friend become collecting a potential contact for the future? 

Becoming 'employable' is obviously an important part of being at university, but it's not the only reason we are here, nor should it be our main motivation for getting involved in university life. Just consider the sense of ego that comes with running for a Union position. Are you there because you feel you can contribute to the running of the university and the welfare of its students, or are you there because striding down those panelled corridors makes you feel pretty darn good. Most likely the answer is neither. More likely is the answer; it will look good on my C.V. Cynical and a bit grumpy, maybe, but a recent Cherwell article did show that on average 1 in 3 ex-Union Presidents could network themselves all the way to Parliament. However, the Union is just one example, Oxford another, and this isn't a discussion about career politicians and Old Boys’ Clubs. All universities are judged by how employable their grads are, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunities that this particular establishment affords. It's just that the idealist in me wants to get by with good honest graft, rather than a purse full of beautifully embossed business cards.

The fact is, the whole concept of networking seems a little contrived. Everyone knows that it is a part of university life, but we are reluctant to acknowledge that we do it, and even more reluctant to acknowledge that some of us consider it to be quite a skill. Sadly, I am not one of those people, but as much as I dislike the concept of networking, I find myself doing it almost unconsciously. One of my worst habits is a tendency to blend into the given situation, to become a 'likeminded business person.' Drinks with tutors equates to passing comment on the wine and name dropping a few articles, finance events involve dressing sharply and having a quick glance at the FT website beforehand, and somewhat humiliatingly, Cherwell Drinks meant hovering around whilst loudly discussing potential article ideas. It's as if we are playing at professionalism in our safe little university circle, and we are most certainly playing characters. Today, in my head, I am a journalist. I may as well be drinking black coffee, chewing a cigar and hammering away at a typewriter. (If only).

The question is, do we really believe it? Do we believe ourselves in these roles? Those who do are probably far more likely to fall into a job than the few, like myself, who sit angrily in a corner and complain about 'connections' instead of making them. The strange thing is, I respect people who are natural networkers. They fascinate me because they have a goal, and they go for it, their pockets brimming with canapés and business cards. Good for them. I hope they are very happy in their job that neither I nor they fully understand. That said, I think I prefer my shamefully comfortable seat on the networking bench, where the contacts are in reach, but my soul ostensibly remains my own.

 *Hypothetical example. Probably.

Original Article

First blog post: It is / is not all about me.

This blog is an attempt to create a coherent and creative body of work from the scribbles and scraps of ideas that are floating in the ether. This is not a manifesto, nor is it a diary. I have a real pet peeve when it comes to blogs. They are a space for people to share their thoughts and to connect with people, and that's wonderful, but there's something uncomfortably egocentric about the real-world writers they produce. I mainly write comment pieces, which are necessarily individualistic, but I strongly believe that the wider story shouldn't be suffocated. Definitely something I aim to avoid. Painfully ironic statement complete.

I'm interested in the way the world works, and the ways in which it doesn't. So many of the big questions are patterned in the individual - to learn about people is to look for the answers, and hopefully to find them. I look to film, literature, music for story and inspiration, but this blog is about looking to what's actually going on around us. It's about looking closer.

Journalistic meanderings with an ethical imperative.


(Feel free to get in touch with me, feedback is valued/craved/appreciated. Nought like good discussion, eh?)