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Warning: reading
beyond the first paragraph of this review will reveal
much of the plot!
Noah Baumbach's autobiographical film takes its name
from a ceiling-mounted diorama in New York's Museum of
Natural History called 'Clash of the Titans' - an apt
working title for the bitterly hilarious adventures of
any kid enduring his mum and dad's angry split. Based
on the director's memories of his parents' divorce, 'The
Squid and the Whale' draws battle lines in its opening
scene, staged on a Brooklyn tennis court in 1986: Bernard
Berkman (Jeff Daniels) and his teenage son, Walt (Jesse
Eisenberg), on one side; mum Joan (Laura Linney) and Walt's
younger brother, Frank (Owen Kline), on the other. When
Bernard tells Walt to exploit his mother's weak backhand
and his worshipful son enthusiastically complies, it's
a decent first indicator of the trivial spite and sour
one-upmanship that infect the couple's relationship and
trickle down to their children.
Joan is anxious and rational, difficult to pin down, and
on the verge of publishing her first story in the New
Yorker. Bernard is an established novelist in a slump,
and a pompous, petty monster whose ego swells in inverse
proportion to his declining career. After the marriage
collapses, Walt and Frank ricochet between apartments
and allegiances, increasingly bewildered by their parents'
festering resentments and sexual indiscretions: Joan beds
their tennis instructor (William Baldwin), Bernard pursues
a nubile writing student (Anna Paquin). Neglected Frank
guzzles beer, swears like a sailor, and sticks cashews
up his nose; uptight Walt struggles to emulate his father,
passing smug judgement on books he's never read and playing
inept head games on his adorable semi-girlfriend, Sophie
(Halley Feiffer).
Baumbach, who co-wrote Wes Anderson's 'The Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou', shot his low-budget film à
clef in just 23 days, but the cogent script and tight
pacing make virtues of any production constraints. Fittingly
for a story of four people all variously enthralled to
their hormones, 'The Squid and the Whale' is a comedy
of embarrassment, even of shame. Sexual urges express
themselves in fumbling aggression or furtive solitude,
and Baumbach mordantly renders the art house must-see
of 1986, 'Blue Velvet', as a howlingly inappropriate date
movie, especially when your father tags along. As Bernard,
Daniels - part of a superb cast - captures a diminished
man's anguish and disenfranchisement yet relishes the
character's drolly outlandish self-regard. Baumbach is
toughest, however, on his alter-ego. Walt is endearingly
insufferable, projecting his pain on to his flighty but
hardly villainous mother and so desperate to live up to
his father's standards that he'll present Pink Floyd's
'Hey You' at his school talent show and just hope that
no one notices.
Filmed in vivid, steadily handheld Super 16, 'The Squid
and the Whale' is a rueful remembrance leavened by spry
verbal wit and artful brevity. Plangent and wry, the movie
finds much of its magic in the closeness of farce and
tragedy - the images seem to tremble with the friction
between them.
Jessica Winter, TIME OUT
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Noah Baumbach, who wrote and directed the films KICKING
AND SCREAMING and MR. JEALOUSY also co-wrote THE LIFE
AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU as well as the upcoming FANTASTIC
MR. FOX with fellow writer-director Wes Anderson. For
his third solo effort, Baumbach turned his attentions
to a story both inspired and influenced by his childhood
in Brooklyn, NY. Baumbach initially toyed with writing
about two brothers in their '30s who were dealing retroactively
with their parents' divorce, but the script took shape
when he began thinking about the story from a younger
kid's perspective.
"It was a significant change for me and it freed
me up in a lot of ways - allowed me to connect more directly,"
he adds.
"Later, I started to rework it and write from the
parents' point of view. Suddenly it was a movie about
the family." His superb cast, led by Jeff Daniels
and Laura Linney, explores a memorable time in the 1980s
when marriages were compromised by changing values, personal
desires and professional expectations.
"This was such an exciting cast to work with,"
says Baumbach. "Everyone dove right in and took the
parts over. Jeff inhabited Bernard so thoroughly I started
to experience psychological transference with him and
looked up to him the way Walt looks up to Bernard. That
was eerie."
When shooting began in the summer of 2004, Baumbach returned
to familiar ground- shooting among the turn-of-the-century
brownstones in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn
where he grew up in the 1980's. Several scenes were also
filmed at Midwood High School, his alma-mater. "The
chairman of the English department when I was there is
now the principal and he was excited to have me back,"
says Baumbach. "It was nice to have that kind of
good will and cooperation."
In fact, several of the Brooklyn locations were provided
by Baumbach's friends or acquaintances, including the
Berkman residence where much of the action takes place.
"The house we shot in belonged to my childhood friend
Ben and his wife Molly," says Baumbach. "They
were really generous to let us transform their place and
relocate while we filmed. Shooting in places that had
real meaning to me helped me connect with the material
both on a visceral and creative level," he adds.
"While it's true that I did grow up in Brooklyn and
my parents did divorce," he explains, "so much
of it has been reinvented. What's real is the emotion…it's
emotionally real to me."
Producer Peter Newman was attracted to the intimacy of
a story that was told through the eyes of kids without
demeaning them.
"Not only did I think the script was good, it reinvigorated
me and made me anxious to work on it…. I thought
it was a very even-handed treatment of a very difficult
thing." Baumbach worked with production designer
Anne Ross to distinguish the two main houses.
"In the Park Slope brownstone where the family initially
lives together we used a lot of browns and blues,"
Baumbach explains. "Old rugs, a corduroy couch. The
original detail -- the wood, the moldings from those houses
is really warm and beautiful. The house Bernard moves
into was influenced some by Lucian Freud paintings. We
used faded greens and yellows-the color of old, dying
plants."
Referencing another personal touch, the director admits,
"I had Jeff Daniels wear my dad's clothes. It wasn't
because I wanted to recreate my dad in any way, it's because
by having those things there it warms me to the characters
and the story, it puts me in it more, and that's something
I really like."
Shooting in Super 16 rather than digital video, Baumbach
wanted to give the film an authentic 1980's feel. "The
truth is I didn't want to use technology that didn't exist
at the time," he says.
In addition to the A-list cast, the producers assembled
some of New York's top talent to work behind the camera.
"The most meaningful moment for me on the film was
about half way through and we were working ridiculous
hours and everyone was exhausted," recalls Newman.
"The department heads were all really important people
in the industry and we had one of the best key grips in
New York who works on $100 million movies and was working
on this film for a fraction of his pay. His name is Bob
Andres and I said, 'Bob, I wanted to thank you for working
on this,' and asked him why he was doing it. He said because
of the script. And it sort of hit me, everyone on the
crew had given up their summer vacation to be there and
were in it for the script. That was kind of emotional."
Aside from the experienced department heads, the rest
of the crew was basically made up of interns. There was
hardly any middle management on the film. "We were
asking interns to do a lot of things," says Newman.
"It's the only way we could have made this film.
It was Noah's idea." Adds Baumbach, " I taught
a class at Vassar and I recruited the class for free help."
Perhaps the most challenging part of the shoot was getting
it done in only 23 days. Says Baumbach, "There were
some days when we'd come to a point late in the day and
I'd think, 'We did pretty well today, this was a really
good day's work,' and then I'd look at the schedule and
there'd be two more major scenes to shoot" Songs
from both the kids' and the parents' generation contribute
to the feel of the film. Pink Floyd's "Hey You"
particularly plays a major role. It's a song that triggers
a lot of specific memories for certain people. "I
was a huge Pink Floyd fan when I was a kid," says
Baumbach. "I still am."
In the editing room Baumbach and editor Tim Streeto found
a surprising rhythm to the footage.
"Once I cut the tennis scene that opens the film
I realized how immediately the audience is thrown into
the action of the film and I wanted to keep this feeling
going," says the director. "The more I cut the
film, the more I experimented with that, and I pushed
it in ways that I initially thought wouldn't work. It's
a short movie running-time-wise but it feels packed. There's
usually time during a movie-transition moments like the
sun rising or setting over a city-where people in the
theater seem to think it is okay to talk. It's a time
to catch your breath. I didn't want any of that. The movie
doesn't let up and in the end it leaves you with a feeling
of a suspension-I want it to take the air out of you."
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