TRUST IN HAL HARTLEY
With a new movie out is it finally time for Gen X's most indie filmmaker?
The signs have been accumulating for more than a year.
The in-crowd millennials of The Drift wrote a squib on their Instagram about discovering Trust. Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers deployed “Theory of Achievement” in the New York Times to shame Gen X bros who had careened to the right. I even heard the filmmaker is blurbing a friend’s novel. Is the Hal Hartley revival finally afoot?
Yes and probably—ultimately—no. (It’s been tried before). But in case I’m wrong I want to get down what Hal Hartley was before it arrives and everyone has their own ideas. Such an exercise would be possible for other ’90s auteurs, of course. What did it mean to see Reservoir Dogs (1992) the week it opened or to see Rushmore (1998) before Wes Anderson became an adjective? But Hartley has managed to remain that most important thing to Gen Xers: a shibboleth. A secret handshake exchanged by those in on the bit. To persist as shibboleth is not easy. (Maybe Jim Jarmusch has succeeded…
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