JUNE 2017
VO L U M E I V
VISIONARY MOONLIGHT
THE
by Derica Shields
W
atching Moonlight was an induction into a moviewatching experience I rarely have in theaters. After seeing Barry Jenkins’s feature, I texted a friend: “I loved not having to filter loads of shit or have my guard up, the sense of relief was unbelievable.” Usually, I am the wary, guarded black viewer bell hooks describes in her essay “The Oppositional Gaze,” one of the spectators who has repeatedly emerged hurt from “encounters with the screen.” Watching Moonlight was not that. I’d loved Jenkins’s first feature, Medicine for Melancholy, and his shorts My Josephine, Remigration, and Chlorophyl, but somehow the epic, detailed-yet-sweeping artistry of Moonlight caught me by surprise. In its specificity, immersive sound design and music, and careful use of color, Moonlight holds its characters with love and care, and by extension, holds its audiences that way, too. That’s not to say it’s an easy film to watch, despite its tenderness, but looking deeply into Moonlight doesn’t hurt in the ways that bell hooks is talking about in that essay. None of the characters are instruments.
Here is working-class black life in technicolor. Three actors—Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders, and Alex R. Hibbert—play Chiron (also known as “Little” and “Black”). Chiron is a kid and then a teenager and then a young man living in Liberty City in Miami, Florida. As a kid and teenager, Chiron is bullied, achingly lonely, and in the care of a mother (played by Naomie Harris) struggling with addiction, and with how to raise a kid whose apparent queerness attracts the violence of those who would like to destroy what is soft and vulnerable about him. In each of its three chapters, the film—based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney— is compassionate toward its characters, even as they experience difficulty that feels elemental, and behave in ways sometimes difficult to stomach. Moonlight is the most generous film I’ve seen in a long time, it holds space for us to be. I spoke with Barry Jenkins about making Moonlight, capturing black adolescent subjectivity, film as voyeurism, bullying, and self-creation. SEE LET YOU BE, PAGE 4
THE LADIES OF ROOKIE
TAVI GEVINSON // PAGE 2
KRISTA BURTON // PAGE 3
SAVANA OGBURN // PAGE 3
a sneak peek into this month’s issue
DYLAN TUPPER RUPERT // PAGE 6
FI RST PERSON
HOW TO BE ALONE by Krista Burton
by Tavi Gevinson
To the right is a photo of a photo of my aura. I had it read in Chinatown a few weeks ago and nodded adamantly as the woman told me I was “removed, observant, in [my] own castle.” It is very likely that other parts of her reading were far less accurate and that I seized only on what resonated with me, but that itself is an innate part of being removed/ observant/in your own castle: picking and choosing what you’ll remember later, curating moments, architecting your own narrative, as opposed to being open to the possibility that she could’ve been telling me something that did not already fit my idea of who I am. She said, “There is something between you and the rest
EXACTLY to FULLY APPRECIATE all these MAGICAL MOMENTS I am #blessed with CoNsTaNtLy!, but also just how my brain works. I started a blog when I was 11, and every day after school, I came home and took photos of my outfits for it. I was very picky about the setting and the colors and the lighting, not out of any interest in photography, so much as a desire to draw connections between things and delight at the order of it all. I didn’t feel like they were selfportraits, although I’m in every picture. They felt similar, instead, to doing plays at camp and community theater, or sitting at our family’s piano going through a Bible-thick Broadway songbook and
instead of seeing where the night takes us—Can we all wear these colors, walk down this street, listen to this song? That cohesion frames the moment and turns it into a scene from a movie. I don’t quite know how to let experiences just unfold and be surprised by how they affect me; I want to know that I’ll write down the aesthetic details of an event later and be pleased at how they fit together: We wore fur coats and wool cloaks, walked down Lafayette, listened to Blonde on Blonde. Sometimes this quality veers into the realm of vampiric hubris. Like: I sat on my roof on opening night of the play with a perfectly nice fellow who put on “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison and his arm
“WHY S HOULD S O M ET H I N G BE SIG N I F I CA N T F O R F E E LI N G M OV I E - ES Q U E? I SN’ T LI F E T HE REA L T H I N G I T S EL F ?” of the world,” and gestured as though to indicate a screen in front of her face. This year, I graduated from high school and moved out of my parents’ Midwestern home into a New York City apartment and started acting in a play every day, wondering, constantly, what it feels like to bring down that screen. This was for the sake of being onstage but also because I was trying to start my life: How does it feel to exist in a moment, connected to another human being and to the world, without thinking about what it signifies, what it’ll look like in memory? To be able to consider these questions at all is not only a privilege afforded by a life with time to think about HOW
shifting among my favorite characters. When I stopped writing my blog halfway through high school, I began keeping journals just for myself, each one cycling through a different personality as I had with fashion and with acting. For the duration of each journal, my handwriting would change, I’d dye my hair, I’d hang new posters on my wall, I stuck to a narrow selection of my wardrobe and my music, I chose a new route for the walk to school. I am similarly strict about the monthly Rookie themes, dictating to our illustrators and photographers which colors, motifs, and types of lighting to use in their work for us. My friends get annoyed with me for how often I try to art direct our hangouts
around me. Why did I let the lovey part of the song go over my head, but hear “to be born again, to be born again,” over and over, marveling before the skyline at my own personal reinvention over the course of the past few months—at how perfect it was that I was wearing my fuzzy pink moving-to-New-York jacket—instead of returning the embrace of a person I liked? There is a terrible YA novel cliché of a girl who lives her life looking for movie moments, and I recently defended her/myself in my journal: 1. Why worship a life that is movie-esque? 2. Why should something be significant for feeling movie-esque?
3. Isn’t life the real thing itself? No. Movies are what make life real to us, because they pay attention to and crystallize emotions, colors, movement, human behavior, etc. (When I say movies, I also mean TV, I also also mean plays—even though a play is not recorded, it’s crystallized in that it lives on in the minds and memories of its audience). Movies are like “LIFE: The Best Of.” “LIFE: The Essential Collection.” “LIFE: Not Dead Yet!” So saying a moment is like a movie is how we can comprehend its beauty and grant it significance. I can defend the art direction and the obsessive documentation, but I also know that there are different answers to the above questions. I know there are infinite moments that could take place and affect me in ways I can’t conceive of, if I could only put down my notebook every once in a while and actually live my life instead of trying to immortalize everything. “We don’t like to admit it,” said Julian, “but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. […] And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our
own, than to lose control completely? […] To be absolutely free! […] To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! […] let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.” The above is from the novel The Secret History. It summarizes why I like acting, and why I was so eager to listen and learn from all the times our playwright said to me, “You know the play. You know the character. Why are you still watching yourself perform, telling the audience how to feel about her, dictating the moment? Just be in it.” I’m paraphrasing, from my castle. But that was the gist. And, to throw a wrench in all of this, the characters in The Secret History do end up losing control and being totally present…and MURDERING someone in their state of freedom!!!! But for now, this is where this month’s theme starts: the combined beauty and danger of inventing yourself, owning your experiences, putting yourself on record. Thank you for being here, as always always always.
MUSICAL INTERLUDES ALBUMS FOR DRIFTING, DREAMING, AND ROAD TRIPPING.
BANKRUPT! BY PHOENIX
CALIFORNIA NIGHTS BY BEST COAST
CONTRA B Y VA M P I R E W E E K E N D
NVM B Y TA C O C AT
S PA R K L E A N D FA D E BY EVERCLEAR
Upbeat and sunshine-infused, Bankrupt! is full of poolside party jams that’ll have everyone swaying, hopping, and head-bobbing. The punchy beats and playful synths make this an easy album to groove along to whether you’re with your friends driving around town or sipping lemonade alone by the pool. Every song is incredibly catchy and easy to sing along to, despite the ambiguity of some of the lyrics. To top it off, Thomas Mars’ smooth vocals are downright dreamy and transform every song into a whimsical summer dream.
I have always lived on the East Coast, which must be why I’ve created such a dreamy view of the West. Best Coast’s album California Nights only adds to my wanderlust; it literally makes me want to get on a plane and experience whatever constitutes “A Night in the Golden State.” The melodies vary from upbeat to slow and hazy, and put me in mind of escape: whether that’s physically going somewhere bright and sunny, changing or getting away from your own feelings, or just mentally taking a break from yourself.
Real talk: I want my summer to be like Contra. There are so many island vibes on this record that it’s hard not to visualize myself on a deserted strip of land while jamming to this. The year Contra came out, I was on winter break from high school and I just remember listening to it over and over again, taking numerous mental vacations. SO, what I’m really saying is: If you’re stuck at home this summer, crank this all the way up, dance it out, and pretend you’re visiting the tropical destination of your dreams.
NVM is my go-to happy-making album. Whether Tacocat is singing about escaping to Hawaii (“Bridge to Hawaii”), getting your period (“Crimson Wave”), or waiting for a late bus (“FU #8”), their upbeat, surf pop vibe makes me grin like I’m enjoying a sunny day at the beach. Their sarcastic comeback, “Oh, it helps my self-esteem / ’cause you finally noticed me,” packs the perfect punch. If you want sunshine, sisterhood, and pure fun in your life, Tacocat will deliver.
Even though Everclear was decidedly not cool in my punk rock crowd, this album became a secret escape for my best friend and me toward the end of high school. Sparkle and Fade is full of songs that capture longing, whether it’s staring at the “Pale Green Stars” on your ceiling at night or, feeling “lonely and dreaming of the West Coast.” If you are feeling trapped and restless, listening to this album late at night in your room or while driving around aimlessly can provide a sense of release to daydream about better places and ocean waves.
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I love being alone. I am obsessed with being alone. It’s kind of my favorite way to spend my time. I mean, I love hanging out with my friends and my girlfriend, but prolonged interaction can be exhausting, and I need my solo time to recharge after socializing. I know that a lot of you can’t relate—for lots of people, interaction is energizing, not energy-depleting. If you are one of those people, that’s great! But at some point, maybe even right this second, you may find yourself completely on your own, and when it happens, I want you to enjoy it. Over the years, I have happily and voluntarily spent vast amounts of time by myself, and by now I am an expert on the subject—a true artiste when it comes to solitary pursuits. Being alone is no big deal! It is part of the human experience! It can actually be really helpful, and even enhance the time you spend with other humans! You can not only get through it, but truly like it! The first step to being happy alone is to realize that you’re a cool person to hang out with, and that the things you like to do are fun because they’re fun for you. (And really, who else’s opinion counts when you’re alone?) Getting comfortable with your own company is partly an exercise in figuring out what you actually want to do when no one is asking you to compromise, whether that means sleeping in, watching movies, going on long bike rides in new neighborhoods, or building elaborate machines that fry up breakfast for you. If it makes you happy, it’s an acceptable thing to do when you’re alone. The end. The next step in learning how to be alone is to practice. You don’t learn all the words to Beyoncé’s “Countdown” well enough to lip-synch to it the first or second time you hear it; most people who are new to hanging out by themselves aren’t instantly masters of that, either. Start small, by taking a long nature walk by yourself (sans iPod!) or going to a coffee shop without any friends (bring a book or a magazine). Then build up to bigger things, like eating at a restaurant (again, reading material is crucial) or a concert without your pals. The good news about practicing being alone is that there are ENDLESS activities that can be accomplished in the company of one’s own baddest self. Here are some I’d particularly recommend: • Watching every single movie a director you like has ever made—or reading every book a favorite author has written—in chronological order. • Repeatedly watching a single cult classic movie, like Mean Girls, Labyrinth, The Craft, or Clueless, until you can flawlessly (and impressively) recite lines from memory. • Getting sucked into a show (or several) that people reference all the time— like Strangers With Candy, Bob’s Burgers, Twin Peaks, The Simpsons, or Arrested Development—but that you’ve never seen. • Going to a movie alone. It is so freeing to watch a film and have the space to think your own thoughts about it instead of repeatedly glancing at a friend’s face to see what they think. • Rereading a book with a character you have a crush on (for me, it’s Brett in The Sun Also Rises) and then spending an alone day emulating her/him. Wear an outfit you think this person would wear, and try doing some of the things they would do, whether that means laughing airily in a store at something the cashier says, arching an eyebrow at someone instead of answering them, or calling everyone “darling” in a breathy voice. You get the idea. • Deciding on a new karaoke jam and practicing it to perfection, complete with dance moves, so you’ll have it ready to pull it out and astonish people with on a moment’s notice. • Sitting alone in a café to
DAILY NEWS by Savana Ogburn
Barry Jenkins’s extraordinary film Moonlight won Best Picture at last night’s Academy Awards, after a confusing mistake during the announcement. watch people and eavesdrop on their conversations. • Going to an art museum and noticing the art you’re drawn to, as well as the art puts you off, and thinking about why. (Visiting a museum alone is the best way to do it, IMHO, because then you don’t have to get dragged through exhibits someone else is excited about; you’re free to head straight to the Impressionist paintings or modern photography or sculpture gardens immediately, no compromises or pathways through medieval sword scabbards required.) If you are committed to the practice of being alone, you can actually run through this list pretty quickly. So what’s next? It’s time to acquire and maintain an obsessive hobby. Ohhhhh yes. There are so many obsessive hobbies to choose from! Journaling. Blogging or collaging. Photography, sewing, painting, pen-paling, yarn-bombing, or collecting incredibly specific things like vintage cookbooks with luridly colored, gross-looking pictures of weird food. Whatever your obsessive hobby is, make it your private thing you only do with you. I shall now disclose some of the hobbies I only tend to when I’m with me, myself, and I, including: • Photographing my two pet bunnies with props and costumes. • Thrifting for said props and costumes. • Collecting terrible lesbian erotica books from the ’70s and ’80s. • Going to Sephora with Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez’s book Perfumes: The A–Z Guide and smelling all the perfumes they either love or hate. • Perfecting my pedicure art. (My greatest feet [hardee har har] has been tiny emoji on each toe.) • Watching Hoarders and then going on a decluttering bender in my apartment. • Sending postcards to my mom. • Walking through my neighborhood and looking for a baby robin that’s fallen out of its nest but still needs love and wants to be my pet, trained robin. (I’ve never been successful, but I will keep trying until the day I die.) • Searching for delightful tiny objects such as puffy rainbow stickers and plastic charms from vending machines to include in care packages for friends. • Watching YouTube makeup tutorials for extreme looks (such as this one on how to make your lips look like A THIRD EYE) and trying to copy them. • Writing poetry in a particular coffee shop I go to only when I’m by myself. • Testing out fresh YouTubemakeup-tutorial looks I’m not brave enough yet to wear in my “real life.” The list goes on. If you haven’t found your own hobby yet, there are just so many waiting to be obsessed
over, all on your own time. Sometimes, when you’re really stressed out, the best way to use your alone time is by practicing Extreme Self-Care. Extreme Self-Care is when you dedicate a chunk of time to pampering and fussing over yourself. It’s like a solo spa night, but dramatically amplified. It can be done after something traumatic, like a breakup or a horrible day; when you’re feeling blue; or just because you think you’re great and want to spend some more time with you. On my ESC nights, I turn off my phone and hide my computer, and then I run myself the most lavish, bubbly bubble bath possible. While the tub is running, I pour an icy drink into a fancy glass (it must be a fancy glass) and then apply this bright-green face mask I have that’s supposed to tighten pores but actually doesn’t do anything except get me into character for Extreme Self-Care. When the bath is ready, I light some candles around it, put on a record (usually something high on drama, like the opera Carmen) and turn the volume way up. Then I get in the tub, where I soak for ages and do fullbody exfoliation with scrubby gloves, all while the opera wails in the background. When I get out of the bathtub, I zip myself into my beautiful fleecy Forever Lazy pajamas (they have a zippered butt and crotch so you can go to the bathroom without ever having to take them off), pad into the kitchen, and make an enormous toasty sandwich before retreating to my bed to watch whatever mindless reality show captures my fancy that night (I just discovered My Cat From Hell). The point here is lavishness and drama, darlings. Extreme Self-Care is all about making yourself feel immediately better in a big way, and taking gleeful pleasure in something that you, and only you, want to do. Revel in your alone time. Spoil yourself with how much you love you. The thing about being alone is that it doesn’t have to include feeling lonely. Doing active, productive, fun, and/or indulgent stuff by yourself, can actually stave off loneliness. Getting to know yourself when you’re by yourself will also help you identify those moments when you do feel isolated and sad, and need to reach out to other people for help and companionship—which is another act of Extreme Self-Care. I know it can feel like now will never end, but it is entirely possible that you won’t have this much time to yourself again for a long time. When you’re alone, think about it as a non-permanent, yet still important, part of your life that is shaping who you are as a person. And even in the shorter term—almost nothing is more satisfying than realizing you had an amazing day, all by yourself.
Janet Mock wrote a powerful essay about her experiences as a young trans woman in response to the Trump administration’s decision to rescind federal guidelines that protect trans students.
NASA’s picture of the week is one of the most X-ray-luminous and most massive galaxy clusters known, RX J1347.5–1145, and it is beautiful.
Photographer Ren Hang has died at age 29. His work sought “to break through the social taboo of nudity—for the sake of natural beauty.”
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LET YOU BE: AN INTERVIEW WITH BARRY JENKINS DERICA SHIELDS: There’s an idea that comes through Moonlight that you have to build a self, to create an identity, which is an idea that is reflected in and generated by the structure of the film. We don’t have this traditional coming-of-age narrative arc. Can you talk a bit about the structure? BARRY JENKINS: I didn’t want to tell a coming-of-age story in a very typical comingof-age form, where you’re trying to cover 80 beats in 100 minutes, just ploughing through all this narrative. When I first read the piece, I thought it would be best told in these chapters. We’ll take this one very succinct moment at each stage of this guy’s life and we’ll dramatize that almost, like, on a granular, microscopic level. Once we made that decision, it opened up this thing where all this time is passing between each chapter, and once you’re in a chapter you’re only getting a few days, this one moment. Because of that, you get to see how, in the time between the two stories, or between the three stories—between one and two, and two and three—how time has shaped the person. So, as you said, now he’s creating his identity into this version of himself, and then we move forward again, now he’s created his identity and this other form of himself. I do think the question hangs over the film for the main character is—and it’s become pretty obvious in the marketing—who are you? I do believe that’s a question that’s best answered from within, although the world without is always trying to tell us who we actually are. One thing that came up in a discussion between Rookie editors is that when you’re constantly being victimized, it can be easy, almost a reflex, to think of your story as comprised of those traumas. When Kevin asks Chiron, “Who are you?” Chiron looks taken aback, as though he feels like, “You know what I’ve been through! Why are you asking me this?!” But it’s not enough to be the sum of your traumas. Exactly! It’s funny you said it as a reflex; whenever I think of a reflex, I think of it as a very sharp response. But life is a series of these very slow responses, these slow reactions that we don’t even realize we’re living or we’re enacting. In a certain way, with this character in particular, he is getting away from himself at a rate that he doesn’t recognize, and then by the time he does, he is unrecognizable to the people around him. That’s why I love that you mention that moment, because you’re right, Trevante [Rhodes] does give a great reaction. He even says, “Who me? I’m me. I ain’t tryna be nothing else.” [As though speaking to Chiron] “Well, but are you? I mean, look at you, look at you! You’re clearly trying to be something else!” Because of the way time passes in our lives we don’t realize we’re becoming other things before it’s too late. We don’t realize the world is creating all these microaggressions, all these passive ways to tell us, “a man walks this way, a man talks this way.” We don’t realize until it’s too late. For so much of the film we’re at eye-level with Little [Chiron]. I laughed when I realized what was happening because I’d been having a conversation with a young photographer named Myles Loftin, who was considering photographing a family cookout Charlie Brown-style, from hip-level, to suggest a child’s subjectivity. Was that your thinking as you decided how to shoot that section of the film? Exactly. We wanted it to be immersive, and we wanted the film to be told from the perspective of the main character as opposed to, “Our film is about this so we’re gonna film it this way,” or, “Our story unfolds in this place so we’re gonna shoot it that way.” It was all about how to root the audience in Chiron’s perspective. Sometimes we go all the way, we literally put you guys in his head, his eyes become your eyes. We
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just wanted the audience to experience what this kid is experiencing, what this teenager and then this man, is experiencing. I try to not be too intellectual about those things, because the intellectual framework can get in the way of the emotion sometimes, but this one felt right. The intellectual decision was motivated by the emotion of the character. When you say you wanted the audience to experience what Chiron was experiencing, why was that important to you? There are two versions of it. A lot of the
What are the systems you’re thinking of when you talk about those we’re all part of and complicit in?
him, and then again when he goes to confront the person bullying him—is the character who is bullying Chiron named Terrel like…?
It’s very subtle, but both the characters [Chiron and Kevin] say they spent time in prison. I think also, too, the idea of the education system failing our kids in these more depressed, disadvantaged neighborhoods. We all play a role: We’re not out lobbying our congressmen to pay teachers higher salaries or to divert resources from the defense department to the education department. In a small way, if we’re all citizens of this
Terrel, yes! Which is shocking because the playwright is also named Tarell. [Laughs] That character is based on a real-life tormenter of Tarell’s who had the same name, and I imagine hated Tarell because they had the same name and Tarell was free in his body and he was not. But that’s a whole other tangent. [Laughs] That’s really interesting! There is a sense of that in the film, too. Your bully is often someone who over-identifies with you, but has this huge sense of shame about that identification. Exactly, so they want to beat out of you the thing they hate about themselves. The kid who plays Terrel in the film, this kid Patrick [Decile], is the sweetest kid in the world whom I just loved. There’s this one simple scene in class that ends with this look that Terrel gives Chiron, and there’s just so much in it. It is all the elements we’re talking about, the hate and the love and the self-hate, and you know it’s gonna boil over at some point. The school stuff was important to me, because those things happened, those things happen. To talk about all of us being complicit, I remember kids getting jumped at school and no one would say anything, and I remember those kids just retreating within themselves, and I think part of the reason why was, “Well, nobody’s going to protect me. Nobody identifies with me.”
I do believe that's a question that's best answered from within, although the world without is always trying to tell us who we actually are. things in this movie are very personal to me, very personal to Tarell [McCraney]. To dig those things up and [not require] the audience to participate—I think film is inherently voyeuristic, the camera’s always here, or it’s there [Points to either side], but it’s never right here [Points ahead]. The audience has to look the actor or the characters in the eye, and we wanted there to be these moments where— because what we’re experiencing or what the characters are experiencing is, in places, just so aggressively emotional and jarring, and in some places almost shocking and frightening—I wanted the audience to experience those things, too. There’s a character who just disappears from the film, and I wanted the audience to feel what I assume kids like Chiron feel when people who come into their lives are just snatched up. Everything was about trying to find a way for the audience to experience what the characters are experiencing, because in some ways it’s exploitative just to sit back and watch things from a distance. Some of the systems at play in this film we’re all a part of. So I wanted everyone to have to, literally, inhabit the body of the characters. Not for the full film, just at very specific moments.
country, we’re part of these systems that are failing these inner-city enclaves. On a greater note, the movie is inherently intersectional. You have the issues of sexual identity, poverty, drug addiction. To me, one of the big ones is the idea of masculinity. I’ve been guilty of it too. I played sports and you’re in the locker room, and it’s like, “Oh, don’t talk like that,” or, “You throw like a girl.” Things like that. All the ways we reinforce these ideas we have of what masculinity looks like, how it’s meant to be presented, what’s the proper way to talk to a woman, how a man is supposed to and not supposed to look at another man. I do think we all, in these very subtle [ways]—I like the term microaggression—I think we all play a role of projecting this image of manhood onto our boys of all races, but in particular onto black men. There’s violence throughout the film, the structural violence you’ve mentioned—prisons, poverty—and emotional abuse, neglect. But there are these moments of clearly signaled physical violence, which are huge turning points that jolt Chiron into adulthood. You see the pace of his self-construction in these moments, as he decides how to respond. When Kevin is punching
I remember, and this is one of the most horrible things I’ve seen in my life, I used to catch the public bus to and from school, and it was, like, when a hundred kids get on a bus: really packed. This one kid was sitting on the aisle and this other kid—sweet kid but a really tough kid, one of those cool guys, almost like Kevin—was walking down the aisle and he tripped on this kid’s foot and fell face first. He got up and he walloped this quiet kid because he’d tripped over him. Every time I saw that kid again, the kid who’d been walloped, he was just not the same person. Something was broke in him. Because it was a mistake, it was a mistake and he was humiliated and violently punished for it in front of everyone, and he was never, ever the same. Tarell wrote those things in the source material, and I was glad that he did. There’s some stuff in this film that you could tell the story without. I don’t think you could tell the story without the bullying, because it ties in this idea of masculinity. I do think the ordeal that Chiron goes through with his mom Paula is not essential to the story. However, it was true of my life and true of Tarell’s life. When I say central, the only thing I was terrified of in this film was the character Paula, played by Naomie Harris, because it’s so easy, if you can’t contextualize it, to see that as this jarringly negative stereotype. Yet, I shouldn’t be ashamed to tell the story of how I grew up. My mom was a crack addict, and Tarell’s was as well, and he’s a MacArthur Genius, and I’m a filmmaker with A24. That doesn’t define us or dictate where we’re gonna go in our lives, and we can’t be the only two people who have that experience. Going back to complicity, the film evokes so well the atmosphere of fear, the daily wearing down of bullying. In the scene where Chiron is jumped, I felt that I knew what was going to happen—that Chiron is going to be the kid that Terrel picks—yet that long, spinning shot is still terrifying. How did you decide how to shoot that scene? What were your thoughts on depicting that instance of violence? That was spur of the moment. I feel like the character’s descending at that point, but I didn’t want to center that descent on Chiron. At that point it’s a commentary on the world. I wanted to see every face that was going to witness that event, and I wanted everyone to watch this kid [the bully] circle like a shark,
and for no one to do anything about it. Also, I love the idea of these unbroken moments of time. We have them in a few different places in each chapter. Because I think there’s something about this element of fate and the fidelity of fate, and almost the inevitability of certain things. It felt like, visually, that was a way—in a very subtle way—to communicate that. If people only see that as a spinning shot I’m totally fine with that, but it was more important for me to, at certain times, communicate what I felt about the world. The movie isn’t neorealist, and it’s not a miserabilist film. It’s not this fly-on-the-wall documentary aesthetic. So that was one of the moments where I felt I wanted the audience to experience, this is what the world feels like for these characters. So I guess I’m attuned to when black filmmakers introduce dreamlike elements or elements that push the boundaries of what might be perceived as real. Sometimes, as we’re moving into the dream scenes in
Moonlight, I wasn’t always 100 percent certain that that’s what was happening. [Laughs] Good, that’s how it should be! Sometimes dreams can feel more real than real life, you know? This piece came to me embedded—I describe it as, I felt like Tarell had taken a memory of my memories and repositioned them into this fever dream. There is one dream that’s in the play that’s in the film. Kevin tells that great story about having sex with this girl in the stairway, and then Chiron goes home and dreams about it, and that was one that Tarell wrote. He wrote it to take place in the high school locker room. He was like, “It’s raining, water’s falling like Victoria Falls.” [Laughs] It was such a great scene! It was clearly a dream, but written so that it starts out as though it’s taking place in the real world, and then you realize no, this isn’t. So, production-wise, we had to find a way to do the same thing but at a location we already had. So he’s walking out of the house and Kevin is out on the back porch.
But, to go back to your earlier question, black art is so inherently important because of the lack of black art over the course of history. I mean obviously, there’s been an abundance of black art, but just the volume of it and the presence of it actually making it out into the public consciousness, there’s been a dearth of that. You often feel this responsibility to just do it in this “authentic,” truthful kind of way. But if you want to harness the full tools of expression, I do think these other levels of consciousness should be incorporated into the work. I do love in this film [that] there are moments that are very much verité, not documentary-style, but very sober images, and I think we do a good job of organically crossing from that into this more heightened, dreamlike imagery. As black people we’re capable of both. A story about black people is capable of housing both, and having it all feel embedded and organic to the piece. So yeah, I’m glad. Nobody’s asked me that before, but there are dreams in each of the stories,
and they’re some of my favorite moments in the film. When a character isn’t behaving the way I’m expecting them to behave, it’s like, yes! They should be able to behave however the emotions inspire them to, and we should be able to film it whichever way we please. One of my favorite moments in the movie, though, is when we blend those two things. There’s the swimming lesson and it’s not heightened but tightened. The camera’s just in the water, and there’s these two black bodies in the Atlantic fucking Ocean. A grown man is teaching a child—literally, because Alex [the actor who plays youngest Chiron] doesn’t know how—how to swim as a storm rolls in. Elementally, that’s a very simple setup: a camera, two actors, and the ocean. But oh my god. It’s the one thing in the film that, I know I made it, but I watch it and I always feel like I’m seeing it for the first time. I can’t coerce that. That’s just the world, and the elements, and me going: “You know what? I’m gonna let you be.”
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HOROSCOPES b y D y l a n Tu p p e r R u p e r t
SAGITTARIUS This sounds like a lot of senior-year energy to me, but it can apply to any age, still! Learn to balance ambition with your social life with self-care and all that keeps you sane, as much as you feel kicked into gear by this very goal-oriented time. If you find yourself going after something, really giving it your all and the scarifies of your time i t might take, do this one thing: Be gentle with the people in your life by gifting them a little heads-up. If your late nights are gonna go from G-chatting with your best friends until 1 AM to completing college apps instead, for example, give the crew a little update on your adjusted priorities before you bury your head in your work too deeply and leave good friends feeling neglected. It’s a very kind thing to do for everyone’s sake, including yours, and your friends will be stoked you’re following your smarty-pants dreams!
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ARIES Head to the bookstore to find a planner that will motivate you to get methodical with how you parse your time and obligations. If it’s something you’ve been wanting to get in the habit of, NOW is the opportunity! Writing down your to-do’s is LIFE CHANGING, no matter how boring or obvious it seems. You guys: I was almost failing the eighth grade, but once I got a planner, I was suddenly a star student again. Listen to meeeeee! Get a planner, Aries of the universe! Or use a wall calendar, or iCal, or pad of Postits—whatever system helps you achieve your peak brilliance, because you have all this achievement possibility headed your way. You gotta map out the territory before you can conquer it!
PISCES
GEMINI
Did someone say start a band? Start a band!!! Or finally start up that Etsy shop with your friend, or start drafting that comic collaboration with that illustrator you’ve been brainstorming with, or say hey to that one alliance in your class who has the same goals as you and set up a regular study session. Sounds like it might be a person unlike you in some ways, but whose differences will enhance your collaboration. Think: What partnership idea has been rolling around my brain-bin that sounded like a cool/productive/ creative/fun collaboration? Now’s the time to activate that one, or take the extra step to seek out someone who you think you’d want to start something with. Make that “I need a drummer” Facebook post at the eclipse on the 13th and see who comes through!
There seems to be a lot of relationship energy with emphasis on making positive alliances. I would urge you to identify your rock of a friend this month—your ally in the classroom, someone who will keep you sane during love-life ups-and-downs, that one friend that just gets you. Pinpoint them in your friend circle and make a serious effort to be with them this month, to strengthen your bond. You might already have that person in your life, but now’s the special moment take steps to align yourself with them and create an extra-caring, loving space for them in your thoughts/heart/schedule. Looks like they’ll come in handy.
LEO
CANCER
This is the year to really focus on what you’re passionate about—instead of what only appeases what your parents want, what colleges want, what looks good on a résumé, or whatever. It’s better to kick ass at a few activities that propel you forward and make you happy than to cram your life with a bunch of application-padding bullet points that you don’t even feel engaged in on a soul- or brainor heart-level. Ditch the things that feel like have-to’s and immerse yourself even deeper in those few special things that feel like get-to’s! Whether that means not going out for one of the many sports teams you’re on to focus on the one you love the most, or switching out of a class that doesn’t feel worth your time even though it “look goods,” use this opportunity to figure out what really makes you feel good and accomplished, rather than spreading yourself thin by saying yes to everything.
Make a list, as if you’re planning for a party at your house. Include everyone you’d invite—all the people you’d consider to be in your general social circle. Anyone in there who tugs at your intuition a bit, who feels more like an obligation than someone you’d really savor your time with? Anyone who makes you feel exhausted to be around? Yeah, it might be time to address that. Identify the people in your life who might be draining, and conversely, the friends who energize you—literally, by making a list. The ones who suck your energy, who stir up needless conflict, who make you feel uncomfortable in whatever way: They are the ones you should gently let drift away from you, starting (or culminating!) September 17th, or even earlier. If there’s a need for a sitdown kind of talk, so be it, but sometimes it’s OK to limit your time with the people in your life who try to monopolize it.
SCORPIO
LIBRA
Relief seems like a big thing in September—relief from the challenges of hosting Saturn in your sun sign for three years; relief from negative characters in your life who Mercury retrograde will bring opportunities to release (and please, take those opportunities!). Celebrate this wave of September calm, and capitalize on lucky Jupiter in your 11th house of friendship, by organizing an outing with only your best and most genuine friends at one of your favorite spots. Make that date on September 17. That’s a Thursday, so maybe grab dinner with your favorite group of people and get stoked on your awesome future over a massive pizza—the ultimate chillcelebration cuisine.
Mercury in retrograde isn’t all hectic and negative chaos! It is an opportune time, as Tali said, to get a grip on how you express yourself, as Mercury is the planet of communication. I suggest downloading a tweet-delete app and taking the trash out of a perhaps overshare-y time (hey, we all have ’em!), or going through Facebook and eliminating past posts that may have been self-deprecating or do not reflect your positive ’tude toward yourself. Revisit what Tova wrote here—it’s OK to evolve, and our social media profiles can come with us into our new senses of self! Let that shame go, and do what you gotta do.
TAURUS With Saturn, a planet that has a very getting-serious tone, in your eighth house of sex and intimacy, it could be prime time to get into learning more about sex, or about sexual-healthmaintenance stuff, in whatever way it applies to your own life. It’s a great, cosmic opportunity to take sex into your own hands (pun NOT intended?) and be a leader and a champ for your own wants ’n’ needs ’n’ health ’n’ happiness.
CAPRICORN It’s time to do anything you can do to follow the path of least resistance. Take it one step at a time, so start here: Choose ONE responsibility you have that might cause stress or is a big time commitment, and think of ONE action you can take that removes part of that responsibility from your plate. Is it being president of a club at school and relegating some of your duties to the VP instead? Is it resigning from your post as captain of the team to focus more on your personal game? Is it making a rule for yourself that you’ll leave work or the library at Reasonable Time O’Clock PM SHARP instead of pushing yourself to take those extra few minutes to soothe your workaholic soul? Let it go a li’l, busy beav’. Take a moment for yourself in whatever way you can manage. Even JUST one!
AQUARIUS If you meet someone new and get a little isolated in the friendship- or romance-whirlwind, that’s totally cool and fun and I’m happy for you! But if groups and organized gatherings aren’t really your vibe in September, think of a social scenario in which you and your pal/crush can both be with your larger group of friends, who might be feeling neglected in your period of pairing up with that One Person. Post up at the park or at the beach for something really low-key, so you’ll get to be with all your peoples, but in a low-pressure way. Soak up the last bits of summer sun, and do like Sheryl Crow—tell everyone to lighten up!
VIRGO Sure seems like this will be Virgo’s year, starting right now, so it sounds like *pushes big red button that activates Oprah voice* moooooooodboarding tiiiiiime! Start to write down all your dreams and most invigorating fantasies of your future, and collect images of what you want to see in your life. Hang it on your wall. It’s manifesting month, dude. All the energy is in your favor to finally go after that ONE thing (or two or six or whatever things) you’ve been pining over, that may have felt like a reach before, or out of your league. Keep in mind: Astrology tells you when the ball is in your court, but it’s up to you to slam dunk it. This year is Virgo’s Space Jam. Or something? Start with a moodboard and don’t discriminate what ends up there—just put up any and all cool things you want to see in your life. You have a lot of power to make that happen, especially now.
COMICS! A SCHOOL STORY
QUIET IN CLASS
by Patrick Ferris
by Sarah Rimington
MY MULTIS by Kendra Yee
NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU by Corinne James
PROBABILITY by Isabella Acosta
MAGIC MOMENTS by Alyssa Yohana
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MAGIC TRICKS by Esme Blegvad