#MondayMovies: Joseph Barglowski
joseph barglowski
For those of you who don’t know Joseph Barglowski, or Joey as I’ve always known him, he is one to watch. I may be biased because I’ve known him for many many many years (God, we’re old), but his films blow me away every time. The word I frequently use to describe his work is “ripe”; in the pedestrian and the mundane he will find the operatic, the sensual and the romantic.
He’s based in Brooklyn, I went to college in Upstate New York, and originally from central Connecticut, which has been a common backdrop in his work. “I find that this region epitomizes an American genericness, particularly in its landscape. It is hard to identify a quality that distinguishes the setting of Connecticut, apart from the cliched veneer of small-town-USA.”
He aptly describes CT as a “drive-through” state connecting the metropolises of New York and Boston to the rest of the Northeast. “The four-lane highways sprawling through most of its territory connect a number of small cities and towns, many of them in a state of disrepair ever since the fall of manufacturing industries.” This place, lacking personality and defining characteristics is the main inspiration for EXIT 9.
“In this film, I was attempting to convey the character’s romantic isolation through the anonymous landscape that she found herself in.”
Where to Watch
See what films inspired them below!
wanda
“I don’t think I watched all of Wanda until after I made EXIT 9, but I had seen this one scene of the character walking through a barren industrial landscape and her all-white costume creating a speck on the screen. This image was in my head while shooting, and I was pleased to find out after I finished EXIT 9 that Loden shot many scenes in Waterbury, Connecticut, one city over from where we filmed. It was interesting to see parallel emotional journeys unfold in the same region 45 years apart.”
Where to Watch
Buffalo ‘66
“I’m sure this movie is on many filmmaker’s list of inspirations. For me, it was the combination of brazen performances and moments of extreme sensitivity that made the environment all-too-real. I attempted to emulate this authenticity in EXIT 9 with a reliance on non-actors bringing their real life personalities to the screen.”
Where to Watch
river of grass
“Reichardt describes her film as a road movie without the road and crime movie without the crime. This idea of something missing spawned the narrative hook of EXIT 9 and has become a motif in my work. In River of Grass, the characters pass the time. The concept is simple but told in a specific and engaging way, which makes this film an utter classic in my book. It is ingrained in my creative process.”