newyorker--2020-03-11--Last Stop, Joe Biden

Last Stop, Joe Biden

This week , the coronavirus achieved what five years of other events could not , and made American Presidential politics into a secondary story .
In Washington , President Trump tried , without seeming quite convinced of it himself , to provide some assurance that everything would soon be fine , that it was a great time for hand-shaking and stock purchasing , even as his incoming chief of staff , Mark Meadows , was under self-quarantine .
The campaign trail was more subdued still .
Six states held Democratic primaries on Tuesday , and , by the afternoon , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernie Sanders , had cancelled the rallies they had planned for the evening , to help keep the virus from spreading .
While polls were closing , the news came that the next Democratic debate , on Sunday , would be conducted without a live audience , as an anti-contagion measure ; it would be just two men nearing eighty arguing in a nearly empty room .
Tuesday ’ s results , once they came , were decisive if not surprising : the former Vice-President won Mississippi , Missouri , and Michigan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State , as midnight neared in the East , was too close to call .
The dust of the primaries is settling .
Unless something extraordinary happens , Biden will be the Democratic nominee .
Ever since Trump announced his candidacy , in the summer of 2015 , electoral politics has been a totalizing force in American life , one that has come to define every cultural divide and , in so doing , warped all of them .
Politics has for so long now been raucous , terrifying , and uncertain , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so defined by the urgency of opposing Trump that it is jarring to realize that those hopes will now likely be vested in the quiet candidacy and aging figure of Biden .
His rise in the polls has been so sudden , and the cohesion of the Party around him so dramatic , that he has become the presumptive nominee before it has been clear what—beyond the preference for a safer choice—his candidacy might mean .
On Monday night , in Detroit , the Vice-President pointed to three Democratic politicians who had just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cory Booker and the Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer—and said , “ Look , I view myself as a bridge , not as anything else .
There ’ s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me .
They are the future of this country.
” But those leaders behind him did not represent a coherent platform , and none of them had much of a relationship with the rising generation behind them , who had invested so much in Sanders ’ s campaign , and whose radical politics are starkly opposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuzzy .
A bridge to what ?
In the week since Super Tuesday , one defined by the emotional conclusion of Elizabeth Warren ’ s campaign , Biden and Sanders had circled the country , and each other , without ever quite making contact or changing the race .
Needing to win more support from African-American voters , Sanders had prepared a new speech on racial inequity to deliver at a rally in Flint .
But , at the last minute , reportedly at the urging of the Princeton professor Cornel West and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the text with his normal stump speech .
Perhaps that was a wise decision—Sanders works best in his familiar groove—but it also meant that the Sanders movement , the defining progressive crusade of a generation , was going down without much of a fight .
Around 10:30 P.M. on Tuesday , Sanders ’ s aides let reporters know that the Vermont senator would not make any kind of address on Tuesday , which is the kind of thing a politician does when he is considering suspending his campaign .
If this was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anticlimactic one .
It hadn ’ t been clear , when the evening started , where Biden would speak ; it turned out to be at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia , in front of a small audience of staff and press .
Victory suits Biden , a born front-runner , who , with some notable exceptions , has shouted less in the past week and has seemed a little more magnanimous .
“ I want to thank Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their tireless energy , and their passion , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , insisting that , together , the Democratic factions would defeat Trump .
There were some promising signs in the vote totals : Biden performed well in some of the blue-collar districts in Michigan that had helped tip the country to Trump .
But , in Philadelphia , the hall , quiet and marble and severe , said as much as the candidate did .
During the past few years , Presidential politics has swollen outside its familiar containers , taking place in arenas and on the streets ; on the left , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other forms came to rest , through Sanders and his allies , in electoral politics .
Biden ’ s campaign aims to shift politics back into formal spaces—to reduce its presence in the American psyche , to compartmentalize it again .
Will this work ?
Biden can be a blunt instrument , and an imperfect vessel for his campaign .
Visiting a Detroit assembly plant on Tuesday , he argued with a worker in a yellow safety vest about the Second Amendment and called the man “ full of shit.
” On the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether Biden will be able to unify the Party .
That may hinge on whether he can recognize , as clearly as Sanders has , the frailties and inequities of American society right now .
In Tuesday ’ s exit polls , the generational divide was stark .
Even in Missouri , where Biden won by more than twenty points , Sanders swept younger voters .
To the Latino support he ’ d demonstrated in Nevada last month , Sanders added robust Muslim support in Michigan on Tuesday—his coalition comprises the Americans whose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and who may now have to choose whether to unify behind Biden .
In Philadelphia , Biden said , “ To all those who have been knocked down , to all those who have been counted out , this is your campaign.
” Maybe he was right .
In the Presidential race , at least , there are no other real options now .

This week, the coronavirus achieved what five years of other events could not, and made American Presidential politics into a secondary story. In Washington, President Trump tried, without seeming quite convinced of it himself, to provide some assurance that everything would soon be fine, that it was a great time for hand-shaking and stock purchasing, even as his incoming chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was under self-quarantine. The campaign trail was more subdued still. Six states held Democratic primaries on Tuesday, and, by the afternoon, both remaining contenders, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, had cancelled the rallies they had planned for the evening, to help keep the virus from spreading. While polls were closing, the news came that the next Democratic debate, on Sunday, would be conducted without a live audience, as an anti-contagion measure; it would be just two men nearing eighty arguing in a nearly empty room. Tuesday’s results, once they came, were decisive if not surprising: the former Vice-President won Mississippi, Missouri, and Michigan, and even the progressive stronghold of Washington State, as midnight neared in the East, was too close to call. The dust of the primaries is settling. Unless something extraordinary happens, Biden will be the Democratic nominee.
Ever since Trump announced his candidacy, in the summer of 2015, electoral politics has been a totalizing force in American life, one that has come to define every cultural divide and, in so doing, warped all of them. Politics has for so long now been raucous, terrifying, and uncertain, and, for liberals and progressives, so defined by the urgency of opposing Trump that it is jarring to realize that those hopes will now likely be vested in the quiet candidacy and aging figure of Biden. His rise in the polls has been so sudden, and the cohesion of the Party around him so dramatic, that he has become the presumptive nominee before it has been clear what—beyond the preference for a safer choice—his candidacy might mean. On Monday night, in Detroit, the Vice-President pointed to three Democratic politicians who had just endorsed him—his former rivals Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and the Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer—and said, “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” But those leaders behind him did not represent a coherent platform, and none of them had much of a relationship with the rising generation behind them, who had invested so much in Sanders’s campaign, and whose radical politics are starkly opposed to Biden’s. It sounded fuzzy. A bridge to what?
In the week since Super Tuesday, one defined by the emotional conclusion of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, Biden and Sanders had circled the country, and each other, without ever quite making contact or changing the race. Needing to win more support from African-American voters, Sanders had prepared a new speech on racial inequity to deliver at a rally in Flint. But, at the last minute, reportedly at the urging of the Princeton professor Cornel West and other African-American advisers, the senator replaced the text with his normal stump speech. Perhaps that was a wise decision—Sanders works best in his familiar groove—but it also meant that the Sanders movement, the defining progressive crusade of a generation, was going down without much of a fight. Around 10:30 P.M. on Tuesday, Sanders’s aides let reporters know that the Vermont senator would not make any kind of address on Tuesday, which is the kind of thing a politician does when he is considering suspending his campaign. If this was the end, then it was a strangely anticlimactic one.
It hadn’t been clear, when the evening started, where Biden would speak; it turned out to be at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, in front of a small audience of staff and press. Victory suits Biden, a born front-runner, who, with some notable exceptions, has shouted less in the past week and has seemed a little more magnanimous. “I want to thank Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their tireless energy, and their passion,” Biden said, late Tuesday night, insisting that, together, the Democratic factions would defeat Trump. There were some promising signs in the vote totals: Biden performed well in some of the blue-collar districts in Michigan that had helped tip the country to Trump. But, in Philadelphia, the hall, quiet and marble and severe, said as much as the candidate did. During the past few years, Presidential politics has swollen outside its familiar containers, taking place in arenas and on the streets; on the left, the revolutionary urgency that might have taken other forms came to rest, through Sanders and his allies, in electoral politics. Biden’s campaign aims to shift politics back into formal spaces—to reduce its presence in the American psyche, to compartmentalize it again.
Will this work? Biden can be a blunt instrument, and an imperfect vessel for his campaign. Visiting a Detroit assembly plant on Tuesday, he argued with a worker in a yellow safety vest about the Second Amendment and called the man “full of shit.” On the cable networks, the talk was about whether Biden will be able to unify the Party. That may hinge on whether he can recognize, as clearly as Sanders has, the frailties and inequities of American society right now. In Tuesday’s exit polls, the generational divide was stark. Even in Missouri, where Biden won by more than twenty points, Sanders swept younger voters. To the Latino support he’d demonstrated in Nevada last month, Sanders added robust Muslim support in Michigan on Tuesday—his coalition comprises the Americans whose future is most obviously at stake, and who may now have to choose whether to unify behind Biden. In Philadelphia, Biden said, “To all those who have been knocked down, to all those who have been counted out, this is your campaign.” Maybe he was right. In the Presidential race, at least, there are no other real options now.


newyorker--2020-03-11--Bernie Sanders’s Electability Argument Falls Apart in Michigan

The Rust Belt has been central to Bernie Sanders ’ s case for the Presidency .
Its factory towns were where he ground his arguments against the economic policies of the past half century .
In the 2016 primaries , it was where he won surprising victories over Hillary Clinton , and , in the 2016 general election , it was where Clinton suffered shocking , narrow , and Electoral College–turning defeats against Donald Trump .
In the election ’ s aftermath , it was where you could find both white voters who sprang for Trump and black voters who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were kept from turning out ) for Clinton .
Last April , Sanders took a four-day tour of the region , traversing Wisconsin , Indiana , Michigan , Ohio , and Pennsylvania .
Everywhere , he attracted huge crowds , and everywhere , in addition to his message of economic reform , he offered an electoral argument .
“ Four years ago , despite losing the popular vote by three million votes , Donald Trump carried all of those states and won enough electoral votes to win the Presidency , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Together , we are going to make sure that that does not happen again.
” In the years since Trump ’ s election , Sanders ’ s supporters have advanced a Bernie-would-have-won argument that hinged on this corner of our national map .
Sanders seized on this as he mounted his second Presidential run , bolstering the ideological argument he made in 2016 with an electability one .
In addition to making the case for his progressive policies—Medicare for All , free public college , proper taxes levied on the wealthy—he and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the best strategic bet for the Democratic Party .
That argument had two parts .
The first was that Sanders would mobilize new voters—young people , people alienated from politics , and voters of color—to form a large and formidable coalition .
The second was that he would win back the Midwest .
On March 3rd , when fourteen states voted on Super Tuesday , the first part of that argument was undercut : young voters didn ’ t turn out in notable numbers , black voters in the South went overwhelmingly for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ places that also went hard for Biden , like suburban Fairfax County , Virginia .
A week later , with Sanders ’ s loss in Michigan , the second part of his electability argument fell apart as well .
In 2016 , Michigan was perhaps Sanders ’ s biggest and most surprising victory .
In 2020 , it will go down as perhaps his decisive defeat .
He seemed to telegraph the stakes this weekend , as he crisscrossed the state with prominent supporters , including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jesse Jackson .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ networks called the state for Biden soon after the polls closed .
Exit polls suggested that Biden had won black voters in the state by a two-to-one margin .
In 2016 , Sanders beat Clinton in Michigan among white voters without college degrees .
Tonight , that demographic , too , went for Biden .
In Luce County , in the state ’ s rural Upper Peninsula , a Sanders blowout in 2016 was almost exactly reversed .
Sanders accomplished a great deal this past year .
He put together a multiracial coalition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he popularized calls for a fundamental reshaping of the government and the redistribution of wealth in America .
A democratic socialist won the primary in California , the country ’ s largest state .
He raised historic amounts of money from small donations , showing that a candidate who eschews rich donors can still compete in the post–Citizens United era .
And , even as Biden racked up primary wins , the underlying numbers showed a stark generational divide : Sanders commands the support of young Democrats , while Biden has won thanks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ older ones .
But , after Michigan , those are starting to look less like strengths for Sanders to exploit than facts that Biden will have to address as he moves on to the general election .

The Rust Belt has been central to Bernie Sanders’s case for the Presidency. Its factory towns were where he ground his arguments against the economic policies of the past half century. In the 2016 primaries, it was where he won surprising victories over Hillary Clinton, and, in the 2016 general election, it was where Clinton suffered shocking, narrow, and Electoral College–turning defeats against Donald Trump. In the election’s aftermath, it was where you could find both white voters who sprang for Trump and black voters who didn’t turn out (or were kept from turning out) for Clinton. Last April, Sanders took a four-day tour of the region, traversing Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Everywhere, he attracted huge crowds, and everywhere, in addition to his message of economic reform, he offered an electoral argument. “Four years ago, despite losing the popular vote by three million votes, Donald Trump carried all of those states and won enough electoral votes to win the Presidency,” he said at a rally in Madison. “Together, we are going to make sure that that does not happen again.”
In the years since Trump’s election, Sanders’s supporters have advanced a Bernie-would-have-won argument that hinged on this corner of our national map. Sanders seized on this as he mounted his second Presidential run, bolstering the ideological argument he made in 2016 with an electability one. In addition to making the case for his progressive policies—Medicare for All, free public college, proper taxes levied on the wealthy—he and his supporters have insisted that his nomination made the best strategic bet for the Democratic Party. That argument had two parts. The first was that Sanders would mobilize new voters—young people, people alienated from politics, and voters of color—to form a large and formidable coalition. The second was that he would win back the Midwest. On March 3rd, when fourteen states voted on Super Tuesday, the first part of that argument was undercut: young voters didn’t turn out in notable numbers, black voters in the South went overwhelmingly for Joe Biden, and turnout surged in places that also went hard for Biden, like suburban Fairfax County, Virginia. A week later, with Sanders’s loss in Michigan, the second part of his electability argument fell apart as well.
In 2016, Michigan was perhaps Sanders’s biggest and most surprising victory. In 2020, it will go down as perhaps his decisive defeat. He seemed to telegraph the stakes this weekend, as he crisscrossed the state with prominent supporters, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jesse Jackson. It wasn’t enough. The news networks called the state for Biden soon after the polls closed. Exit polls suggested that Biden had won black voters in the state by a two-to-one margin. In 2016, Sanders beat Clinton in Michigan among white voters without college degrees. Tonight, that demographic, too, went for Biden. In Luce County, in the state’s rural Upper Peninsula, a Sanders blowout in 2016 was almost exactly reversed.
Sanders accomplished a great deal this past year. He put together a multiracial coalition in a number of states, and he popularized calls for a fundamental reshaping of the government and the redistribution of wealth in America. A democratic socialist won the primary in California, the country’s largest state. He raised historic amounts of money from small donations, showing that a candidate who eschews rich donors can still compete in the post–Citizens United era. And, even as Biden racked up primary wins, the underlying numbers showed a stark generational divide: Sanders commands the support of young Democrats, while Biden has won thanks in large part to his support among older ones. But, after Michigan, those are starting to look less like strengths for Sanders to exploit than facts that Biden will have to address as he moves on to the general election.


newyorker--2020-03-13--“The Truth” and “The Booksellers,” Reviewed

The trees are in their autumn beauty , at the start of “ The Truth , ” and so is Catherine Deneuve .
She plays a famous French actress named Fabienne—snippy , chic , and radiating effortless hauteur .
Her dedication to her art is unyielding .
“ I prefer to have been a bad mother , a bad friend , and a good actress , ” she says .
“ You may not forgive me , but the public does.
” Ever serene , she doesn ’ t deny the collateral damage that her career may have caused .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Any resemblance to living persons is , of course , entirely coincidental .
Nonetheless , the role of Fabienne is a comically good fit for Deneuve , since it allows her both to fulfill and , ever so lightly , to kid the dominant status that she enjoys in her native land , and in the saga of cinema .
You don ’ t work , as she has done , for Truffaut , Buñuel , Jacques Demy , Leos Carax , and François Ozon—and , let us not forget , alongside Burt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hustle ” ( 1975 ) —without acquiring the crown and scepter , as it were , of a grande dame .
Remember Arnaud Desplechin ’ s “ Kings and Queen ” ( 2004 ) , in which Deneuve plays a psychiatrist .
“ Do you know you ’ re very beautiful ?
” a patient asks her .
“ Yes , I ’ ve been told , thank you , ” she replies .
At the helm of “ The Truth ” is the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda , and it marks his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ setting is a semi-pastoral patch of Paris , where Fabienne resides in a stately mansion ; we see her stroll through its garden in silvery pajamas , rehearsing her lines .
Also taking the air is a pet tortoise , who shares a name with Fabienne ’ s ex-husband .
( So much for that marriage . )
Maintaining the animal motif , she wears a leopard-print coat to walk her dog beside the walls of a nearby prison—a deliberate touch of incongruity , halfway to a dream .
Sometimes it takes an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ juxtapositions .
Fabienne is concluding an interview , at home , when guests arrive , fresh off the plane from New York .
“ It ’ s nothing .
My daughter and her little family , ” she explains .
That “ nothing ” freezes the blood .
Her daughter is Lumir ( Juliette Binoche ) , a screenwriter , married to a not very successful American actor , Hank ( Ethan Hawke ) , and they ’ ve come with their young daughter , Charlotte ( Clémentine Grenier ) , who inquires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really have magical powers ?
” I wouldn ’ t bet against it .
One reason for the visit is the imminent publication of Fabienne ’ s memoirs , which bear the very unwise title of “ The Truth , ” and which , as far as Lumir is concerned , are a pack of shiny lies .
One example : her mother claims that she used to pick Lumir up from school .
Yeah , right .
You can sense , soon enough , how “ The Truth ” is likely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between Fabienne and Lumir , on the other side of it lies calm .
Mother-daughter movies constitute a mini-genre , headed by “ Mildred Pierce ” ( 1945 ) , but the melodramatic drive of that film , skirting hysteria , is at a far remove from Kore-eda ’ s approach .
Elliptical to a fault , he is concerned with fears and suspicions that are muted or sidelined , often over many years , rather than being poured forth .
Think of the two sets of parents in “ Like Father , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who discover that their respective sons were accidentally switched at birth .
Nothing so drastic occurs in the latest film , yet old wounds wait to be reopened , as when Fabienne admits to Lumir that , contrary to earlier reports , she did once go to see her daughter act , onstage , in “ The Wizard of Oz.
” “ You were lousy , ” she adds .
Every parent knows the value of a white lie , sweetly timed , but not Fabienne .
She tells the truth as if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , does this supple story begin to falter ?
Maybe because it comes across , by Kore-eda ’ s standard , as something of a package , with its arguments neatly folded and wrapped .
Fabienne , for instance , just happens to be shooting a sci-fi movie , which is all about a mother who doesn ’ t age and a daughter who does— “ You stay young and I keep getting older , ” the daughter declares .
The scene that follows is touchingly done , yet we know that its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of generational anxiety .
I can ’ t help wishing that Fabienne were starring in a glossy thriller , or a wisp of a comedy , that bore no relation whatever to problems at home .
Then , there is a weird request of Fabienne ’ s .
She proposes that Lumir , being a writer , should help her by composing lines of dialogue , to be used in a speech of apology addressed to a disgruntled employee .
Again , you can feel the film coiling in upon itself ; it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose films hitherto have been locked into Japanese mores and habitations , doesn ’ t yet trust himself to dramatize the broad expanses of French society , and therefore trains his gaze inward , upon the woes of this one family .
Note also that it ’ s a standard-issue family , complete with parents and kids , whereas the adults in Kore-eda ’ s previous movie , the wonderful “ Shoplifters ” ( 2018 ) , shivered with uncertainty ; their dwelling place was little better than a shack , and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
No such worries for Fabienne and her clan .
Charlotte is safe , legitimate , and adored , and the cushion of wealth could not be plumper .
Despite these shortfalls , there ’ s much to relish here .
To play a guy like Hank , who must resign himself to being second or fourth fiddle , is a tricky task , but Hawke pulls it off in the quiet style that he has made his own , and there ’ s an easeful moment when Hank and the others ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ restaurant by night , slip into an impromptu dance as they mosey down the street .
In the end , however , this is the Catherine Deneuve show , and I can already hear the meows of catty delight with which audiences will greet the scene where the topic of great actresses comes up .
Many of them , it ’ s pointed out , have had double initials : Greta Garbo , Danielle Darrieux , Anouk Aimée .
How about Brigitte Bardot ?
somebody asks , and Fabienne answers with a moue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but a supermoue—a whole cultural attitude distilled into a single boffff .
And yet Fabienne , though frosty , is not impermeable , and in the final minutes , with the seasons changing and the leaves falling , she lifts her immaculate face to the winter light .
Something stirs within her , even now , beneath the ice .
When a movie called “ The Booksellers ” comes along , you can ’ t help pausing over the title .
Might it be Mob slang ?
You can imagine a Martin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means a guy in a dusty jacket , whose job is to pop other guys , smack in the flyleaf , leaving the cops badly foxed .
As it is , “ The Booksellers ” —a new documentary , directed by D. W. Young—really is about people who sell books , though they are , in their way , as implacable as gangsters .
Show them a copy of “ Moby-Dick ” in which Melville has doodled little cartoon whales , and they ’ ll cut your throat to get it .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s more of a social event : a congregation of the faithful , whom we first encounter at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair , in the Park Avenue Armory .
The dealers ’ mission , one declares , is to “ inculcate neophytes into the wonder of the object of the book.
” ( Translation : get the suckers hooked . )
We glimpse one volume containing mammoth hair ; another covered in human skin , with teeth embedded in the cover ; and a librarian doll , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” We meet the collector Justin Schiller , who was still in seventh grade when he lent some of his L. Frank Baum material to Columbia University , and the three graceful sisters who rule over the Argosy Book Store , on Fifty-ninth Street , having jointly inherited the throne from their father , Louis Cohen .
If King Lear had gone into the book trade , he could have saved himself a world of grief .

The trees are in their autumn beauty, at the start of “The Truth,” and so is Catherine Deneuve. She plays a famous French actress named Fabienne—snippy, chic, and radiating effortless hauteur. Her dedication to her art is unyielding. “I prefer to have been a bad mother, a bad friend, and a good actress,” she says. “You may not forgive me, but the public does.” Ever serene, she doesn’t deny the collateral damage that her career may have caused. She just doesn’t care.
Any resemblance to living persons is, of course, entirely coincidental. Nonetheless, the role of Fabienne is a comically good fit for Deneuve, since it allows her both to fulfill and, ever so lightly, to kid the dominant status that she enjoys in her native land, and in the saga of cinema. You don’t work, as she has done, for Truffaut, Buñuel, Jacques Demy, Leos Carax, and François Ozon—and, let us not forget, alongside Burt Reynolds in Robert Aldrich’s “Hustle” (1975)—without acquiring the crown and scepter, as it were, of a grande dame. Remember Arnaud Desplechin’s “Kings and Queen” (2004), in which Deneuve plays a psychiatrist. “Do you know you’re very beautiful?” a patient asks her. “Yes, I’ve been told, thank you,” she replies.
At the helm of “The Truth” is the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, and it marks his first foray into French terrain. The setting is a semi-pastoral patch of Paris, where Fabienne resides in a stately mansion; we see her stroll through its garden in silvery pajamas, rehearsing her lines. Also taking the air is a pet tortoise, who shares a name with Fabienne’s ex-husband. (So much for that marriage.) Maintaining the animal motif, she wears a leopard-print coat to walk her dog beside the walls of a nearby prison—a deliberate touch of incongruity, halfway to a dream. Sometimes it takes an outsider’s eye to spot such juxtapositions.
Fabienne is concluding an interview, at home, when guests arrive, fresh off the plane from New York. “It’s nothing. My daughter and her little family,” she explains. That “nothing” freezes the blood. Her daughter is Lumir (Juliette Binoche), a screenwriter, married to a not very successful American actor, Hank (Ethan Hawke), and they’ve come with their young daughter, Charlotte (Clémentine Grenier), who inquires of her grandmother, “Do you really have magical powers?” I wouldn’t bet against it. One reason for the visit is the imminent publication of Fabienne’s memoirs, which bear the very unwise title of “The Truth,” and which, as far as Lumir is concerned, are a pack of shiny lies. One example: her mother claims that she used to pick Lumir up from school. Yeah, right.
You can sense, soon enough, how “The Truth” is likely to proceed. Though trouble may be brewing between Fabienne and Lumir, on the other side of it lies calm. Mother-daughter movies constitute a mini-genre, headed by “Mildred Pierce” (1945), but the melodramatic drive of that film, skirting hysteria, is at a far remove from Kore-eda’s approach. Elliptical to a fault, he is concerned with fears and suspicions that are muted or sidelined, often over many years, rather than being poured forth. Think of the two sets of parents in “Like Father, Like Son” (2013), who discover that their respective sons were accidentally switched at birth. Nothing so drastic occurs in the latest film, yet old wounds wait to be reopened, as when Fabienne admits to Lumir that, contrary to earlier reports, she did once go to see her daughter act, onstage, in “The Wizard of Oz.” “You were lousy,” she adds. Every parent knows the value of a white lie, sweetly timed, but not Fabienne. She tells the truth as if unsheathing a knife.
Why, then, does this supple story begin to falter? Maybe because it comes across, by Kore-eda’s standard, as something of a package, with its arguments neatly folded and wrapped. Fabienne, for instance, just happens to be shooting a sci-fi movie, which is all about a mother who doesn’t age and a daughter who does—“You stay young and I keep getting older,” the daughter declares. The scene that follows is touchingly done, yet we know that its main purpose is to bolster the theme of generational anxiety. I can’t help wishing that Fabienne were starring in a glossy thriller, or a wisp of a comedy, that bore no relation whatever to problems at home.
Then, there is a weird request of Fabienne’s. She proposes that Lumir, being a writer, should help her by composing lines of dialogue, to be used in a speech of apology addressed to a disgruntled employee. Again, you can feel the film coiling in upon itself; it’s almost as if Kore-eda, whose films hitherto have been locked into Japanese mores and habitations, doesn’t yet trust himself to dramatize the broad expanses of French society, and therefore trains his gaze inward, upon the woes of this one family. Note also that it’s a standard-issue family, complete with parents and kids, whereas the adults in Kore-eda’s previous movie, the wonderful “Shoplifters” (2018), shivered with uncertainty; their dwelling place was little better than a shack, and a rescued runaway was treated like a daughter. No such worries for Fabienne and her clan. Charlotte is safe, legitimate, and adored, and the cushion of wealth could not be plumper.
Despite these shortfalls, there’s much to relish here. To play a guy like Hank, who must resign himself to being second or fourth fiddle, is a tricky task, but Hawke pulls it off in the quiet style that he has made his own, and there’s an easeful moment when Hank and the others (even Fabienne), emerging from a restaurant by night, slip into an impromptu dance as they mosey down the street. In the end, however, this is the Catherine Deneuve show, and I can already hear the meows of catty delight with which audiences will greet the scene where the topic of great actresses comes up. Many of them, it’s pointed out, have had double initials: Greta Garbo, Danielle Darrieux, Anouk Aimée. How about Brigitte Bardot? somebody asks, and Fabienne answers with a moue. Not just any moue, either, but a supermoue—a whole cultural attitude distilled into a single boffff. And yet Fabienne, though frosty, is not impermeable, and in the final minutes, with the seasons changing and the leaves falling, she lifts her immaculate face to the winter light. Something stirs within her, even now, beneath the ice.
When a movie called “The Booksellers” comes along, you can’t help pausing over the title. Might it be Mob slang? You can imagine a Martin Scorsese film in which “bookseller” means a guy in a dusty jacket, whose job is to pop other guys, smack in the flyleaf, leaving the cops badly foxed. As it is, “The Booksellers”—a new documentary, directed by D. W. Young—really is about people who sell books, though they are, in their way, as implacable as gangsters. Show them a copy of “Moby-Dick” in which Melville has doodled little cartoon whales, and they’ll cut your throat to get it.
There’s no narrative to the film. It’s more of a social event: a congregation of the faithful, whom we first encounter at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, in the Park Avenue Armory. The dealers’ mission, one declares, is to “inculcate neophytes into the wonder of the object of the book.” (Translation: get the suckers hooked.) We glimpse one volume containing mammoth hair; another covered in human skin, with teeth embedded in the cover; and a librarian doll, “with Amazing push-button Shushing Action!” We meet the collector Justin Schiller, who was still in seventh grade when he lent some of his L. Frank Baum material to Columbia University, and the three graceful sisters who rule over the Argosy Book Store, on Fifty-ninth Street, having jointly inherited the throne from their father, Louis Cohen. If King Lear had gone into the book trade, he could have saved himself a world of grief.
Young confines most of his movie to New York, opting to travel backward in time rather than far afield on the map. We hear of A. S. W. Rosenbach, for instance, the portly Pope of book dealers, who, despite downing a bottle of whiskey a day, maintained a sharp eye for incontestable treasures. Few businesses attract a more loyal gang of monomaniacs, bound and tooled in eccentricity; Fran Lebowitz, interviewed in the film, remembers crabby old dealers “who were very irritated if you wanted to buy a book.”
One should never try to tell a movie’s fortune, but I suspect that “The Booksellers” will end up preaching to the choir—to those of us who are pathologically incapable of passing a used bookstore without entering. We want to be greeted by a complete set of Walter Scott’s Waverley novels, so uncoveted that they might as well be glued to the shelf, and by the distinct air of cat that pervades even those premises where no cat has ever trod. Such holy shrines are now themselves a rarity, and Nancy Bass Wyden, co-owner of the Strand, has done the numbers. “In the nineteen-fifties, there were three hundred and sixty-eight bookstores in New York City,” she tells us. “Today, I went and counted—there are seventy-nine.” Do not be misled by the comic charm of this film. It’s a ghost story, brooded over by the rustling wraiths of bookstores dead and gone. ♦


newyorker--2020-03-13--The Aesthetic Splendor of “The Simpsons”

By general consensus , whether on Reddit or in more qualified critical assessments , the Golden Age of Fox ’ s “ The Simpsons ” began no later than its third season , and did not extend past its tenth—or even , in the view of some doctrinaires , eighth—season .
( Beyond the eighth , as New York magazine suggested , in 2006 , significant staffing changes and a general creative fatigue led to a slackening of the animated sitcom ’ s “ high-wire mix of hilarity and humanity ” ) .
Those classic mid-nineties years of “ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , still on air , and in its thirty-first season , served more than anything , for me , as a kind of ideological guide to life .
The show ’ s plots , which followed Homer , Marge , Bart , Lisa , and Maggie on a variety of more or less realistic capers in the American everytown of Springfield , were written with a sharp eye , but their takeaway was hardly ever unsympathetic .
“ The Simpsons ” had a million cracks and gags , not to mention exceedingly quick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American popular culture , but its tender tenor was just as important .
Ralph Wiggum might have been the densest kid in Springfield Elementary , but our hearts still hurt for him when he didn ’ t receive a single valentine on Valentine ’ s Day .
Watching the show , I aspired to be just half as hilarious and as cutting and as sensitive as it was .
As the years went by , I largely stopped watching “ The Simpsons , ” partly because its cultural acuity and centrality had passed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primers to point my way .
Whenever I happened upon a new episode , it was not unenjoyable , but it also made me feel a little sad , as if I was looking to the show to fulfill a purpose it was no longer able to .
Recently , however , this wistful feeling has lifted a bit , thanks to a new , pleasurable way I ’ ve found to reëngage with “ The Simpsons.
” A few months ago , I began to come across Instagram accounts that post single @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I followed @ scenic_simpsons , which , according to its bio line , is “ dedicated to showcasing the most beautiful scenes , colours , sets and abstract compositions from The Simpsons .
Seasons 1 - 10.
” Then it was @ psychedelic.simpsons ( “ A journey through the most trippy parts of The Simpsons ” —this one , too , concentrating on “ only the good seasons ” ) ; @ surrealsimspons ( “ Dreams , hallucinations , imaginations and the surreal in the Simpsons ” ) ; @ existential.simpsons , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the show ; and @ simpsonslibrary , which collects any “ Simpsons ” frame that includes printed and written matter ( “ Obsessive Bride ” ; “ Modern Fart Denier ” ; “ Zagat ’ s Guide to World Religions ” ) .
There seemed to be a “ Simpsons ” Instagram account for almost any niche predilection : @ homer_feels , which collects the many moods of the family patriarch ; @ sartorial_simspons , which focusses on Springfield fashions ; @ simpsons_tech , which gives the history of technical inventions that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FM radio and the karaoke machine ; and @ springfieldcuisine , which shares images of food that has featured on “ The Simpsons.
” As I ’ ve continued to peruse these accounts in the last few months , I ’ ve realized that their delights come in more than one flavor .
What strikes me most immediately and naturally , perhaps , is their easy ability to remind me of a good bit from a favorite episode .
In this sense , an Instagram frame can almost serve as a contracted version @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the @ springfieldcuisine account of a sickly , grayish-looking Homer , sadly clutching an even grayer hoagie over a trash can as Marge glares at him , immediately takes me back to “ Selma ’ s Choice , ” a classic episode from the show ’ s fourth season , in which Homer falls ill from food poisoning after holding onto an extra-long , increasingly rancid sandwich that he begins to personify after taking it home from a company picnic .
( The post ’ s caption is a signature Homer quote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stay mad at you ?
” ) Another enjoyable aspect of these “ Simpsons ” Instagram posts is their singling out of a potentially overlooked moment , in all its glorious detail .
One @ sartorial_simpsons image , taken from the ninth season ’ s “ The Trouble With Trillions , ” captures a relatively negligible sliver of a scene in which Smithers , the billionaire Mr. Burns ’ s craven right-hand man , is interrupted in his chambers while ironing socks in a fuchsia robe , his collection of Malibu Stacy dolls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fashionable outfits ( a bikini whose color matches that of the robe ; a mint-hued ball gown ; a coördinated shearling hat and coat ) .
Here , we can spend time with an image—tarry with it in a way that we might not have been able to otherwise .
What allows for such a level of attention is the highly particular quality of these accounts : their division according to subcategories , from clothes to food , books , and magazines .
If we ’ re interested in what Smithers wears , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to find a picture of that outfit .
But , more broadly still , there is something about observing a single image at a time , as opposed to watching a full episode , or bingeing on several , that makes for a new kind of perspective on the show .
This type of looking accords these images , plucked as they are from the context of their larger narratives , a pure aesthetic value .
When I happen upon almost any image from one of the “ Simpsons ” accounts , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is .
This is , perhaps , especially true when it comes to @ scenic_simpsons , with its visions of a violet car , its headlights on , cruising in a darkened parking lot full of silent vehicles ; or an abstract thicket of trees , their tops as dense and foreboding as storm clouds ; or a digital clock on a bedside table , its face glowing 7:59 , next to an orange phone .
Though they come to us via our hubbub-filled Instagram feeds , these stand-alone pictures are as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ greatest American artists of alienation and loneliness , from Edward Hopper to Arthur Dove .

By general consensus, whether on Reddit or in more qualified critical assessments, the Golden Age of Fox’s “The Simpsons” began no later than its third season, and did not extend past its tenth—or even, in the view of some doctrinaires, eighth—season. (Beyond the eighth, as New York magazine suggested, in 2006, significant staffing changes and a general creative fatigue led to a slackening of the animated sitcom’s “high-wire mix of hilarity and humanity”). Those classic mid-nineties years of “The Simpsons,” which is, unbelievably, still on air, and in its thirty-first season, served more than anything, for me, as a kind of ideological guide to life. The show’s plots, which followed Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie on a variety of more or less realistic capers in the American everytown of Springfield, were written with a sharp eye, but their takeaway was hardly ever unsympathetic. “The Simpsons” had a million cracks and gags, not to mention exceedingly quick and incisive—and sometimes even slightly mean—assessments of American popular culture, but its tender tenor was just as important. Ralph Wiggum might have been the densest kid in Springfield Elementary, but our hearts still hurt for him when he didn’t receive a single valentine on Valentine’s Day. Watching the show, I aspired to be just half as hilarious and as cutting and as sensitive as it was.
As the years went by, I largely stopped watching “The Simpsons,” partly because its cultural acuity and centrality had passed, and I began using other cultural primers to point my way. Whenever I happened upon a new episode, it was not unenjoyable, but it also made me feel a little sad, as if I was looking to the show to fulfill a purpose it was no longer able to. Recently, however, this wistful feeling has lifted a bit, thanks to a new, pleasurable way I’ve found to reëngage with “The Simpsons.” A few months ago, I began to come across Instagram accounts that post single frames from the show. First, I followed @scenic_simpsons, which, according to its bio line, is “dedicated to showcasing the most beautiful scenes, colours, sets and abstract compositions from The Simpsons. Seasons 1 - 10.” Then it was @psychedelic.simpsons (“A journey through the most trippy parts of The Simpsons”—this one, too, concentrating on “only the good seasons”); @surrealsimspons (“Dreams, hallucinations, imaginations and the surreal in the Simpsons”); @existential.simpsons, which includes a variety of anguished moments from the show; and @simpsonslibrary, which collects any “Simpsons” frame that includes printed and written matter (“Obsessive Bride”; “Modern Fart Denier”; “Zagat’s Guide to World Religions”). There seemed to be a “Simpsons” Instagram account for almost any niche predilection: @homer_feels, which collects the many moods of the family patriarch; @sartorial_simspons, which focusses on Springfield fashions; @simpsons_tech, which gives the history of technical inventions that have appeared on the show, like the FM radio and the karaoke machine; and @springfieldcuisine, which shares images of food that has featured on “The Simpsons.”
As I’ve continued to peruse these accounts in the last few months, I’ve realized that their delights come in more than one flavor. What strikes me most immediately and naturally, perhaps, is their easy ability to remind me of a good bit from a favorite episode. In this sense, an Instagram frame can almost serve as a contracted version of a full-scale rewatch: a capture on the @springfieldcuisine account of a sickly, grayish-looking Homer, sadly clutching an even grayer hoagie over a trash can as Marge glares at him, immediately takes me back to “Selma’s Choice,” a classic episode from the show’s fourth season, in which Homer falls ill from food poisoning after holding onto an extra-long, increasingly rancid sandwich that he begins to personify after taking it home from a company picnic. (The post’s caption is a signature Homer quote: “Oh, how can I stay mad at you?”) Another enjoyable aspect of these “Simpsons” Instagram posts is their singling out of a potentially overlooked moment, in all its glorious detail. One @sartorial_simpsons image, taken from the ninth season’s “The Trouble With Trillions,” captures a relatively negligible sliver of a scene in which Smithers, the billionaire Mr. Burns’s craven right-hand man, is interrupted in his chambers while ironing socks in a fuchsia robe, his collection of Malibu Stacy dolls arrayed behind him in a variety of fashionable outfits (a bikini whose color matches that of the robe; a mint-hued ball gown; a coördinated shearling hat and coat). Here, we can spend time with an image—tarry with it in a way that we might not have been able to otherwise.
What allows for such a level of attention is the highly particular quality of these accounts: their division according to subcategories, from clothes to food, books, and magazines. If we’re interested in what Smithers wears, we know where we are most likely to find a picture of that outfit. But, more broadly still, there is something about observing a single image at a time, as opposed to watching a full episode, or bingeing on several, that makes for a new kind of perspective on the show. This type of looking accords these images, plucked as they are from the context of their larger narratives, a pure aesthetic value. When I happen upon almost any image from one of the “Simpsons” accounts, I am struck by how absolutely visually gorgeous it is. This is, perhaps, especially true when it comes to @scenic_simpsons, with its visions of a violet car, its headlights on, cruising in a darkened parking lot full of silent vehicles; or an abstract thicket of trees, their tops as dense and foreboding as storm clouds; or a digital clock on a bedside table, its face glowing 7:59, next to an orange phone. Though they come to us via our hubbub-filled Instagram feeds, these stand-alone pictures are as quietly stunning as any made by our greatest American artists of alienation and loneliness, from Edward Hopper to Arthur Dove.


newyorker--2020-03-13--Most People Never Saw the Best of Bernie Sanders’s Campaign

Subscribers to The New Yorker ’ s new 2020 election newsletter , On the Trail , received this piece in their in-boxes .
Sign up to receive future installments .
During the first week of January , Bernie Sanders held a town hall in Grundy Center , Iowa , a dot on the map , eighty miles northeast of Des Moines .
Just twenty-seven hundred people live in Grundy Center , and maybe two hundred people had packed into the town ’ s community center .
Sanders is known for delivering fiery civic sermons in front of arena-size crowds , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sometimes noxious behavior of his most ardent online fans , but it was in these smaller rooms that his 2020 campaign was at its best .
The same electricity that shot through the big events was there , but the connection between candidate and citizen was direct and personal .
Halfway through his stump speech , right when he would get to the section on Medicare for All—his signature policy proposal—and the arguments about how it would be paid for , Sanders would stop and cede the floor to his audience .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay for Medicare for All ?
’ Fair enough .
Fair question , ” he said .
“ Somebody help me out here .
How much do you pay a month in premiums ?
Who wants to volunteer ?
” As if at some radical Quaker meeting , people stood up to speak when injustice moved them .
“ A mike is coming , ” Sanders told them , as campaign staff members trotted through the audience .
“ Just give us your name , and tell us your story.
” A woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a patent attorney .
They were paying nineteen hundred and eleven dollars a month in premiums for a family of four , for a plan with a five-thousand-dollar deductible .
“ This is crazy !
” Rachel shouted .
A man named Ryan stood up .
“ I just went to the emergency room this last Sunday , feeling like I was going to have a heart attack , ” he said .
He spoke of being afraid of getting too many tests done , of getting too much treatment , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t want to leave his wife responsible for his medical debts .
“ It ’ s humiliating , ” Ryan said .
“ I felt like I was a little kid , poor , and I had the different-colored lunch card.
” A woman stood up , without giving her name , and with a shaky voice she said that her husband ’ s union job provided them with a plan that costs a thousand dollars a month in premiums , with a seven-thousand-dollar deductible .
“ I ’ m not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We can ’ t do other things.
” Sanders listened , occasionally interjecting to do some arithmetic , translating monthly costs into yearly totals .
This was Sandersism with the ideology all stripped away , starting from a place of common human need .
“ More discussion on the cost of health care and how we are paying for it right now ?
” Sanders asked , calling for more stories .
“ We ’ re hearing we ’ re paying for it with people who have no health insurance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ paying for it with outrageous premiums , outrageous deductibles.
” One of the reasons that Sanders ’ s collapse—and Joe Biden ’ s corresponding surge—has come as such a surprise to the political world ( and the journalists who cover it ) is that , whether you supported him or not , the Vermont senator ’ s events , up close , were compelling .
Sanders was offering regular people a platform to describe what was happening around them .
“ His suggestion , by asking you to speak up about your private @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that you .
.
.
will begin to see your struggles not as personal failings , but systemic ones , ” BuzzFeed ’ s Ruby Cramer wrote , in December .
Sanders held these events throughout the fall and winter , campaigning in Iowa and elsewhere .
It wasn ’ t just college kids venting .
Older people were standing up to tell their stories .
Immigrants were standing up .
Members of minority groups .
This was not the vibe at Biden ’ s events , where the candidate tended to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the audience , even if they were loyal to him , go slack .
Yet it wasn ’ t enough .
In the states where Sanders campaigned the most—Iowa , New Hampshire , Nevada—he triumphed .
But his movement proved not as big as he and his supporters believed it to be : he never made inroads with older black voters—older voters generally seemed completely turned off by his pitch .
One of the supposed lessons of 2016 was that Hillary Clinton lost states in the Midwest where she underinvested resources and campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Biden won states he never even campaigned in .
And , this week , Sanders , after putting years of organizing work into Michigan , the site of his most significant victory in 2016 , watched Biden take every county in the state .
Even in a political atmosphere as intense as this , the reality is that most voters have not attended a campaign rally .
The further Democrats were from the Sanders campaign , it seemed , the easier it was to reject it .
Sanders and his supporters will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the extent of the problems he has identified , or for being downright hostile to the solutions he has proposed .
And yet polls have found that Sanders , despite being filtered through the media , is considered one of the most honest politicians in the country .
Something about what was happening in those town-hall rooms simply never translated to a national audience .
On Wednesday , Sanders gave a press conference in Vermont and declared his intention to stay in the race , despite delegate math that makes his nomination look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I very much look forward to the debate in Arizona , with my friend Joe Biden , ” he said .
But the confidence that he displayed in February is gone .
An outbreak of the coronavirus is starting to paralyze life in the United States , and both Sanders and Biden have begun cancelling campaign events , complying with expert advice to avoid large gatherings of people .
( The location of Sunday ’ s debate between the two has been moved from Arizona to Washington , D.C. , for the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means giving up the best of his campaign .
He ’ s not ready to give up the rest , yet .

Subscribers to The New Yorker’s new 2020 election newsletter, On the Trail, received this piece in their in-boxes. Sign up to receive future installments.
During the first week of January, Bernie Sanders held a town hall in Grundy Center, Iowa, a dot on the map, eighty miles northeast of Des Moines. Just twenty-seven hundred people live in Grundy Center, and maybe two hundred people had packed into the town’s community center. Sanders is known for delivering fiery civic sermons in front of arena-size crowds, and his critics like to obsess over the sometimes noxious behavior of his most ardent online fans, but it was in these smaller rooms that his 2020 campaign was at its best. The same electricity that shot through the big events was there, but the connection between candidate and citizen was direct and personal. Halfway through his stump speech, right when he would get to the section on Medicare for All—his signature policy proposal—and the arguments about how it would be paid for, Sanders would stop and cede the floor to his audience. “ ‘How are you going to pay for Medicare for All?’ Fair enough. Fair question,” he said. “Somebody help me out here. How much do you pay a month in premiums? Who wants to volunteer?”
As if at some radical Quaker meeting, people stood up to speak when injustice moved them. “A mike is coming,” Sanders told them, as campaign staff members trotted through the audience. “Just give us your name, and tell us your story.” A woman named Rachel stood up. Her husband was a patent attorney. They were paying nineteen hundred and eleven dollars a month in premiums for a family of four, for a plan with a five-thousand-dollar deductible. “This is crazy!” Rachel shouted. A man named Ryan stood up. “I just went to the emergency room this last Sunday, feeling like I was going to have a heart attack,” he said. He spoke of being afraid of getting too many tests done, of getting too much treatment, because he couldn’t afford it and didn’t want to leave his wife responsible for his medical debts. “It’s humiliating,” Ryan said. “I felt like I was a little kid, poor, and I had the different-colored lunch card.” A woman stood up, without giving her name, and with a shaky voice she said that her husband’s union job provided them with a plan that costs a thousand dollars a month in premiums, with a seven-thousand-dollar deductible. “I’m not healthy,” she said, softly. “We can’t do other things.”
Sanders listened, occasionally interjecting to do some arithmetic, translating monthly costs into yearly totals. This was Sandersism with the ideology all stripped away, starting from a place of common human need. “More discussion on the cost of health care and how we are paying for it right now?” Sanders asked, calling for more stories. “We’re hearing we’re paying for it with people who have no health insurance. We’re hearing we’re paying for it with outrageous premiums, outrageous deductibles.”
One of the reasons that Sanders’s collapse—and Joe Biden’s corresponding surge—has come as such a surprise to the political world (and the journalists who cover it) is that, whether you supported him or not, the Vermont senator’s events, up close, were compelling. Sanders was offering regular people a platform to describe what was happening around them. “His suggestion, by asking you to speak up about your private anxieties, many of them financial, is that you . . . will begin to see your struggles not as personal failings, but systemic ones,” BuzzFeed’s Ruby Cramer wrote, in December. Sanders held these events throughout the fall and winter, campaigning in Iowa and elsewhere. It wasn’t just college kids venting. Older people were standing up to tell their stories. Immigrants were standing up. Members of minority groups. This was not the vibe at Biden’s events, where the candidate tended to ramble, and where you could feel the audience, even if they were loyal to him, go slack.
Yet it wasn’t enough. In the states where Sanders campaigned the most—Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada—he triumphed. But his movement proved not as big as he and his supporters believed it to be: he never made inroads with older black voters—older voters generally seemed completely turned off by his pitch. One of the supposed lessons of 2016 was that Hillary Clinton lost states in the Midwest where she underinvested resources and campaign time. But, on Super Tuesday, Biden won states he never even campaigned in. And, this week, Sanders, after putting years of organizing work into Michigan, the site of his most significant victory in 2016, watched Biden take every county in the state.
Even in a political atmosphere as intense as this, the reality is that most voters have not attended a campaign rally. The further Democrats were from the Sanders campaign, it seemed, the easier it was to reject it. Sanders and his supporters will point to the media, for questioning the extent of the problems he has identified, or for being downright hostile to the solutions he has proposed. And yet polls have found that Sanders, despite being filtered through the media, is considered one of the most honest politicians in the country. Something about what was happening in those town-hall rooms simply never translated to a national audience.
On Wednesday, Sanders gave a press conference in Vermont and declared his intention to stay in the race, despite delegate math that makes his nomination look extremely unlikely. “On Sunday, I very much look forward to the debate in Arizona, with my friend Joe Biden,” he said. But the confidence that he displayed in February is gone. An outbreak of the coronavirus is starting to paralyze life in the United States, and both Sanders and Biden have begun cancelling campaign events, complying with expert advice to avoid large gatherings of people. (The location of Sunday’s debate between the two has been moved from Arizona to Washington, D.C., for the same reason.) For Sanders, this means giving up the best of his campaign. He’s not ready to give up the rest, yet.


newyorker--2020-03-13--The Podcasts to Listen to While You’re Social Distancing

As we steel ourselves for the next novel-coronavirus developments—many of us from inside our homes—getting clear , reliable information becomes ever more essential .
Not surprisingly , one source is podcasts : as of this week , COVID-19 episodes and stand-alone podcasts abound .
“ Today , Explained ” has a fascinating interview with Carl Goldman , who contracted the virus aboard the Diamond Princess and talked to the show ’ s host , Sean Rameswaram , from his quarantine bed ; “ The Daily ” delves into the complexities of the testing situation in the U.S. , with predictably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are hit or miss .
Among them , there ’ s the exceptionally so-so “ Coronavirus : Fact vs. Fiction , ” a daily offering from CNN , featuring its chief medical correspondent , Sanjay Gupta , who calmly walks listeners through topics like the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic , whether the elderly should be scared ( somewhat ) , whether a “ virus hunter ” interviewee has seen the film “ Contagion , ” in which Gupta has a cameo , and whether an unnamed airplane pilot thinks listeners @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Not unless you have better plans , ” he chuckles .
Shouldn ’ t Gupta , a doctor , be doing the advising here ? )
My favorite coronavirus podcast is the efficient , antiseptic , unpodcastlike , and somewhat mysterious “ Coronavirus 411.
” It ’ s a quick , facts-only daily update , with no obvious affiliation , delivered by an unidentified female voice : pure news , culled from the C.D.C.
, the W.H.O.
, and other sources , piped into your ears .
It offers a roundup of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Italy has put the entire country on lockdown through April 3rd ” ; “ St .
Patrick ’ s Day celebrations have been cancelled in Dublin and Boston ” ) and a reading of case numbers in each country and , now , state .
It ’ s extremely sobering to listen to a few days ’ episodes in succession—the numbers rise quickly .
The show ’ s narrator is human , but she could pass for a bot , and that ’ s just fine with me : as we practice our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as good a place as any to seek refuge .
The famous qualities that tend to distinguish podcasts—intimacy , folksiness , a hangout vibe—happen to be what I don ’ t want during a pandemic , and “ Coronavirus 411 ” lacks them all .
“ Coronavirus 411 ” was created by William Corbin , who works at a branded-podcast company called Sound That Brands , which produces the show .
He got the idea in January , after becoming frustrated at his Amazon Echo .
“ I asked Alexa for information about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wikipedia entry , ” he told me , incredulous .
He tried building an Alexa coronavirus skill , then realized that making a short podcast would be easier .
He wanted its content to be authoritative : C.D.C.
, W.H.O.
, verified news .
“ One doctor ’ s opinion is not of interest to me ; a thousand doctors ’ opinions are of interest to me , ” Corbin said .
He joined forces with a newscaster to read the results—just the facts .
“ If you ever want to get news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he said .
“ What people want in news is news.
” A similarly homespun , and promising , new show , “ Coronavirus Daily Briefing , ” from Ride Home Media , seems to share that ethos .
In it , a serious , somewhat stressed-out-sounding man named Brian McCullough reads news , shares horrifying field reports from Italy , and explains why regular old soap is effective and should be used on our hands , posthaste .
It stays on the right side of informed , nonhysterical , and focussed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cower on my couch .
On a lighter note : politics .
For perspective , especially welcome after the recent bloodbath known as Super Tuesday , I ’ ve been appreciating two pods in particular .
The first is “ Fiasco , ” Leon Neyfakh ’ s forensic political-scandal series , now in its second season—or the fourth , if you count his work on “ Slow Burn.
” Those seasons explored Watergate , the Clinton impeachment , and Bush v. Gore ; this one is about Iran-Contra .
I ’ ve long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus on the scheme , in which Reagan Administration officials secretly sold arms to Iran , behind Congress ’ s back , during an arms embargo , in an effort to procure the release of American hostages—and to use the proceeds to support the Contras , in Nicaragua .
It ’ s a complex story , ripe for juicy reëxamination—and its antihero , Oliver North , recently served as president of the N.R.A .
( His term was brief , after infighting , which reminds me : I ’ d definitely listen to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) “ Fiasco : Iran-Contra ” is , basically , what I ’ d hoped for : confounding , Cold War-atmospheric , and quietly enraging .
Neyfakh is as wonkishly companionable as ever , and , as usual , he begins the series by sitting us down and telling us a story of a regular person embroiled in a historical moment .
In this case , it ’ s Kevin Kattke , a Macy ’ s maintenance engineer from Long Island who moonlights as a volunteer for various covert government operations .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Listening to a podcast about the Iran-Contra scandal in 2020 doesn ’ t provide the frisson of excitement that listening to a podcast about Watergate did in 2017 , when the Trump Administration was new , our stress was primal , and the show ’ s dominating conceit—Watergate took longer to reach a breaking point than we might have realized—seemed to portend a comforting , if distant , de-Trumpification .
But the new season is a refreshing corrective to some cultural nostalgia that ’ s emerged for flawed leaders who , compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Listening to Reagan address the public on “ Fiasco ” is an essential reminder of life under a subtler kind of malign President : one who sounds rational and warm and reassuring .
Reagan , intriguingly , makes some equally maddening cameos in the excellent “ LBJ and the Great Society , ” from PRX , hosted by Melody Barnes , President Obama ’ s chief domestic-policy adviser .
It ’ s a successor to “ LBJ ’ s War , ” from 2017 , hosted by David Brown .
Both series feature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calls , Lady Bird Johnson ’ s audio diaries , and other archival tape that lets us eavesdrop on how Johnson managed to create the most ambitious social safety net of our time .
It ’ s spellbinding to listen to him in action : buttonholing friends and foes , cajoling for the greater good .
Weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , Johnson bullies Kennedy ’ s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver into , on top of directing the Peace Corps , spearheading Johnson ’ s proposed War on Poverty .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ ve got the authority , you ’ ve got the power , you ’ ve got the money , ” Johnson says .
“ Now , you may not have the glands.
” You can practically hear Shriver ’ s double take .
“ The glands ?
” he says .
Then : “ I ’ ve got plenty of glands.
” The rest is history .
In another episode , “ Medicine Man , ” Reagan , in 1961 , says , about the idea of Medicare , “ One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a people has been by way of medicine.
” Reagan 's approach to medicine , as history would show , was n't adequate for a pandemic .
And , finally : fun .
I highly recommend “ The Case of the Missing Hit , ” the latest episode of “ Reply All , ” which you may have read about on social media , for good reason : it combines the old-fashioned pleasures of solving a mystery with themes of the Internet ’ s relationship to memory—something I think about a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s about a listener who discovers that a hit he remembers from nineties FM radio is un-Google-able ; after hours of searching , he finds no evidence of it , despite its highly specific lyrics ( rhyming “ Holyfield ringside ” with “ sultan for a bride , ” for example ) .
Did it even exist ?
“ I was getting increasingly frustrated , but also kind of scared , ” he tells our heroes , P. J. Vogt and Alex Goldman .
“ It felt almost like he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hole in the world—like , a glitch , ” Vogt says .
Ultimately , they get to the bottom of things , doggedly and entertainingly .
I haven ’ t enjoyed a podcast episode this much in a long time—by the end , I even felt some affection for Barenaked Ladies ’ “ One Week , ” a song I ’ ve long despised .
May you enjoy it , too .
Meanwhile : stay healthy , my friends , and flatten the curve .

As we steel ourselves for the next novel-coronavirus developments—many of us from inside our homes—getting clear, reliable information becomes ever more essential. Not surprisingly, one source is podcasts: as of this week, COVID-19 episodes and stand-alone podcasts abound. “Today, Explained” has a fascinating interview with Carl Goldman, who contracted the virus aboard the Diamond Princess and talked to the show’s host, Sean Rameswaram, from his quarantine bed; “The Daily” delves into the complexities of the testing situation in the U.S., with predictably worrisome results. The stand-alone coronavirus pods are hit or miss. Among them, there’s the exceptionally so-so “Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction,” a daily offering from CNN, featuring its chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, who calmly walks listeners through topics like the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic, whether the elderly should be scared (somewhat), whether a “virus hunter” interviewee has seen the film “Contagion,” in which Gupta has a cameo, and whether an unnamed airplane pilot thinks listeners should cancel domestic vacation plans. (“Not unless you have better plans,” he chuckles. Shouldn’t Gupta, a doctor, be doing the advising here?)
My favorite coronavirus podcast is the efficient, antiseptic, unpodcastlike, and somewhat mysterious “Coronavirus 411.” It’s a quick, facts-only daily update, with no obvious affiliation, delivered by an unidentified female voice: pure news, culled from the C.D.C., the W.H.O., and other sources, piped into your ears. It offers a roundup of worldwide and national news updates (“Italy has put the entire country on lockdown through April 3rd”; “St. Patrick’s Day celebrations have been cancelled in Dublin and Boston”) and a reading of case numbers in each country and, now, state. It’s extremely sobering to listen to a few days’ episodes in succession—the numbers rise quickly. The show’s narrator is human, but she could pass for a bot, and that’s just fine with me: as we practice our social distancing, the uncanny valley seems as good a place as any to seek refuge. The famous qualities that tend to distinguish podcasts—intimacy, folksiness, a hangout vibe—happen to be what I don’t want during a pandemic, and “Coronavirus 411” lacks them all.
“Coronavirus 411” was created by William Corbin, who works at a branded-podcast company called Sound That Brands, which produces the show. He got the idea in January, after becoming frustrated at his Amazon Echo. “I asked Alexa for information about the coronavirus, and she read the Wikipedia entry,” he told me, incredulous. He tried building an Alexa coronavirus skill, then realized that making a short podcast would be easier. He wanted its content to be authoritative: C.D.C., W.H.O., verified news. “One doctor’s opinion is not of interest to me; a thousand doctors’ opinions are of interest to me,” Corbin said. He joined forces with a newscaster to read the results—just the facts. “If you ever want to get news out, go to a marketer,” he said. “What people want in news is news.” A similarly homespun, and promising, new show, “Coronavirus Daily Briefing,” from Ride Home Media, seems to share that ethos. In it, a serious, somewhat stressed-out-sounding man named Brian McCullough reads news, shares horrifying field reports from Italy, and explains why regular old soap is effective and should be used on our hands, posthaste. It stays on the right side of informed, nonhysterical, and focussed, and I appreciate that as I cower on my couch.
On a lighter note: politics. For perspective, especially welcome after the recent bloodbath known as Super Tuesday, I’ve been appreciating two pods in particular. The first is “Fiasco,” Leon Neyfakh’s forensic political-scandal series, now in its second season—or the fourth, if you count his work on “Slow Burn.” Those seasons explored Watergate, the Clinton impeachment, and Bush v. Gore; this one is about Iran-Contra. I’ve long been hoping that Neyfakh would turn his focus on the scheme, in which Reagan Administration officials secretly sold arms to Iran, behind Congress’s back, during an arms embargo, in an effort to procure the release of American hostages—and to use the proceeds to support the Contras, in Nicaragua. It’s a complex story, ripe for juicy reëxamination—and its antihero, Oliver North, recently served as president of the N.R.A. (His term was brief, after infighting, which reminds me: I’d definitely listen to an investigative podcast about the N.R.A.)
“Fiasco: Iran-Contra” is, basically, what I’d hoped for: confounding, Cold War-atmospheric, and quietly enraging. Neyfakh is as wonkishly companionable as ever, and, as usual, he begins the series by sitting us down and telling us a story of a regular person embroiled in a historical moment. In this case, it’s Kevin Kattke, a Macy’s maintenance engineer from Long Island who moonlights as a volunteer for various covert government operations. (Yes, you read that right.) Listening to a podcast about the Iran-Contra scandal in 2020 doesn’t provide the frisson of excitement that listening to a podcast about Watergate did in 2017, when the Trump Administration was new, our stress was primal, and the show’s dominating conceit—Watergate took longer to reach a breaking point than we might have realized—seemed to portend a comforting, if distant, de-Trumpification. But the new season is a refreshing corrective to some cultural nostalgia that’s emerged for flawed leaders who, compared with Trump, seem pretty good. Listening to Reagan address the public on “Fiasco” is an essential reminder of life under a subtler kind of malign President: one who sounds rational and warm and reassuring.
Reagan, intriguingly, makes some equally maddening cameos in the excellent “LBJ and the Great Society,” from PRX, hosted by Melody Barnes, President Obama’s chief domestic-policy adviser. It’s a successor to “LBJ’s War,” from 2017, hosted by David Brown. Both series feature recordings of Lyndon Johnson’s phone calls, Lady Bird Johnson’s audio diaries, and other archival tape that lets us eavesdrop on how Johnson managed to create the most ambitious social safety net of our time. It’s spellbinding to listen to him in action: buttonholing friends and foes, cajoling for the greater good. Weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Johnson bullies Kennedy’s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver into, on top of directing the Peace Corps, spearheading Johnson’s proposed War on Poverty. “You’ve got the responsibility, you’ve got the authority, you’ve got the power, you’ve got the money,” Johnson says. “Now, you may not have the glands.” You can practically hear Shriver’s double take. “The glands?” he says. Then: “I’ve got plenty of glands.” The rest is history. In another episode, “Medicine Man,” Reagan, in 1961, says, about the idea of Medicare, “One of the traditional methods of imposing socialism on a people has been by way of medicine.” Reagan’s approach to medicine, as history would show, wasn't adequate for a pandemic.
And, finally: fun. I highly recommend “The Case of the Missing Hit,” the latest episode of “Reply All,” which you may have read about on social media, for good reason: it combines the old-fashioned pleasures of solving a mystery with themes of the Internet’s relationship to memory—something I think about a lot as the two become ever more entwined. It’s about a listener who discovers that a hit he remembers from nineties FM radio is un-Google-able; after hours of searching, he finds no evidence of it, despite its highly specific lyrics (rhyming “Holyfield ringside” with “sultan for a bride,” for example). Did it even exist? “I was getting increasingly frustrated, but also kind of scared,” he tells our heroes, P. J. Vogt and Alex Goldman. “It felt almost like he’d found, like, a hole in the world—like, a glitch,” Vogt says. Ultimately, they get to the bottom of things, doggedly and entertainingly. I haven’t enjoyed a podcast episode this much in a long time—by the end, I even felt some affection for Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week,” a song I’ve long despised. May you enjoy it, too. Meanwhile: stay healthy, my friends, and flatten the curve.


newyorker--2020-03-12--“Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” Reviewed: Eliza Hittman’s Ingenious Portrait of the Bureaucracy of

“Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” Reviewed: Eliza Hittman’s Ingenious Portrait of the Bureaucracy of Abortion

With her third feature , “ Never Rarely Sometimes Always , ” the writer and director Eliza Hittman accomplishes something extraordinary : she expands her method and her style into a vision of the world .
Her first feature , “ It Felt Like Love , ” from 2013 , centered on a teen-age girl in a Brooklyn community that Hittman knows well , and extended the tendrils of the protagonist ’ s dramatic experience into the broader life of the neighborhood .
In her second feature , “ Beach Rats ” ( 2017 ) , she did something similar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scraping the surface of social connections to reveal the passions and prejudices underlying it .
Now , in her new feature , “ Never Rarely Sometimes Always ” —a stark and harrowing story of a teen-ager ’ s quest to get an abortion—Hittman creates an intimate drama that ’ s also a story of the social fabric and , in particular , its bureaucratic abstractions and administrative minefields .
Autumn Callahan ( Sidney Flanigan ) is a tough-minded , free-spirited , creatively independent seventeen-year-old high-school student in a family scraping by in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talented singer with a closed-in manner and a tersely melancholy vulnerability , she ’ s both awe-inspiring and persecuted—especially , it seems , by boys , who can only take her idiosyncrasy as sexual defiance .
( She responds to their crude insults with the contempt they deserve . )
Suspecting that she ’ s pregnant—and Hittman , in a mark of sharp dramatic insight , depicts neither a sexual act nor gives the putative father , whoever he may be , even a blink of screen time—Autumn visits a local women ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cog in the anti-abortion machine .
But Autumn is firm in her resolve to end the pregnancy , and , learning that , in Pennsylvania , she can ’ t get an abortion at her age without parental consent , she travels to New York for the procedure , accompanied by her cousin , Skylar ( Talia Ryder ) , who ’ s about the same age .
From the moment that Autumn learns that she ’ s pregnant , she also learns , suddenly , as if from a cosmic slap @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no longer her own .
And , as the action progresses , she discovers that it never really was her own , not , at least , in the eyes and in the clutches of the society in which she lives .
Each difficult , precarious , and danger-filled step of the way toward realizing her plan also strips away another illusion , another veil of deceit on which her life and even her identity unwittingly depended .
The subject of the movie is Autumn ’ s transformation as the underpinnings of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rapid and desperate construction of a new one in its place .
The opening sequence , of a high-school talent show where kids are performing a nineteen-fifties-style retro musical number , suggests the fatal anachronism of current-day policy and attitudes regarding abortion—and , for that matter , on the reactionary politics and mores of gender that prevail , publicly and privately .
The sequence that follows , in a diner , after the show—of Autumn facing a sexual insult from a male classmate—turns out to be more than the mere passing anecdote that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s the underlying mentality that turns out to underpin the entire patriarchal system that , when pregnant , she ’ s forced to negotiate .
Tiny details , sharply perceived—by Hittman and by Autumn alike—reveal the tight grasp of power , both political and cultural , on a young woman ’ s mind and body .
In her local clinic , she ’ s given a “ self-administered ” pregnancy test and realizes that it means she ’ s being handed the same kind of test stick that she could buy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Essentially , this instantly turns official and authorized an object and an act that had , until that moment , belonged , seemingly , strictly to her private life .
( The very futility of the concept of the strictly private is also quickly proved to her by the agonizing uselessness of her efforts at a self-administered abortion . )
“ Never Rarely Sometimes Always ” is more than a drama of observation—paying fanatically urgent attention to the particulars of Autumn ’ s daily life—it ’ s a drama of radical subjectivity .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ which the protagonist quickly finds her inner life extruded , pressed into tight and inseparable connection with the complex ways of the world .
Hittman realizes this psychological transformation with a repertory of images that seem to coalesce with the external details on view , that fuse Autumn ’ s hyper-alert vulnerability with the fine grain and the crude force of her surroundings .
The wide-eyed and tensely poised cinematography , by Hélène Louvart , also fuses with the extraordinary performance and presence of Flanigan , who , as Autumn , is ardently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in motion and consciousness in physicality .
Without money , Autumn can ’ t go to New York for an abortion , and much of the movie is centered on the practical steps she takes to deal with her pressing economic need .
Without spoiling anything , let ’ s say that she and Skylar can only go through the trip by way of actions that could land them into serious trouble .
Much of the movie is taken up with the varied specifics of the abortion—logistical , economic , political , medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ centered on two New York City facilities , where the extra-medical aspects of the procedure become evident immediately , in the stringent security measures that are required at the clinic doors .
( A Planned Parenthood office is depicted as being in a state of siege as a result of anti-abortion protesters who harass women entering the building . )
Even under the most sympathetic of circumstances , the clinics ’ rules and appointments and hours of business present ordinary obstacles that are magnified in a city where Autumn and Skylar know nobody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other accommodations .
Hittman has a keenly incisive view of the overarching and relentless pressure of money matters .
When a sympathetic financial counselor informs Autumn of the procedure ’ s cost ( and Autumn hands over cash ) , suddenly the entire city seems to clamor not merely with confusion , potential danger , or potential predators but with dollar signs shouting the insurmountable prices of a subway ride , of the simplest meal , of a night of sleep .
These troubles ramify , with a brilliant dramatic turn , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who earlier targeted the girls with urgent and unwanted flirtation , turns up again , in the film 's third act .
His goofy yet determined presence offers Autumn and Skylar an anguished apprenticeship in the wider world ’ s nexus of wealth , power , and desire—male desire , male wealth , and male power .
“ Never Rarely Sometimes Always ” presents a strange intersection with the best and most original element of Noah Baumbach ’ s “ Marriage Story ” —the potential of an official procedural interrogation to yield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of self-awareness .
The title of Hittman ’ s film comes from the multiple-choice options that Autumn is offered when a psychological counselor questions her at the Margaret Sanger Center , in downtown Manhattan .
As the counselor , named Kelly ( played by an actual counselor ) , gently , plainly , insistently questions Autumn about her intimate relationships , Autumn—held in long , empathetic , frank , unflinching closeups—is gently pushed to look at the course of her life and the nature of her relationships with men .
In the course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s life seems to dawn upon her , in the form of a story that she ’ s telling herself for the first time , as she is brought to reveal to herself her place in the world , as a woman .
It ’ s the kind of exalted cinematic simplicity that can only arise from a comprehensive vision of life and art alike .

With her third feature, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” the writer and director Eliza Hittman accomplishes something extraordinary: she expands her method and her style into a vision of the world. Her first feature, “It Felt Like Love,” from 2013, centered on a teen-age girl in a Brooklyn community that Hittman knows well, and extended the tendrils of the protagonist’s dramatic experience into the broader life of the neighborhood. In her second feature, “Beach Rats” (2017), she did something similar and carried it further, scratching and scraping the surface of social connections to reveal the passions and prejudices underlying it. Now, in her new feature, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”—a stark and harrowing story of a teen-ager’s quest to get an abortion—Hittman creates an intimate drama that’s also a story of the social fabric and, in particular, its bureaucratic abstractions and administrative minefields.
Autumn Callahan (Sidney Flanigan) is a tough-minded, free-spirited, creatively independent seventeen-year-old high-school student in a family scraping by in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. A talented singer with a closed-in manner and a tersely melancholy vulnerability, she’s both awe-inspiring and persecuted—especially, it seems, by boys, who can only take her idiosyncrasy as sexual defiance. (She responds to their crude insults with the contempt they deserve.) Suspecting that she’s pregnant—and Hittman, in a mark of sharp dramatic insight, depicts neither a sexual act nor gives the putative father, whoever he may be, even a blink of screen time—Autumn visits a local women’s clinic that turns out to be a cog in the anti-abortion machine. But Autumn is firm in her resolve to end the pregnancy, and, learning that, in Pennsylvania, she can’t get an abortion at her age without parental consent, she travels to New York for the procedure, accompanied by her cousin, Skylar (Talia Ryder), who’s about the same age.
From the moment that Autumn learns that she’s pregnant, she also learns, suddenly, as if from a cosmic slap in the face, that her body is no longer her own. And, as the action progresses, she discovers that it never really was her own, not, at least, in the eyes and in the clutches of the society in which she lives. Each difficult, precarious, and danger-filled step of the way toward realizing her plan also strips away another illusion, another veil of deceit on which her life and even her identity unwittingly depended. The subject of the movie is Autumn’s transformation as the underpinnings of her life are wrenched away, her rapid and desperate construction of a new one in its place.
The opening sequence, of a high-school talent show where kids are performing a nineteen-fifties-style retro musical number, suggests the fatal anachronism of current-day policy and attitudes regarding abortion—and, for that matter, on the reactionary politics and mores of gender that prevail, publicly and privately. The sequence that follows, in a diner, after the show—of Autumn facing a sexual insult from a male classmate—turns out to be more than the mere passing anecdote that it appears to be; rather, it’s the underlying mentality that turns out to underpin the entire patriarchal system that, when pregnant, she’s forced to negotiate. Tiny details, sharply perceived—by Hittman and by Autumn alike—reveal the tight grasp of power, both political and cultural, on a young woman’s mind and body. In her local clinic, she’s given a “self-administered” pregnancy test and realizes that it means she’s being handed the same kind of test stick that she could buy on her own at a pharmacy. Essentially, this instantly turns official and authorized an object and an act that had, until that moment, belonged, seemingly, strictly to her private life. (The very futility of the concept of the strictly private is also quickly proved to her by the agonizing uselessness of her efforts at a self-administered abortion.)
“Never Rarely Sometimes Always” is more than a drama of observation—paying fanatically urgent attention to the particulars of Autumn’s daily life—it’s a drama of radical subjectivity. It is an inside-out movie, in which the protagonist quickly finds her inner life extruded, pressed into tight and inseparable connection with the complex ways of the world. Hittman realizes this psychological transformation with a repertory of images that seem to coalesce with the external details on view, that fuse Autumn’s hyper-alert vulnerability with the fine grain and the crude force of her surroundings. The wide-eyed and tensely poised cinematography, by Hélène Louvart, also fuses with the extraordinary performance and presence of Flanigan, who, as Autumn, is ardently alert yet keenly reserved, conveying thought in motion and consciousness in physicality.
Without money, Autumn can’t go to New York for an abortion, and much of the movie is centered on the practical steps she takes to deal with her pressing economic need. Without spoiling anything, let’s say that she and Skylar can only go through the trip by way of actions that could land them into serious trouble. Much of the movie is taken up with the varied specifics of the abortion—logistical, economic, political, medical, and emotional. It’s centered on two New York City facilities, where the extra-medical aspects of the procedure become evident immediately, in the stringent security measures that are required at the clinic doors. (A Planned Parenthood office is depicted as being in a state of siege as a result of anti-abortion protesters who harass women entering the building.) Even under the most sympathetic of circumstances, the clinics’ rules and appointments and hours of business present ordinary obstacles that are magnified in a city where Autumn and Skylar know nobody and can’t afford hotels or other accommodations.
Hittman has a keenly incisive view of the overarching and relentless pressure of money matters. When a sympathetic financial counselor informs Autumn of the procedure’s cost (and Autumn hands over cash), suddenly the entire city seems to clamor not merely with confusion, potential danger, or potential predators but with dollar signs shouting the insurmountable prices of a subway ride, of the simplest meal, of a night of sleep. These troubles ramify, with a brilliant dramatic turn, when a Philadelphia hipster (Théodore Pellerin), who earlier targeted the girls with urgent and unwanted flirtation, turns up again, in the film's third act. His goofy yet determined presence offers Autumn and Skylar an anguished apprenticeship in the wider world’s nexus of wealth, power, and desire—male desire, male wealth, and male power.
“Never Rarely Sometimes Always” presents a strange intersection with the best and most original element of Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story”—the potential of an official procedural interrogation to yield truths, self-revelations, and new vistas of self-awareness. The title of Hittman’s film comes from the multiple-choice options that Autumn is offered when a psychological counselor questions her at the Margaret Sanger Center, in downtown Manhattan. As the counselor, named Kelly (played by an actual counselor), gently, plainly, insistently questions Autumn about her intimate relationships, Autumn—held in long, empathetic, frank, unflinching closeups—is gently pushed to look at the course of her life and the nature of her relationships with men. In the course of a single shot, Autumn’s life seems to dawn upon her, in the form of a story that she’s telling herself for the first time, as she is brought to reveal to herself her place in the world, as a woman. It’s the kind of exalted cinematic simplicity that can only arise from a comprehensive vision of life and art alike.