Skate culture, case study of Mid90's
It seems like in the 2010’s we have a need to go back to the previous decades, a need to escape from our time of technologies, phone and speed. Jonah Hill, through his movie Mid90s, remind himself of his teenagerhood, and he shares with us a story of teenagers who are in need of freedom.
The definition itself of teenagers can be mainly centralized in their need of freedom. But I think, in a lot of movies that talk about teenagerhoods, the characters are reaching for freedom in order to escape their real lives. This is, mostly, what the skate culture is about. It is attached to rebels’ teenagers who don’t want to conform themselves into the society. The skate culture is not only about the skate, it is about a state of mind and a way of being. The basic skater has long crazy hairs, loose t-shirt and jeans, with a cap or a beanie on his head. He is outside of the society by the first look that you have at him. He doesn’t belong to the adulthood, but not at the childhood neither.
Mid90s, a dive into the skate culture
Mid90s offers us a story of skaters in the 90s from a contemporary vision. In the 90s skateboard was considered as subversive. But today the skate culture is a lot more mainstream. Mid90s was released in a period where this culture is not underground anymore but fully accepted and recognized. With Mid90s we dive, with the benefit of hindsight, into a decade where the skateboard was still insurgent. Jonah Hill represented his fantasy of skate culture in the nineties. We can see it right from the beginning when Steve enters into his older brother’s room with the knowledge that he is not allowed to do so. He looks with fascination at the tapes and posters that recover the walls. It is what Jonah Hill does through the whole movie. He looks at this period of time with fascination, and this is why this film can’t be taken as an objective view of this time. It is idealized.
This movie represents teenagers in construction, who are in need of freedom. But the main character, Steve, is more in need of being a part of a group. He starts skating not mainly to escape his life, but to give meaning to his life. He is beating up by his brother, for who he begs for attention and gratitude. Belonging to a group of skaters leaded him to gain in confidence. He wants to do like the others in order to be accepted. The word ‘cool’ is repeated many times by Steve. He wants to be as cool as Ray in order to be respected by his brother. Skating represented the path to becoming cool. Next to that the movie described his way towards his growing-up. Even though Stevie wants mainly to appear cool, toward his brother, the girls, and his new friends, there is a scene where he appears to be his real self, with no filters. After her mom humiliates himself in front of his new friends because she found out that her son drunk alcohol and took drugs, Stevie is going to blow up. He yells hard at his mother, who seems in chock. The authority figure switches, Stevie is no longer a little boy, but a teenager who can’t manage to control his impulses of rage and anger. He then gets alone, behind the skate store. He sits on the ground and the camera lets an empty space at his left. Ray is coming to check if he is alright. He gets down to be at the same level, and no more a figure of fascination, and fill the empty space that was at the left of Stevie. Ray says to Stevie ‘Lotta the time we feel our lives are the worst. But I think if you look in anyone else’s closet, you wouldn’t trade their shit for you shit. So it’s good. ‘ I think this quote is really interesting. Ray is going to talk to Stevie about the personal problems of Fourth Grade, Fuckshit, and even of himself. Teenagerhood is also a moment of your life where you realize that you are not the only one who have problems. You become more aware of the others, and more empathetic towards their problems. The music takes then the place of the dialogues. Ray and Stevie are going to skate during the all night. There is no talking, the importance is the presence of Ray for Stevie.
We can compare Mid90s with the movie Paranoid Park from 2007 by Gus Van Sant. It is not a retrospective movie because it takes time at the same time it was released. It gives a much more realistic story. It is moreover a deconstructed narrative, where we begin the story at the end and then little by little, discover what happened to the main character Alex. Even though Mid90s and Paranoid Park have nothing in common in their story, both of the characters, Alex and Stevie, have their life centered around skateboard. But Alex is much more a lonely character. During all the movie, he is on his own dealing with a major problem. Indeed, the movie follows his personal journal writing in which he lets go of his secret. The skate for him, is really an escape from his life.
Ray comforts Stevie in Mid90s
Mid90s, an indie movie
Moreover, this movie evolves in an indie aesthetic. Indeed, it was produced by A24, which is famous for its independent movies that different themselves from the Hollywood’s blockbusters. Again, as the skate culture, the independent movies are established today, where they were not as much in the 90’s or even in the 2000’s. Larry Clark, or Gus Van Sant, which are two directors famous for having released independent films about teenagers, produced their movies in a time where independent films where still not really seen by the general public.
Mid90s differs from the date of its directing. It was realized at a time where indie movies where fully recognized, not only by critics, but by the public as well, with the movies of Xavier Dolan for example. It seems like today indie pictures are more about the style than about the budget. They have a very specific grain that bring the public closer to the movie. They have a home-made touch that differentiate them from the blockbusters. From my point of view Mid90s perfectly represented that. The movie was shot on 16mm with a 4: 3’s aspect ratio. In the story as well, even though Mid90s follows a simple narrative, which is not always the case in most of indie movies, it still follows some conventions of indie films that where sets by Staiger. The dialogue doesn’t always serve the purpose. Indeed, not every scene is dependent of the whole storyline. The characters are odd. We can take the example of Fourth Grade (even the names are atypical). He is a shy teenager, who does not talk a lot, to express himself he records a lot of moments of his life with his camcorder. He is a sweet and touching character, because even though we barely hear him during the entire movie, we feel, by the acting of Ryder McLaughling, all of the complexity of Fourth Grade. But also, and very importantly, Mid90s refers a lot to previous movies of the mid 90s, by using intertextuality, especially Kids from Larry Clark. Both movies follow a group of teenagers in search of meaning. Mid90s can also be seen as a love letter to teenage movies from the 90s, with whom Jonah Hill surely grew up, not only the one from Larry Clarke, but Gus Van Sant as well. Again, we can compare Mid90s with Paranoid Park from Gus Van Sant in term of indie style. It seems like in Paranoid Park, the indie style is more radical. The story line is shattered. The movie begins at the end of the story, when Alex tries to live with his trauma, while we don’t know what has happened to him. There are a lot of long contemplative shots, the one from the camcorder as well, that doesn’t serve the purpose, but which are here to sets the all atmosphere of the film. The shots that were made with camcorder are really interesting. Indeed, they are not attached to the storyline, but live by themselves to sort of show us the poetry of skateboarding, an individual sport which constitute the state of mind of a lost teenagerhood generation.
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