I just returned from a screening of Jem Cohen’s 2004 film Chain at the Museum of Modern Art. Brooklyn-based Cohen braved the long trip across the river and was on hand to present the film. He offered a modest introduction, warning that his piece was somewhat difficult and encouraging the audience to “be strong.” He promised it would all be worthwhile in the end.
Cohen’s piece opened with a long succession of shots depicting the homogenous wasteland that is the new American landscape. Set to a somewhat unsettling score by indie darlings Godspeed You Black Emperor, Cohen starkly contrasted images of gleaming facade with bleak shots of the filth and destruction which consumer capitalism inherently leaves in its wake. Dead birds, seductive corporate logos, piles of trash, shining skyscrapers, bland faces, urban sprawl. Seemingly unconnected images formed a cohesive and frightening portrait in Cohen’s deft hand.
His “semi-documentary” follows the strange path of an eager young Japanese woman on an international business trip. She works for a noticeably absent corporate entity she refers to only as “The Company,” a floundering Japanese steel exporter that in a last-ditch effort to diversify has determined to transform one of it’s failed factories into a Disney-esque theme park. She has come to America on a sort of reconnaissance mission to seek corporate partnership and to learn about the distinctive ability of Americans to inextricably weave consumerism with entertainment.
The other subject of Cohen’s film is a homeless, young former “shop-oholic” who subsists on unattended french fries in a New Jersey shopping mall. Having run away from home to escape massive debt and a dead-and job, she ekes out an existence by exploiting the unpatrolled margins of her consumeristic society.
Cohen delicately allows these stories to unfold, revealing not only their differences, but also unexpected parallels. Through these unlikely subjects Cohen subtly traces the slow and systematic death of American culture and history as it is carefully wiped out by corporate interests.
Cohen- writer, director, camera, location scout, editor, etc- is first a photographer, a fact made strikingly evident by the film’s exquisite cinematography. He tells his story largely through a slow and plodding succession of long shots which highlight the American landscape, made to appear almost apocalyptic through his lens. Indeed his camera rarely moves, save for the occasional slow tracking shot. His techniques create a very distinct aesthetic that at times more closely resembles a demented vacationer’s slide show than a film. His every shot is perfectly framed to highlight both the beauty and the ugliness of his subjects.
Cohen was amiable and quite generous in the Q and A session which followed the screening, answering each question enthusiastically and greatly deepening my (and, presumably, the rest of the audience’s) appreciation of his work. He related that he had filmed several “city portraits” over the years, but had always carefully chosen his locations so as to avoid the strip mall and chain restaurant aesthetic that now characterizes the country. He decided to make Chain when he realized that he could no longer afford to avoid this reality. As he began to film the piece, he says, he came to the conclusion that “the only way to convey the real truth was to inject elements of fiction.” He further explained that he had culled the narrative from elements handpicked from interviews, newspaper articles, and stories from the lives of his actors (the majority of which had no acting experience and “more or less played themselves”)
Cohen claimed his intention was to reveal “both the beauty and the danger of the world we inhabit” and discussed the difficulty of attempting to walk the “tightrope of objectivity” while controlling his passionate views on the subject. Though Cohen carefully evaded any concrete answers about the film’s intended message, he ended by simply saying: “I don’t know where we’re going, I just want people to think about where we are. I firmly believe that every once in a while people actually can affect things.”
