T.S.O.Y.W.

This image, and the two that follow, are stills from the film, copyright where it is due, 2007.

    T.S.O.Y.W., a film by Amy Granat (b. 1976 in Saint Louis, Missouri; lives and works in New York, New York) and Drew Heitzler (b. 1972 in Charleston, South Carolina; lives and works in Los Angeles, California) from 2007 is loosely derived from Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. It's a 200 minute film based off an idea by Jean Genet of replacing the unattainable love of (the original) Werther, Charlotte, with a motorcycle. The film is now in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In connection to Granat's solo show at White Flag Projects, the film was screened at the Tivoli Theatre in the Loop on October 17, 2011. T.S.O.Y.W. played at the Whitney in 2008 and was quite a hit. It follows the story of a man (we'll go ahead and call him Werther) who falls in love. The critics and other reviews say he fell in love with a motorcycle, and I agree with that to an extant. The first half of the film definitely leads to that synopsis; in the second half, though, Werther steals/borrows the bike and travels to a number of land art installations and then goes back, returns the bike, and walks off with a gun and a beer. If Werther can't have the girl/bike/ land-art/ "the road", then there's no point in living.

    My argument against his love for the solely the bike is that Werther is more in love with the freedom and possibilities for which the bike stands as a metaphor. In the first half of the film (I'm going to refer to the first and second half of the film because that is the context in which I saw the film. Originally played continuously, the version I saw split the film in (about) half, for ease of playing and in order to provide a intermission for the viewers who attended the screening), Werther's care for the bike, his caressing and repairing it, are the main focus. That metaphor for the the road and endless possibilities that the owner of the bike essentially doesn't do much with it fits Goethe's story well. The one thing about which I'm unsure is why Werther returns the bike. It could be, as in Goethe's story, that the love object will only be happy/complete with whom it was chosen, or by whom it was chosen. Werther's love is unrequited.

 

    A beautifully shot film, it was originally intended to play more as an exhibition piece as opposed to being shown to a captive audience. It held up quite well on its own accord in a theater setting though. The soundtrack was very well done; originally played live along with the film, in the version I saw the recording of the live arrangements still worked. Background murmurs and talking are heard throughout some of the quieter parts, but when it was meant to be silent, the film was completely silent. Two simultaneous 16mm films (as the piece is intended to be played) would have been much noisier than the utter silence on hand at the Tivoli. This silence was especially poignant when Werther traveled through Las Vegas. A city so bright and so loud was barren. The lights still flashed and showed, but without the weight of noise, it appeared surreal, dream-like. The almost omnipresence of one of the lights in Las Vegas, of a clown and his pinwheel light-up really reinforced this surrealistic scene.

    The ride through Las Vegas was uninterrupted as well, which is mentionable due to the rest of the film. Werther stopped in some small towns and other places, namely the land-art installations he visited. Allowing his freedom to slow down and extend, the possibilities granted by the bike were experientially evident. Vegas, however, was a place through which to get to the next stopping point. Time slowed down at the land installations, and Werther literally reflected upon that which was before him. Only to realize that it could only be temporary. The almost permanence of these installations reflected his temporal being. He could not ride forever. That unrequited love would never become mutual. So he had to return. Release the metaphor from himself and let it be just a bike. And he would be without his love. And without love, his life was not worth living.