Today Joe Swanberg premiered his latest and never-before-seen 55-minute feature, Marriage Material, at Vimeo, where it's available for viewing until the end of the month. It comes on the occasion of the release by Factory 25 of the Joe Swanberg: Collected Films 2011 box set, the first installment of which bows this week, and which will ultimately be comprised of the collectively amazing Silver Bullets, Art History, The Zone, and the still-unpremiered Privacy Settings. I haven't seen Privacy Settings yet, but I personally consider both Art History and The Zone, alongside the 2009 Alexander the Last, as maybe Swanberg's very best films to date. Joe gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times blog a few days ago about the newest film and the box set here. You can order Joe Swanberg: Collected Films 2011 here.
About Marriage Material: pic stars Kentucker Audley and Caroline White as they babysit Joe and Kris's son Jude Huckleberry Swanberg over the course of a day or two at their Memphis home. The presence of the baby occasions a hard look at the possibility of starting a family and a serious conversation about when/if/why to get married. Tensions boil, but never boil over, via such touchstones as diverse and oblique as government aid, Béla Tarr, and Mac vs. PC. The long central conversation between Kentucker and Caroline that takes place on the couple's bed with the family dog at their feet qualifies as one of the most intimate and powerful scenes Swanberg has presented to date. The entire film (beautiful, as these frames attest to, with Adam Wingard as DP) sort of represents a kind of prologue, epilogue, or companion-piece to Audley's own forthcoming — and unbelievable — Open Five 2, which should well be regarded as one of the most anticipated films of 2012.
You can watch Marriage Material right now, right here. Go full-screen, and plug in your earbuds.
Posts on Silver Bullets and Art History at Cinemasparagus:
Art History [2011]
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