On the Image

Today’s results are no less a disaster than those of eight years ago, but where there was confusion there is now clarity. The veil of uncertainty which then prompted a churn of claustrophobic struggles has been lifted, lending plain sight to the towering concerns on the horizon—climate preservation, human rights at home and abroad, public health and education—that will grow steadily larger with each expiring day. That feeling of being startled awake by crisis has been replaced by a dawning realization that the path we’ve been walking hasn’t taken us where we’d thought. Unable to retrace our steps and start over, we can only reassess our position and start to foster a healthy distrust of those who provided directions.

Plainly, the reelection of Donald Trump tells a straightforward story of backlash to a deeply unpopular incumbent, and of an ostensibly left-leaning political machine that would rather lose than sacrifice its particular Great Man narrative—a narrative behind which hides the uncomfortable, material dissonance of class interest within America’s big-tent coalition. This was not an insurmountable wave of reactionary sentiment; split-ticket voting was rampant as evidenced by senate results, and flipping only thousands of votes across a few swing states would have created a funhouse mirror version of 2016’s electoral / popular split—by no means an ideological mandate in either direction. A litany of nuance awaits any who wish to flesh out this high-concept outline, but I’m incapable of and uninterested in doing so.

Instead, I’ve been thinking about the feeling that’s lingered over the last several days, and some notes of emotional familiarity that I think I can trace back to a TV show, of all things.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG came and went with less fanfare than you might expect for a director of his cache. A straight-to-Prime-Video limited series, the reputation it managed to carve into its material of viewer attention was that of Slow… of Plodding. Striking, yes, and Meticulous, but nonetheless a masturbatory project that asked more of its viewer than it was ever willing to reciprocate.

I watched the show in the summer of 2019, episodic viewings dispersed over a couple of months following its release. A small coterie of fans quickly came to label it as one of the defining works of The Trump Era, and, though I found that proposition compelling, I didn’t wholly agree. For one, it was too placid and clear-eyed about its thematic material. It resonated, but it felt like a work made about a time rather than one that is inextricably of a time, a hyper-crafted, sheltered product forged amid a period of sustained chaos. It was too clinical where there should have been passion—too numb to what should be infuriating.

My miscalculation was born of myopia, and subsequent rewatches of the show would reveal that the primary thing missing from my evaluation was time. You see, this wasn’t a show of, about, or for Donald Trump’s first term, nor is it about his second. Rather, its interests are existential. An epic poem conveyed through borderline-hieroglyphic frames, the show’s slow roll provides cover for its sprawl, granting an array of wretched characters glimmers of awareness and allowing them to philosophize about their place in a fallen world before casting them back into its sands.

Refn wasn’t lacking in anger or passion when developing this work; he was just well-along the road, grappling with the same reactionary psyche that’s fascinated him throughout his filmography. You see bright neon strains of it from the outset, and you watch as they inhabit men who dare defiance, coursing through conquered roads and hallways, occasionally clashing in a gruesome flare, but often simply existing in the single way they know. When control is its own end, any outcome is acceptable, any consequence palatable, but relinquishment.

It’s these overtones of the show that continue to resonate with me more than any specific names, places, or arcs. I think for now I’m looking forward to revisiting its ten episodes and just sitting with something so finely and considerately rendered about the miasma of right-wing politic primed to be disgorged into the world, ultimately enabled by a gerontocracy that won’t be around to reckon with the catastrophic tail-end of the mess.

TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG for them. Not so for everyone else.