Innocence, A film about corruption, youth & America
by NE1
The idea, for over a year, was to take the three little cousins on my father’s side to a local park & document both the bullying & the fascination of the youth. A lack of equipment & the inability to commit vehicular manslaughter left me waiting until i could co-ordinate such a project. After that year, two of them had hit puberty, & i came to realize that the three little cousins on my mothers side were a far more extreme insight into the middle-American family. The two eldest were wholly corrupted before double-digits: disobedient, malicious, jaded, & cursed with such fluent machismo it was an almost graceful imitation of what they clearly though the American male was supposed to be.
At some point within that year, i met Jon Cournoyer, the Senior Director at the St. Louis Art Museum; he enjoyed my work, & after finding out that i had no camera, was shocked & helped purchased the cheapest DV camera on the market, which was also on sale at the time. Double win. He is therefore credited as producer; without him this film would never have taken shape.
Cut to a breezy late-summer afternoon in August, which i believe was the day before the boys were to start a new school-year. I had taken them to the park before & seen them run amok, which i found amusing. So i brought my new camera & a clear head. The only direction i gave them was: “Do what you do, have fun; i’ll just try to keep up.” So we did. After about three-hours of documenting their rough-housing I was a minute or so away from having filled the one-hour DV tape & the sun was coming down. The youngest, Jack, the most endearing, the only true innocent, said the closing line. I pulled my eye away from the camera, shocked. I looked to the others & said: “Okay, that’s the ending. We’re done.” And we walked home. The last minute of the tape was then filled by the middle-child, Zack, filming chaotically, with wild zooms on neighbors, mailboxes & trees. The day was done & i’d finally finished the film that’d been brewing in my head for a little over a year.
The next day I went on vacation to California for a week, to visit a friend who recently had a nervous breakdown & needed some support. I didn’t look at the footage until the plane-ride back to the midwest, & edited it almost in its entirety on the plane.
Cut to a little over a year later, Christmas weekend; i show the kids the film, they watch, eyes wide, both amused & annoyed by themselves. In their looks I can see an attempt to grasp who they are. Especially the two eldest. It strikes me that I should do impromptu interviews with the FLiP camera i’d bought a few days prior. Such is the supplement post-credits.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for watching.
Comments
Caoimhín
Well, as I’ve said elsewhere, this is a situation that bears watching. Most concerning is the defensive hostility displayed, I believe it was, by the middle child, in scenes you captured at a later point. One hopes that kind of anger doesn’t become consuming, but it’s impossible not to get a bad feeling about it all. There is gold here. If life goes a certain way for them, it could be painful to document, yet very very useful.
Follow My Film
Watched this today: very noble effort. The inclusio at the end is marvelous and ties everything together, especially for those who may doubt the film’s authenticity.
Joriah Goad
This is an incredible achievement Nathan- MAKE MORE LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!
Angelo Dagonel
Before I ramble on for a few incomprehensible paragraphs, I’d just like to make one thing crystal clear: I love Innocence a great deal. I don’t love Innocence just because somebody (who is also a Tim and Eric fan) near my age made it with a limited (AKA non-existent) budget, which is surprisingly the reason behind a lot of admiration for certain films. I love this film honestly for reasons beyond comprehension. This may all seem incredibly redundant, but I say this only because as a filmmaker, it hurts beyond belief to hear, “I loved your film! It was really great for something made without money and for someone your age and filmed with one person and with…” and the list goes on. I’d say this is a great movie the same way I’d say Yi-Yi and Blue Velvet are great. Goddamnit, this was supposed to be just two sentences.
I can’t condemn the kids in this movie as easily as, I imagine, many other people might be able to. The joys of my 11-12 year old youth came from “burning shit”. I somehow was able to work in a “fuck” or “shit” (many times both) into absolutely every sentence. I kicked things around, called everybody I knew “bitch”, thought everything was “gay”, and amongst other juvenile acts of destruction tossed trash cans over all for the pure sake of “fucking shit up”. I was a real bastard, and I now know this.
I’d like to think I’ve outgrown the “fuck shit up” phase of my prepubescent lifestyle (although I unintentionally do let “fuck” slip in and out of everyday conversations like nobody’s business). For many people I know, who also burned, kicked in, broke and destroyed various items of property along with me, they too have grown out of this. But the scary thing about this phase is that it seems very common and does not warrant as much alarm as it possibly should: There are people I know who do not seem interested in arson anymore, but carry on their apathetic destructive habits into their adult lives discreetly. Not to say that Nathan’s cousins will do this—as I’ve said, I consider this a “phase” for most people—but this attitude does have dangerous consequences that are difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible to reverse if not grown out of.
Nathan’s camera positions I felt were very effective. Apart from my own personal dislike of the typical zoom-crazy following-around style that is NOT found in Innocence, Nathan’s stances, I felt, were thoughtfully observant. I’m not sure how that sounds, and I hope that it’s not offensive. Objectivity would be an ugly word, and it comes with too many connotations I don’t want to bring up. What was so affecting about Innocence was the fact that I never felt Nathan was judging the youngsters, nor was he trying to defend them. I didn’t feel a sense of overly-manipulated subjectivity or cold and extremely distanced attempts at objectivity.
After viewing the film, one wonders what creates this “phase”, this desire and pleasure derived from destruction, cursing and indifference. I think it’d be wrong to attempt an answer to this question in a concrete fashion, as if an easy answer could even be found, and I am glad that Nathan did not attempt this—as far as I could tell, my apologies if I totally didn’t see something.
Jack was the best. In all the scenes of burning and destruction, I thought it was very telling of the brothers’ nature when they warn Jack to get away from the fire. I mean, sure, they’ve probably equipped Jack with more foul curse words than he’ll ever need to know, but still. The ending makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable, and many questions arose from it.
If you’ve read all of this and feel confused and angry—sorry. I really love this film, and you should love it too, and you should show your friends because they’ll love it. And if you know anybody who is interested in seeing a great film, whether their favorite film is 40 Yr. Old Virgin and they hate movies with subtitles, or they swear by Bruno Dumont—show them this film. And find all those kids who think they need a RED camera to make a movie, and show them this. To all aspiring filmmakers out there, this film is an example of how a film should be made: with passion, with honesty, with love and with intelligence and intuition together to communicate something interesting. Shallow depth of field, large chip sensors and a large crew who could give two shits and a handjob about the film are not necessary to achieve what Innocence has.