Many of us are familiar—to varying degrees—with the following terms regarding modern entertainment: digital media, digital filming, Youtube, Vine, GIF, Buzzfeed, Netflix, web series, reality television, Facebook, Tent-poles, Sequels, iPhones, iPads.
All of these terms are reflections of the way in which the Internet age has pushed visual entertainment to new places. Films are now created utilizing new forms of presentation with a new language of cultural exchange—a language defined by perpetual interconnectedness.
It seems, however, that this Internet Age hasn’t quite found a film that truly speaks to the way new media makes us feel. Perhaps the closest example would be David Fincher’s “The Social Network” (2010), the acclaimed chronicle of the creation of Facebook.
However, while the subject matter of David Fincher’s film may be concerned with technological advancements of our time, the overall look, narrative construction and atmosphere of the film is not radically different than any courtroom drama or historical biopic. (I happen to believe Fincher’s film is a direct heir to “Citizen Kane,” but that’s another article altogether.)
Will the lines of the digital world and the cinematic art form ever truly collide? Or will we continually use old forms of cinematic storytelling to reflect new forms of visual information? The answer seems to have come in the form of the student film “Noah” recently debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. This 17-minute short attempts to create a visual experience that reflects one’s use of digital technology, specifically through the computer. “Noah” takes place entirely on a college student’s laptop, and tells the tale of the destruction of a relationship via social media.
To give you a better sense of what “Noah” looks like, let’s digress for a moment and skip over to the world of commercials. Can you recall those Google Life commercials that created mini-narratives through a series of search inquiries, all from the perspective of a computer screen? One such commercial entitled “Parisian Love” told the story of an American abroad in Paris who falls in love and marries a woman he meets, all through a variety of Google searches. Another, “Jess Time,” followed a young college freshmen keeping in touch with her widowed father over Skype.
“Noah” acts as an extended combination of these two methods of Internet activity, adopting an identical visual approach. It begins with the titular character logging onto his computer, and with rapid speed opening a series of tabs (among them: Facebook, Skype, and pornography). A Skype conversation begins and abruptly ends between Noah and his girlfriend, leading him to believe she is on the verge of breaking up with him. He begins to look for clues to corroborate his fears. He questions ‘likes’ on specific photos, recent newsfeed activity, a change in profile picture, etc.
I won’t give every last detail, but inevitably, Noah goes far enough to end his relationship. In the second half of the film, we encounter a broken, wounded Noah, months later as he scours the Internet to find some new connection.
The entire film is—in a sense—one extended point-of-view shot. But instead of allowing this viewpoint to go beyond the screen and look around the room he is sitting in, we’re trapped as an audience in his digital life much in the same way Noah feels constricted by the way his personal life is defined by what he encounters on the Internet.
Perhaps one of the more interesting elements of the film is how much can be understood from simply watching what Noah does not do. For example, it becomes riveting watching his cursor hover over potential messages; we watch decisions being made without even watching his face. But we do see Noah’s face several times, notably during his Skype conversation. Thus, Noah has the ability to appear in his own point-of-view shot, potentially reflecting a kind of vanity that the Internet has inspired in all of us.
Another time we see Noah’s face is when he visits Chatroulette late in the film. Chatroulette—which is by now certainly an antiquated social medium but amusing nonetheless—serves as a rather blatant reminder of the impulse to connect with others and the conflicting desire to remain anonymous.
Eventually, after a slew of male genitalia, Noah meets a kind young girl who acts as an idealistic vagrant of the digital landscape. This stranger expresses her malcontent with the digital world and also with the idea of the deceased living on through the Internet. She notes how it’s become commonplace to “like” posts regardless of our actual feelings towards them. She seems happy to enjoy a chance encounter and leave, without needing to “friend” or keep in touch with every person she meets. Noah nods in agreement, yet still desperately attempts to get her contact information, but unfortunately for him, she vanishes and he’s left lonely once again.
The ending of the film mirrors the ending of “The Social Network” in that it shows an individual who is extremely proud of his digital self yet winds up feeling remorseful when that same digital world prevents him from making a meaningful connection.
Because the computer technology is always in a constant state of flux, a work like “Noah” will be inevitably dated. But I hope it will act as a cultural touchstone of this very particular moment in our society’s relationship with technology. That is not to say that I feel all cinema should attempt to emulate “Noah”—it’s a rather exhausting and suffocating 17 minutes. I believe films should always seek to be expansive and continue to distort our perception of reality as much as they attempt to mirror it. All I seek to point out is that this short student film has achieved a great accomplishment in capturing a sensation of our lives previously unexplored in narrative film.
“Noah” was directed by Walter Woodman and Patrick Cederberg and can be found on YouTube and on the Toronto International Film Festival website.