ARTS ARTS FILM REVIEW After recovering from her injury, Deanna continued to work on anthologies. But the experience left a bitter aftertaste that prompted her to calculate her hourly and page rates. The calculations were eye-opening. “$12, $11 an hour is what I ended up getting paid for what is highly skilled, creative labor,” Deanna says. In the spring of 2016, she publicly disclosed the low wages on Twitter. “I had a really severe backlash to that,” she says. “I kind of dropped out of the comics industry. I basically just draw for me now, and I work my day job.” Though Deanna’s day job continues to provide steady support, the pandemic has brought surreal changes. At first, Deanna commuted through empty streets and had an entire floor of the building to herself—ample room for social distancing. As the pandemic became a new normal, however, her colleagues returned, often wearing branded bandanas her company purchased to supplement widespread shortages of personal protective equipment. The experience has been unsettling, particularly since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20 to 50 percent of COVID-19 cases may be asymptomatic. Employees coping with heightened risks, such as health conditions or elder care responsibilities, have yet to return. “It’s kind of like when you’re in a dream and everything seems normal,” Deanna says, “and then something really weird happens out of the corner of your eye.” In Roberto’s line of work, PPE is more complicated. Instead of working in a consistent location, he visits multiple households across the D.C. region each day, often working in tight spaces. HVAC technicians also rely on public restrooms, and already struggled with access before the pandemic: Many are forced to keep empty soda bottles in their cars, or seek out wooded areas in between house calls. With restaurants and businesses closed to the public, it’s unclear how they are expected to find workarounds.
For many artists, essential work can offer financial stability that remains stubbornly elusive in creative fields. Still, both Roberto and Deanna say they’ve felt supported by their employers throughout the pandemic. When Roberto first approached his employer, he asked to take three consecutive weeks off—all of his paid time off. Instead, his employer returned with a better offer: Why not take a voluntary furlough? The option allowed
Roberto to retain his current health insurance, reserve his paid time off for the future, and claim unemployment. Five other employees had already chosen this path. “I had no idea— we work by ourselves, and there’s not a whole lot of communication between us,” he says. “When I heard that, it was a pretty big relief.” Deanna describes her workplace as a family. “I’ve been there for a long time, and already, there was an environment where we care for each other,” she says. Essential work has also given Roberto and Deanna the financial support to invest in their art. In 2012, they purchased a home in Hyattsville, within walking distance of the New Carrollton Metro Station. Today, Roberto uses the detached garage as a studio where he paints, mainly a series called “Buena Vida” that focuses on skulls and flowers. “Having an HVAC job helped with that; that security was part of it,” he says. As he builds a portfolio of work, Roberto aims to use his wages to finance the costs associated with gallery submissions. For Deanna, comics no longer feel like a viable profession. “Comics doesn’t pay you enough to live on it, unless you’re one of the lucky few who get a big book deal,” she says. “Even in those cases, they don’t give you enough of an advance to live off of. You need somebody to support you or another means of income.” (Data from PayScale, which places comics artists’ median income at around $39,000, backs up her assessment.) Regardless, Deanna continues to make comics, particularly ones tailored to the fandom surrounding One-Punch Man, a popular web comic with anime and manga adaptations. In 2019, Deanna collaborated on a book with artists from South Korea, Indonesia, Sweden, and Germany, then traveled to Japan to sell it at a convention. “I’m proud of the things I did when I was working in indie comics,” she says, “but right now, I’m just living my truth in One-Punch Man land.” Though essential work presents health risks and inspires fear during the pandemic, Roberto and Deanna are staying focused on the bigger picture. Until theater production, comics, and other artistic fields can offer workers fair wages, benefits, and basic support, it seems like the best option they have. On May 15, Governor Larry Hogan lifted Maryland’s stay-at-home order. With that, Roberto’s furlough came to an end. Now, he’s back at work, wearing a surgical mask at all times. Though customers seem more relaxed, he says masked interactions can feel awkward: “It’s like, here’s this new social, cultural norm we’re all supposed to suddenly adopt.” During Roberto’s furlough, his company had time to adapt. “I work for an HVAC company— not a medical safety equipment procurement company,” he says. “They’ve been trying their best all along.” When he needs to retrieve parts or equipment, colleagues arrange curbside pickup. And latex gloves—once scarce—seem more plentiful. Still, the transition isn’t without discomfort. “This first week, I just kind of knew that it was gonna kick my ass,” he says, “and it did.”
High Frequency The Vast of Night
Directed by Andrew Patterson The Vast of Night requires some degree of trust. Its plot unfolds in an oblique way, to the point where you may not know what is happening until the film’s final minutes. The characters have a peculiar way of speaking—clipped, impatient, mannered—and they never quite say what they feel. What is ultimately rewarding about this film, one of the year’s best, is that the filmmaker puts even more trust in us. Director Andrew Patterson knows he has dynamite on his hands, and reveals the film’s pleasures with the right cocktail of urgency and patience. This review avoids plot details, and that is in the spirit of the film, as its writers James Montague and Craig W. Sanger use sleight of hand throughout their crisp runtime. It takes place in the 1950s, in a small New Mexico town. How small? When everyone goes to the high school basketball game, the biggest event of the week, all the houses and stores look abandoned. Our entry point is Everett (Jake Horowitz), the town’s DJ and motormouth who is somewhere between friendly and brusque. His friend is Fay (Sierra McCormick), a switchboard operator who hears a strange sound on Everett’s nightly broadcast. She calls him immediately, and together they attempt to investigate the sound’s strange source. The fast-paced dialogue is a clever way to obscure that not a lot happens in this movie. In fact, the obsession with analog technology suggests this film could unfold like a radio play, like what Orson Welles did with War of the Worlds. There are long stretches
that unfold in darkness, with wan pools of light, so Patterson really wants us to listen. The dialogue demands active engagement with what these characters say. Everett constantly conceals what he is thinking, even as he talks a mile a minute. There is a growing sense of acknowledged paranoia—Everett casually mentions that the sound is from a Soviet invasion—except its true source is far more wondrous. On top of the unique dialogue, The Vast of Night looks terrific. It is immersive in a way that few films achieve, with Patterson and cinematographer M.I. Littin-Menz’s evocative use of light and shadow. There are also some mindboggling camera movements, including a long take where the camera hurtles from one part of town to another, pausing to regard the basketball game in progress before continuing its speedy pursuit. Aside from the urgency this shot creates, it also shows that you’re watching the work of natural filmmakers. Comparisons to early Spielberg are easy, particularly because the filmmakers are obsessed with a specific slice of mid-century Americana, although they do not do this stunningly original film justice. So much of The Vast of Night is about storytelling, and about listening. Fay opens the film as an amateur with her new tape recorder, and Everett demonstrates how to use the device by interviewing whoever happens to pass by. He believes that people are inherently captivating, even if they do not believe it themselves, and there is a repeated line where he says what happens “is good radio.” Later, as he and Fay investigate the sound, there are patient monologues from people who are unafraid to explore its strange implications. The Vast of Night is a nostalgic film that explicitly celebrates the past, but also has the wherewithal to critique it. It’s that good. —Alan Zilberman The Vast of Night is available to stream starting May 29 on Amazon Prime.
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