COLUMNS
Talk Show #15 with Kevin Brockmeier, Sloane Crosley, Sophie Gee, Samantha Hunt, and Melissa Pritchard
/ Jaime Clarke
07.17.08
—If you could tell this person something about the future, what would it be?
Brockmeier: The whole purpose of my visit would be to show Mr. Agee a number of modern films and listen in on his reaction to them, which is why, in my fantasy, I always find myself restricting my selection to only a handful of movies, few enough that the two of us would have time to watch and discuss them over the course of a couple of days. I imagine myself choosing a combination of critical or popular landmarks (The Godfather, E.T., Titanic, Pulp Fiction, Groundhog Day), personal favorites (Ponette, Running on Empty, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and films that I think would particularly suit Agee's aesthetic (Matewan, The Thin Red Line, Pather Pachali). I would like him to see how the art of film has developed—if not progressed—since his time, in both its narrative sensibilities and its technical capacities.
Crosley: I would tell him that moustaches are going to be huge in 1970’s America and that they will eventually be associated with an actor named Burt Reynolds. I imagine this would get a rise out of any Frenchman of any century.
Gee: The obvious thing to tell her about the future would be that immunology would turn out to be the most fundamental and life-changing medical field, and that she was one of the pioneers.
Hunt: Rather than telling him about the future I’d like to have him here in 2008, for an afternoon. Sitting in the middle of sunny Central Park, with no wires attached, I’d like to show him my laptop. I’d like to type his name into Google while he watches what comes up.
Pritchard: That your most glittering eras are passed, gone, that you can look forward to a slow dissolution back into the very forces of quarry stone, Hampshire soil and fresh seawater that created you, but that you will always enjoy some form of eternity. I would also warn you of history’s distortions, lapses, miscarriages of truth, stupendous errors and follied projections—that most of your stories, most of the human history you have inspired, absorbed and still draw upon to haunt, remains secret, cupboarded, subsumed.
Brockmeier: The whole purpose of my visit would be to show Mr. Agee a number of modern films and listen in on his reaction to them, which is why, in my fantasy, I always find myself restricting my selection to only a handful of movies, few enough that the two of us would have time to watch and discuss them over the course of a couple of days. I imagine myself choosing a combination of critical or popular landmarks (The Godfather, E.T., Titanic, Pulp Fiction, Groundhog Day), personal favorites (Ponette, Running on Empty, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and films that I think would particularly suit Agee's aesthetic (Matewan, The Thin Red Line, Pather Pachali). I would like him to see how the art of film has developed—if not progressed—since his time, in both its narrative sensibilities and its technical capacities.
Crosley: I would tell him that moustaches are going to be huge in 1970’s America and that they will eventually be associated with an actor named Burt Reynolds. I imagine this would get a rise out of any Frenchman of any century.
Gee: The obvious thing to tell her about the future would be that immunology would turn out to be the most fundamental and life-changing medical field, and that she was one of the pioneers.
Hunt: Rather than telling him about the future I’d like to have him here in 2008, for an afternoon. Sitting in the middle of sunny Central Park, with no wires attached, I’d like to show him my laptop. I’d like to type his name into Google while he watches what comes up.
Pritchard: That your most glittering eras are passed, gone, that you can look forward to a slow dissolution back into the very forces of quarry stone, Hampshire soil and fresh seawater that created you, but that you will always enjoy some form of eternity. I would also warn you of history’s distortions, lapses, miscarriages of truth, stupendous errors and follied projections—that most of your stories, most of the human history you have inspired, absorbed and still draw upon to haunt, remains secret, cupboarded, subsumed.