{"id":299,"date":"2010-05-13T02:11:05","date_gmt":"2010-05-13T02:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamjcobb.wordpress.com\/?p=299"},"modified":"2010-05-13T02:11:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-13T02:11:05","slug":"greenberg-the-feckless-indie-male","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/05\/13\/greenberg-the-feckless-indie-male\/","title":{"rendered":""Greenberg" & the Feckless Indie Male"},"content":{"rendered":"

So this weekend I caught Noah Baumbach’s new film Greenberg<\/em> in a St. Louis theater, the day after I rewatched the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man<\/em>, which is better, true, but also not really a fair comparison, because who can compete with the Coen Bros? (And A Serious Man<\/em> would be even better seen at midwestern urban theater, as that’s the background of the film.) But I liked Greenberg<\/em> and Ben Stiller is good in it, even if it’s not the kind of film you fall in love with: It does make you think. A.O. Scott praises it in a NY Times magazine piece about the Gen-X midlife crisis (http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/09\/weekinreview\/09aoscott.html?pagewanted=2), which is both accurate and slightly off-target. Why off target? I doubt Baumbach really means a character as distinctive as Greenberg to be emblematic or archetypal. That said, sure, I know guys (and gals, unfortunately) like Greenberg, and usually can’t stand to be around them. But he’s watchable, in his passive\/aggressive, shooting-himself-in-the-foot kind of way. \u00a0The party scene is worth the movie, when Ben Stiller does coke with a bunch of twentysomethings, complaining about how disconnected they are, when they appear more respectful and well-adjusted than he is. And Greta Gerwig, as the lovable & sad Florence, steals the show.
\nBut Greenberg really made me think of the Feckless Indie Male, a subspecies I noticed often this spring term, in my student fiction: the guy who thinks too much, who doesn’t act, but gets lost in irony and posturing, leading a life of little significance. That’s between the lines of A.O. Scott’s Gen-X rant, though it’s a different generation altogether.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So this weekend I caught Noah Baumbach’s new film Greenberg in a St. Louis theater, the day after I rewatched the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, which is better, true, but also not really a fair comparison, because who can … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t