Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig get personal in NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS
NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS (Joe Swanberg & Greta Gerwig, 2008
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, March 1, free with museum admission, 4:30
Series runs March 1-2
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.nightsandweekendsmovie.com
Generation DIY examines long-distance relationships and identity in the offbeat Nights and Weekends, which is screening this weekend at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the Saturday-Sunday mini-festival “A Swanberg Sampler,” featuring six works by mumblecore master Joe Swanberg. In the low-budget film, which was written, directed, and produced by Greta Gerwig (Greenberg, Frances Ha) and Swanberg (Kissing on the Mouth, Silver Bullets), who previously worked together on Hannah Takes the Stairs and LOL, the two play Mattie and James, respectively, a couple trying to make it work even though she’s in New York City and he’s in Chicago. The film opens with a graphic sex scene, but as the story continues, the two of them have more and more trouble communicating until, a year later, things are very different. The lo-fi indie was mostly shot in small, claustrophobic indoor sets, emphasizing the pair’s closeness as well as growing distance, in a cinéma vérité style that makes the audience feel as if it is intruding into the characters’ lives, especially given the improvised dialogue and underwhelming acting. Despite Gerwig and Swanberg’s chemistry and the very intimate relationship they portray onscreen, they have never been a couple in real life. Nights and Weekends might be an acquired taste, but it is an engaging, very personal kind of romantic comedy. The series also includes Hannah Takes the Stairs, Silver Bullets, Art History, Uncle Kent, and All the Light in the Sky, with Swanberg, who has made eleven films in the last three-plus years, present at all screenings to talk about the works.