WHITE NOISE

US, 2022, 136 minutes, Colour.

Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, May Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Sam Nivola, Henry Moore, Dean Moore, Bill Camp, Jodi Turner Smith, Andre L. Benjamin, Barbara Sukowa.

Directed by Noah Baumbach.

White Noise is a film version of the award-winning novel by Don DeLillo. It is a portrait of an American world of the 1980s when the novel was published.

The film is quite demanding in its way, its range of characters, the succession of chapters, episodes, the emphasis on dialogue. (For those interested in comparisons with the original novel, the Wikipedia entry on the novel is most informative, the reader realising that the screenplay stays very close to the structure of the novel, reproduces many episodes explicitly, the drawing of the characters.)

The film was written and directed by Noah Baumbach who made a number of idiosyncratic, small dramas and comedies, from the early 2000’s – The Squid and the World, Frances Ha, Marriage Story.

There is a cinematic emphasis and perspective in the novel as well is in the film itself, an opening lecture about car crashes on screen, delivered by Murray (Don Cheadle), also introducing the world of academia and the central character, Jack, played with complexity by Adam Driver. Jack’s academic expertise is on Hitler – leading to an amusing sequence where Murray and Jack entertain and challenge their class, an interactive performance about Elvis and Hitler.

Jack is married, has been several times, currently to Babette (Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach’s partner and star of many of his films). There is a certain fragility about her character, with some comment on America’s reliance on medication, obtaining medication, and consequences.

Central to the plot is the dramatic episode of a petrol tank driver, careless, eventually crashing into a goods train with a spectacular disaster and fireball (illustrating what Murray said about accidents on screen). With the fireball and a storm, the authorities impose evacuation, Jack initially unwilling, then the family hurrying, lines and lines of traffic making towards the refuge centre, Jack getting out of the car to refill, then interrogated by the authorities at the centre, indicating that he could have been contaminated. This leads to something of a preoccupation with death. And, the realisation that the authorities are taken advantage of the fireball and storm to do a disaster evacuation exercise!

The latter part of the film has many sombre moments, Babette and her dependence on drugs, Jack investigating the source, finding the dealer, the dealer and his hold over Babette, Jack influenced by Murray’s conversation about sometimes it being necessary to kill someone, Jack with a gun, the confrontation, Babette arriving, the shooting. Even more bizarre is a final episode where Jack and Babette take the dealer to an emergency hospital – which is run by German nuns, severe in their manner, the Superior pragmatic in her selection of beliefs and her faith.

The film runs for 2 ¼ hours, has the main five chapters, ranges over the lives of middle Americans, relationships and family, the world of academia with its touch of the phony and the pretentious, American dependence on medication, guns and violence.

There is an extraordinary final credits’ sequence, more than five minutes, a choreographed shopping routine to music and a well-stocked supermarket, with a big cast, customers, checkout personnel… (The supermarket constructed for the film, stock with brands from the period, something of a tribute to the musicals of the past.)

1. The title? The background noises of our lives? The influence of these noises? An American interpretation? The 1980s?
2. The status of the novel by Don DeLillo? In the US? Worldwide? Considered a classic? A screen adaptation, keeping very close to the original novel, the sections, the characters, the interactions, much of the dialogue?
3. The work of the director, his personal films, perspectives on American life?
4. The structure of the film, the various sections, the focus on waves and radiation, the airborne toxic event, the particular drug, Dylorama…?
5. The importance of the visuals, lively, colourful, the world of academia, the American homes, the disaster, the evacuations and camps, the more personal drama at home with the drugs, the confrontation with the dealer? The musical score, songs of the period?
6. The importance of words, conversations, academic, serious and pretentious, ordinary interaction words?
7. The opening atmosphere, Murray and his lecture about vehicle crashes in cinema, his ideas, contradictory, the focus, the danger, glorification…? And his later theories about the death of Elvis Presley? And, the repartee lecture with Jack and comparisons between Elvis and Hitler? Murray and his continued support of Jack?
8. Jack as the focus of the film, age, experience, academic, expertise on Hitler, his lectures, the response of the students? His preoccupation with Hitler throughout the story? Jack and Babette, the number of marriages, the children from different wives, the family together? At home, the conversations, arguments, differing points of view? The personalities of each of the children? Heinrich? The daughters, often antagonism? The youngest? Babette, her devotion to Jack, yet her concerns, health?
9. The drama of the disaster, the truck driver, explosives, careless, the long goods train, the buildup, the aerial shots, the eventual crash, explosion, fireball, the cloud in the sky, menacing, thunder and lightning?
10. Audience response at this stage to this perspective on America, Middle America, academia, family, seriousness, pretensions? And the atmosphere of the emphasis on crashes?
11. The airborne disaster, Jack and his nonchalance, not taking it seriously, Babette’s response, supporting Jack, the reaction of the children? The attention given to the drive, the conversations and variety of reactions, the children, emotions? The news that they had to evacuate? Packing, in the car, the long lines of traffic, trapped? Information? To go to the camp? Needing gas, going to the station, filling up, Jack’s exposure, not leaving any money, resuming the queue?
12. The crowds the camp, regulations, the authorities, signing in, the young official, Jack and his possibility of being contaminated, out of the car to get the gas?
13. The emphasis on death and dying, Babette and her health, tablets? Jack’s puzzle about the tablets? Their being hidden in the house? Jack discovering them? His own preoccupation with death, the exposure? Going to the doctor, prognoses, reactions?
14. The discussion with Murray about the possibility of killing someone and its effect?
15. The disaster, the simulation, taking advantage to test out disaster procedures?
16. The focus on the drugs, American preoccupation with drugs, health? Jack and his discussion with the children, confronting Babette, her revelation about the dealer, Jack finding the advertisement, Babette’s story of the sexual encounter with the dealer?
17. Jack, tracking down the dealer, confronting him, the gun, the dealer and his talking, issues of death and dying, the violence? Babette arriving, saying that men were violent and killers? Jack and his being injured? The decision about the dealer’s body, dragging it out of the motel, into the car, getting rid of the body?
18. The decision to take the dealer to the emergency, the irony of English and German, the German nuns, the old habits, the severity of the superior, the treatment of the victim, Jack and his discussion with the nun, issues of faith and belief, the nun’s scepticism, the wider repercussions of people’s belief, non-belief, ridding the world of superstition and falls religion?
19. The cumulative effect of this experience of Americana, the American family, academia, family life, health and cures, disasters and responses, religion?