Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Abhiraj Goswami + Oishika Basak: The article that is being published is called “Chicken Soup for the Postmodern Soul: Philosophizing Spike Jonze’s Her Through the Lens of Evolving Modernity” and it is a philosophical treatise on Her, a film that both my co-author and I have been absolutely mesmerized by. In our article, we try to demystify the fiction that the film is and underscore the political reality, which allows for the existence of such art, either as commentary or as a severe revolt. We try doing this in three parts, which involve an understanding of capitalism, its alienating effects, and the production work involved in vividly producing the related imagery. All in all, our piece aims to decipher Her for what it really is: a warning of the bleak times that are coming, packaged in the form of a traditional romantic saga.
FM: What research and/or methodologies do you incorporate in your article?
AG+OB: The first thing that we did was watch the film an innumerable number of times, to the extent that the process slowly turned unbearable. This accounted for roughly 65 percent of our work as we could selectively analyze each theme without having to pay attention to details that drive forward other themes. The next step was to do background research into the making of the film, which involves the director, the crew, the production house, the distribution house, etc. A number of interviews were watched, which gave us key insights into how the principal photography and screenplay development happened. While we looked these up, we were also simultaneously scouting through the literature that is cited throughout the piece, which involves detailed theses on simulations, post-Fordist capitalism, traditional alienation and its newer variances, and the like. It took us a while to scout through all of our secondary sources of amassed literature. The final step involved making the congruency between the amassed literature and key themes happen in a harmonious manner. A lengthy process, without a doubt, but one that put us on a steep learning curve like no other.
FM: Describe the original context for/when writing this article while an undergraduate student.
AG+OB: The cinematic portrayal of the evils of capitalism has been a theme that has interested the both of us, in terms of the social implications as well as the associated spatiality. Originally, we had planned to write about Bong-Joon Ho’s Parasite, which is another film that had fascinated us. In fact, we had preliminary discussions on how to go about writing a piece that upholds the cinematic brilliance of Parasite. It was then that we chanced upon a lot of literature that had come out immediately after the film had won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This discouraged us from going ahead with Parasite. At that point, one of us was turning in our assignment for a course on geographic thought, which involved a spatial analysis of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. We eventually got to Spike Jonze by following that trajectory and then we settled on Her. From that point onward, there was no looking back.
FM: How have your personal experiences shaped and influenced your writing?
AG+OB: Owing to the fact that both of our courses are quite grammar heavy and that the social sciences depend entirely on language to convey specific meaning, our style of academic writing employs the heavy usage of long, explanatory passages, similar to most of the literature employed in the study of geography and international relations. We have also, at some point in our lives, worked in theater productions and, thus, we were involved with script development and analysis of mood. This has been significantly instrumental in the writing process as we tried fleshing out our themes with heavy magnitudes of description. We firmly believe in the idea that if an academic text has one theme explored through various different connotations, it saves the reader from reading a ton of additional literature just to understand that one concept. A mix of all of this has influenced how we chalked out our ideas for the piece.
FM: What aspects of the writing process were most challenging? Why?
AG+OB: Grasping key concepts of philosophy and identifying the lines of separation between the methods employed by different schools of thought and their respective frontrunners was the most challenging part. Since neither of us comes from a philosophical background, our ideas had to be molded and shaped in a manner which allowed us to think beyond linear arguments. Hours were spent Googling or looking up philosophical keywords and even more hours were spent trying to understand how we could simplify them in order to fit the context of our paper.
FM: What do you enjoy most about your article?
AG+OB: What we enjoy most about our article is the text itself, and the language that we’ve employed to specify the meaning that we attribute to various elements that make up the themes. However, if we were to be completely honest, the fact that we’ve been able to write something beyond five hundred words about a film that we value so dearly is in itself rewarding. As we kept reading and writing, we slowly built more and more confidence and that allowed us to express beyond what we thought we were capable of. We are just insanely elated at the fact that we have been able to achieve a new height in our academic careers, and now we know we are capable of and confident of achieving even more.
FM: How has the Film Matters editorial and publication process impacted the development/evolution of your article?
AG+OB: The feedback we got from the Film Matters editorial was life-changing. To be fair, during our undergraduate lives, we had barely received any form of mentorship or guidance with regard to how to improve academic writing. Thus, we were not used to feedback of such quality, which not only highlights the shortcomings (as it rightly should), but also sheds light on why the article has potential, thereby encouraging us to develop it further. We were thrilled to learn that our article was thoroughly enjoyed by a board of reviewers. This was the first time we felt someone took our writing seriously, and thus we will be immensely grateful to Film Matters for as long as we keep writing. The feedback also gave us insights into how we can further develop other concepts, not necessarily related to films or philosophy. It also led to us to sobering down the article in terms of the usage of unnecessarily heavy grammar, which is timeless advice.
FM: What audience do you hope to reach with your Film Matters article and/or what impact do you hope it has on the field of film studies?
AG+OB: We do not have any specific kinds of audience in mind, but we do hope that individuals who are heavily involved in the study of pop culture take notice of our efforts and incorporate some of our ideas into their texts in the future. However, that being said, we do believe that this article is great for all sorts of reading moods, be it light academic reading or heavy academic research. We worked to keep it that way so as to not limit the exposure that the article can reach. In terms of impact, we hope that people take notice of their everyday lives and how much of it is passively governed by technology. We don’t want our article to just be another item in a sea of citations but an active manifesto of sorts that scares people into valuing human and humane interaction. We sincerely believe that the world is in need of genuine connection: one which values mind over machine and the severity of emotions over disengaged abstractions.
FM: What advice do you have for undergraduate film and media scholars?
AG+OB: We advise undergraduate film and media scholars to not be picky in terms of what necessarily constitutes a “good film” or a “worthy piece of art.” Throughout our writing process, we had watched a variety of films (covering the entire spectrum from Tarkovsky’s Stalker to the Purge trilogy) in order to identify recurring themes and imagery. We discovered that each and every work of art cannot be divorced from key concepts of philosophy, politics, and geography that constantly underpin human existence and the inner workings of our modern society. With enough reading and watching, one can easily fathom the depth of any piece of art and understand the circumstances of why its existence occurs. The advice that follows is: read, and never stop reading.
FM: What are your future plans?
AG+OB: With our undergraduate lives having come to an end, we hope to transition into postgraduate students soon and pursue our respective majors (International Relations and Urban Geography), thereby gathering enough knowledge to help us delve into new arenas with regard to the analysis of popular culture and popular media. The art of visual storytelling is something that will evolve massively in the years to come, and academia ought not only to catch up with the newer trends but also to be one step ahead in order to carve out a future that is meaningful, inclusive, and participatory for all. We hope to be able to academically and professionally guide that process, ensuring that the media is free and that it works as a public good, for the benefit of all mankind.
Author Biographies
Abhiraj Goswami is a recent graduate of Political Science from Jadavpur University, India, and harbors an active interest in studying popular culture, linking it with the literature of theoretical politics. He wishes to pursue his further studies in International Relations so as to research public diplomacy through popular media.
Oishika Basak is a recent graduate of Geography from Miranda House, University of Delhi, and harbors an active interest in the study of spatiality, sustainability, and urban planning. She plans to further pursue urban and economic geography in order to theorize and implement smarter technology solutions for better urban experiences.
