ASMR Avec Melville | Chase Padusniak

The ‘boring’ and the ‘interesting’ are more replaceable than we would like to admit. Intersubjectively speaking, this has a clear grain of truth. As a featured post from the Dull Men’s Club recently announced on my Facebook feed, some people are excited about developing byzantine ways to stir their sugar substitute into their coffee. Although I am not a licensed therapist, that behavior makes me want to ask about fathers and Greek mythology. However, this fungibility goes beyond preference. Presentation can enter us. Describe to me this man as he stirs his coffee; Show me why he cares, why his brain is so broken. Voila! Interest.

For example, safety demonstrations by flight attendants fascinate me. For reasons that probably have to do with what we now call “ASMR,” I find the rehearsed, precise movements soothing. But more than that, I love that it is simply observation. Nothing else is expected of me. I don’t need to explain what it all means; I don’t have to answer questions or actively listen. I am not obliged to drag my limbs through a half-hearted series of body movements. The flight attendants ask that I do nothing more than watch. Their disappearance from flights – the creeping dominance of in-flight video instructions – causes me great sadness. Another point for Team Luddite.

Jean-Pierre Melville Le Cercle Rouge (1970) hypnotized me in this way. The film is a procedural thriller, as if you were making the film Transformers’ films about an original mechanic god and the colossal, intricate parts and mindful movements he used to create the first car-samurai hybrids. And yet it is moving. A series of possible coincidences and twists in the cosmic fabric leads a team of convicted criminals and drunken cops to rob a jewelry store. We watch as the robbers scale the elegant facade and cut a smooth, round circle from a bathroom window. Melville keeps cutting back to the guard inside: did he hear anything? Should he continue reading his newspaper? What does it look like when thieves slowly lower their bags onto hard, noisy tiles? How suddenly do they have to rush the lonely night watchmen? And how can you best make it?

In one extended scene, we see a bull’s-eye, exhausted police officer, configuring his weapon and preparing for a demanding, precise shot. This is his only hope, a moment of redemption. He has to drill his homemade bullet into a small lock to deactivate the company’s security. If he fails, the sneaking will be for naught. Melville’s shots are long and static, allowing us to see the shooter’s hands as he connects the barrel to the stock and positions the scope. Now we see him aiming. Suddenly he pushes the tripod aside, the gun fires almost silently, and we wait to see if this process has redeemed him – and saved our other protagonists, moreover.

With this attention to seemingly boring details, Melville resembles his namesake. Ole Herman loved an excursion to whale parts and old masts with sea crust. With these neglected, almost clinically uninteresting parts he produced my favorite novel. With much the same thing, his French admirer has created something impossible: a moving story about small things done well.