There may well be as many different families as there are families themselves. So, what are the odds that you will be able to identify with the one portrayed in any particular film? Slim to none?
And this family is certainly far removed from most that you will run across. The mother was a famous photographer. And now she is dead. But: Did she or did she not commit suicide? And now the members of her family – a husband and two sons – are brought together to make sense of it all. And, it turns out, to share, in some important respects, very different renditions of her.
And some might wonder, “how can that be?” After all, they have spent all those years interacting with this woman. And yet at times it is as though she were three different people. But isn’t that sort of thing more likely in this day and age. There are so many additional points of contact with others out in our post-modern world. We never really know where those – even those we are close to – might end up. Or who they might bump into. Both on and off line. And how that changes things. Sometimes everything. We just live in a world now where we only have so much control over what those around us stumble into.
Conrad, for example.
Then there’s the part where people who are out in the world witnessing all of the terrible things that can unfold “in the news”, must balance that with the relationships they forge with family and loved ones. In some respects though there’s just no way to explain a gap of this sort. You’ve either experienced it or you have not. Everyone trying to pin down whether Isabelle was or was not depressed. As though what she did for a living wouldn’t almost certainly bring her to that.
Louder than bombs? You’ll get that part by the closing credits.
IMDb
[b]Conrad and Jonah watch in the computer a scene from an old movie where his father Gene appeared as actor. This scene is for real and it belongs to the movie Hello Again (1987), starred by Shelley Long and Gabriel Byrne, who plays Gene in this movie.
A New York reporter posted on Twitter (August, 2014) a casting call ad for this movie that he found in some places in New York. It read “Looking for a Young Jesse Eisenberg for the feature film Louder Than Bombs directed by Joachim Trier shooting in October (2013) in the NY area. Must be 6-10 years-old; Blue eyes; fair skinned/no acting experience necessary!” The ad included a young picture of Eisenberg, and an e-mail to contact for more information and to submit a recent picture. Julian Murdoch was selected for the role.
Due to the terrorist attacks in France, the title for the local release was changed to ‘Back Home’ [/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louder_Than_Bombs_(film
trailer: youtu.be/4I1l_J9QuVk
LOUDER THAN BOMBS [2015]
Written in part and directed by Joachim Trier
[b]Amy: The stuff they brought earlier was fucking disgusting.
Jonah: I know it was disgusting. Could you not say fucking around the baby, maybe just like, give it a week.
Amy: Okay, one week.
Amy [to the baby]: Your daddy’s gonna get your mommy some fucking food.
Jonah: A week.
Amy: And he better fucking hurry.
…
Isabelle: When I first started, I thought the job was to get as close as possible. The exciting part of it was probably what drew me to it. Then I became confused and I thought I had to stay until after the tanks had left to show the damage, maybe.
Charlie Rose: The consequences. The toll of war.
Isabelle: Yes, the other side of the war. I think that’s most of my photographs, my recent photograps are the testemony of.
Charlie Rose: How long will you do this? And when will you know it’s time?
Isabelle: I think it is my responsibility. No, I don’t think I should stop. Why should I?
…
News reporter [on TV]: In a twist of fate, having finally quit the hazardous world of conflict photography, Isabelle Reed died in a car accident less than a mile from her home in Nyack, New York. She was 57 years old, leaving behind her husband and two sons.
…
Richard: So…when I write this article for the New York Times, I don’t think I can avoid mentioning how she died. That it wasn’t really an accident.
Gene: Yeah. So, are you saying that you want to write that she killed herself?
Richard: Gene, I don’t want to be a part of romanticizing what we do. Isabelle wouldn’t either.
…
Richard: Your boys…they know what really happend, right?
Gene: Well, Jonah obviously does, yeah. But Conrad…he was 12, so, that’s a conversation.
…
Gene: That meeting I had this morning. Well, Richard was there. He’s going to be writing this article, and it just reminded me that there was some stuff that you and I, we just need to talk about.
[he looks at Conrad who is playing a video game as though Gene wasn’t even there]
Gene: Can you turn that off? Or you can just put it on pause.
[Conrad ignores him]
Gene: Conrad, can you…can you please turn that off?
Conrad [turning to him, shouting]: Get out! Get the fuck out.
Gene [startled]: Don’t you speak to be like that. I’m just trying to talk to you!
[Conrad takes a plastic bag and puts it over his head. Gene has to rip the bag from his head. Conrad bolts from the room]
…
Gene: You know this article that Richard is gonna write. I’m sure it’s gonna be tasteful, but he wants to mention it.
Jonah: Well, I mean, he can’t…he can’t do that. Did you tell him he can’t do that?
Gene: You know, I’ve been thinking about this and I really think that Conrad has a right to know.
…
Isabelle [voiceover with photographs of war’s terrible consequences in the background]: It was early and freezing. There was a group of men preparing the burial of a young boy. Children were dying daily. I felt that I had to get this one right. That this might convey something about what was going on. And there was this man. I thought he had to be the boy’s father. I was searching for some sign that it was okay for me to be there. That he accepted me. I’m faced with this everytime. Can I take a photo that tells their story? The way they would if they could tell it? And is that my job? Or shouldn’t I instead use this family to tell something bigger, and in some ways, more important? At the risk of reducing them to an example, to victims. In times of war or extreme poverty the codes for civilized behavior are suspended. In so-called normal life, no one would go into a house where people are grieving and photograph them.
…
Jonah: I wanted to ask you, do you ever think about Mom? Do you ever think about the car accident?
Conrad [wary]: Why?
Jonah: Well, there’s no story in a car accident, you know, so some people have to make one up. They have to invent some things that they have something to blame, you know, but honestly it was just bad luck. I mean it was fucked up, but it’s not like it was anybody’s fault or anything. [/b]
He blinked.
[b]Gene: Don’t you think that Conrad deserves to know the truth.
Jonah: Truth? What is the truth? What, some story that Richard wants to write, how is that the truth? He’s gonna make her out to seem like she’s some kind of depressed person.
Gene: No, I don’t think he will. But she was depressed. You know that, right?
…
Gene: It was a tough year. You didn’t really know what was going on. You couldn’t know what was going on.
Jonah: Actually, I did know what was going on, 'cause she called me all the time when she wouldn’t talk to you, so would talk to me, so I spoke to her all the time. Anyway, I guess this story suits you perfectly, 'cause then you could make her out to be the negligent parent and you can be like the perfect parent…
Gene: Yeah, well, I don’t want to argue about this…
Jonah: No? I guess I don’t either. Just think really hard about what you’re doing here, because, I mean, even if you see her that way, I don’t think Conrad has to.
…
Jonah [looking at Conrad’s computer screen]: What else are you watching here.
[he sees links to some sick shit]
Jonah: Birds, skeletons, decomposing…You’re not, like, going to shoot up the school one day, are you?
…
Jonah [after Conrad opens a document]: Did you write this?
Conrad: Yeah
[Jonah starts to read]
Conrad [voiceover]: “Am I crazy thinking about setting fire to Marion Wilkenson’s hair? Hair that burns always smells really bad…in 1999, three other boys with the name of Conrad Reed were born…I use 8 sheets of toilet paper, sometimes 12. I wonder if people use more or less…I have 14 pairs of socks if I count the warm wollen ones. I’ve got 14 pair of underwear, 20 t-shirts, 21 books, 108 comic books, 16 DVDs, 121 films on my computer…After Mom died in the accident, Dad and I went on a trip to Egypt. Kenneth didn’t even know that Egypt was in Africa…I like clips that are short and real. It has to be real. Goosebumps are real…The most times I’ve jerked off in one day: 7…Jonah reminds me of Mom. He’s small and super smart…The body starts to decompose as soon as you are dead. It’s two times faster underwater. It’s four times slower if you’re buried. The cold slows it down even more. In the tropics, a dead body can decompose in, like, under a day…Mom once showed me how she can change the meaning of a picture by framing it differently. It had a profound effect on me…Mom was one of the best photographers ever. It even says so in Wikipedia…Brain cells die in minutes, but skin cells taken 24 hours after death can still grow in a lab. People say that hair and nails grown after death, but they don’t. It’s the skin that shrinks so it may look like that in a way…There are days I’m invisible, I can do whatever I want. I must be careful not to lose that ability…I was nine and found a bullet with some of Mom’s stuff. I swallowed it. Maybe it’s still inside of me…Dad followed me today just like he did after Mom died. I felt like I had to do something important. So I wanted to show him I visit Mom’s grave but I couldn’t find it. And I just fell down on another one.”[/b]
Remember that?
[b]Conrad: You know, if I had a girl, I’d never lie to her.
Jonah: Yeah? Good luck with that.
…
Conrad: I’m gonna give it to her. The stuff you read.
Jonah: To her? Are you sertious?
Conrad: Yeah. I want her to know me.
Jonah: Okay, listen. I thought you were kinda backwards and weird…but it turns out you’re not. You’re…you’re actually pretty cool. And that stuff you wrote, really, that stuff was excellent. Still…and I’m telling you this because I love you, that girl is never going to go for you, no way. I’m sorry, she’s just not. It’s not your fault. I mean, it’s not her fault either. It’s high school. And, like, the hierarchy here, the status of looks and social skills and all this bullshit is stricter here than anywhere else in the world. I mean look at that girl. She’s not going to get it. She and her friends will all laugh at you. I mean, they’d be wrong because you are way cooler than they will ever be. You really are. But…but they’ll destroy you. [/b]
Let’s just say he doesn’t take it well.
[b]Isabelle [voiceover]: One morning you’re over there doing something you feel is important, but it’s hard as well you know? You can’t wait to go back home. Then finally you’re there. You always arrive exhausted, having changed plans like four times…But you hear them. Trying to be quiet, just waiting for you to come out. They don’t know how much you have changed since last time ypu say them. You have to learn all the names of the new things they’re interested in. Things that will change again a month from now. After a few days you feel better in the role. No, it’s not even a role. You like it. They want you there. They love you. You can feel it…But you still feel that you are in the way. In the way of what they usually do. Again, you get the feeling that you are in the wrong place. It’s not that they don’t want you there, but, they don’t really need you.
…
Narrator: He could still many years from now recall this scene and all its detail. The lock of hair she carefully places behind her ear. The way the washing label stuck out from the neck of her tank top. The street lights that went out as they passed Kevin Anderson’s house. That strangely familiar smell of damp earth he couldn’t quit place. As a stranger passed, he glanced at them as he went by probably thinking they were a couple. She had said that she wanted to have lunch with him Tuesday after English. He knew that this would never happen, that she would feel differently Monday back in school. But at that moment he just enjoyed that she felt like saying this to him. That she maybe really felt like having lunch with him. That while they were walking there like that, having lunch together at school seemed to her like a perfectly natural thing to do. [/b]
And there it is: that enormous gap between this and that which had brought his mother to the brink. There’s really no way to describe it, let alone to bridge it.
Conrad: So it’s true? The paper. It’s true?
Gene [nodding]: Yes, it is.
Conrad: Why didn’t you tell me? I saw her you know. I saw how she was. I was here.