GFF 2012: Reclaiming Mumblecore

Critics love to give films labels – I apologise on behalf of my reductive brethren – but more often than not these categorisations can be on-the-nose and quite useful. Is there a better phrase than 'torture porn' to describe the wave of grizzly horrors that proliferated in the mid-aughts? And how would critics be able to properly review any of Seth Rogen’s oeuvre without the word 'bromance'? As sub-genre titles go, however, 'mumblecore' is rather unfortunate. Critics aren’t to blame for this one though.

Coined by sound mixer Eric Masunaga while chatting to a journalist at the South By Southwest (SXSW) film festival about the movies he’d recently worked on (Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation), the name stuck and has become synonymous with the work of a group of American independent filmmakers working on minuscule budgets with a lo-fi aesthetic. Lynn Shelton, director of tonight’s opening gala, Your Sister’s Sister, is one of the sub-genre’s most talented practitioners. But the clumsy 'mumblecore' doesn’t really do justice to these low-key, and often fantastic, films.

First of all, the actors don’t mumble. Their dialogue tends to be semi-improvised, meaning mumblecore characters talk with the same elliptical inarticulateness to which we’re all prone. David Denby puts it nicely in his New Yorker essay Youthquake: “In the films I’ve seen, the sound is quite clear. It’s the emotions that mumble.” Given that the films tend to be coreless, in the sense that narratives follow a more lyrical structure in a style at odds with mainstream cinema’s rigid plotting, the second half of the moniker is just as dubious.

If we were to label Shelton’s previous film Humpday, the aforementioned bromance would actually be more apposite. A riotously funny comedy about two heterosexual men (one played by Your Sister’s Sister’s lead Mark Duplass) who dare themselves to have sex, it was that rarest of things: a crossover mumblecore hit. Its mainstream success is even more surprising given that it breaks that long-established Hollywood rule that the protagonists in buddy movies keep their obvious sexual desires under wraps – see Red River, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Top Gun, Point Break, and that peerless homoerotic romp Tango & Cash. (If you also happen to be a heterosexual male watching Humpday with a platonic male friend, the term 'torture porn' would also apply.)

The problem is, I can’t think of a phrase that would be an obvious replacement. These films are essentially romantic comedies with all the telephoned character clichés removed and all of life's prickly awkwardness brought into the mix. Unfortunately, 'awk-coms' just doesn’t have the right ring. So lets reclaim 'mumblecore', Glasgow! Lets shout the names of these small American indie wonders from the rooftops. But remember: enunciate.