“The film isn’t about you,” Joanna Arnow tells her parents at the beginning of 2013’s i hate myself :). “You’re secondary characters.” Her mother Barbara responds, “We know who the primary character is,” with a smile that’s half-loving, half-exasperated. Across a body of work that’s grown to include the Berlinale-awarded 2015 short Bad at Dancing, 2019’s follow-up Laying Out and now her first narrative feature, The Feeling That the Time For Doing Something Has Passed, Arnow has placed herself front and center in a variety of increasingly stylized modes. 

i hate myself :) was a documentary portrait of Arnow’s then-relationship with James B. Kepple, filmed in traditional verité-style over the course of a year as their partnership gave way to a messy dissolution. It’s oddly appropriate that Kepple—who spends much of i hate myself :) getting drunk, degrading his partner and spouting racist provocations—has made the unlikely decision to list that project on his LinkedIn, given that The Feeling is a movie that spends as much time on its protagonist’s corporate life as any other aspect of her daily routine while finding uneasy parallels between work and sex. 

The Feeling finds Arnow leaning futher into the increasing formalism of her short films. As Ann, Arnow is introduced in post-coital not-quite-repose with Allen (Scott Cohen), her considerably older dominant partner in a BDSM relationship that’s reached a decade without emotional intimacy intruding. Though Ann likes being told what to do sexually, her corporate job is demeaning in ways that are less gratifying; meanwhile, her parents (played by Arnow’s father David and mother Barbara Weiserbs) are baffled by their daughter. As her casual but still undesirably fraught relationship with Allen becomes less satisfactory, Ann goes on a number of dates that take her on a fuckboy tour of New York City. A date with Chris (Babak Tafti) is a kinder interaction than usual, and he’s not thrown by her requests for him to sexually dominate, but can their relationship grow? The Feeling doesn’t answer the question, instead looping back on itself for an ambiguous ending in melancholy accord with the title.

To interview Arnow, we asked Isabel Sandoval, another filmmaker who has cast herself in her own portraits of sexual lifestyles rarely seen in nuanced detail onscreen, including 2011’s Señorita and 2019’s Lingua Franca. Following its premiere at last year’s Directors’ Fortnight and a successful festival run, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed enters release from Magnolia Pictures on April 26.—Vadim Rizov

Sandoval: This is your debut feature. What was the process like going from a number of shorts to finally making your first feature? Did your creative process change or evolve in any way?

Arnow: I don’t think my creative process changed too much from the shorts, except sometimes there was less time to do quite as much as I wanted in terms of preparation. With the shorts, you can really get in there more.

Sandoval: How did the idea for The Feeling start? Do you remember?

Arnow: I’ve always been interested in exploring concise humor, and I got the idea to write many very short scenes that draw on personal experience. Once I started, I was very excited about them and wanted to keep going with it. I was very interested in the ways that people actually talk and the rhythms of conversation, and I wanted to explore that in the film.

Sandoval: Do you ever, when you’re starting your project and developing a script, look to other films or art for inspiration? I read that you don’t really look to other filmmakers for references or information. I know that you mentioned that you were reading a book by Carmen Maria Machado. 

Arnow: Yeah, the Carmen Maria Machado collection of short stories [Her Body and Other Parties] was definitely exciting for me. I just get ideas from different places—sometimes a feeling, or an actor I want to write for, or a line of dialogue that I hear someone say. And I find that once I start writing, new ideas occur, but they don’t until you start writing. So, I think it’s just finding that tone, topic or approach that excites me.

Sandoval: I’m interested in the nontraditional structure of the narrative, especially in terms of how we see the passage of time. Did that shape come through in the writing phase or emerge more as you were cutting the film?

Arnow: I was really interested in using short scenes and elliptical story structure to give an impressionistic sense of the protagonist’s experience. Going through our days, I feel like time can pass sometimes quickly or slowly, just depending on what’s going on in our lives. So, I was interested in using story structure to reflect that variation of experience, giving each section its own topography instead of formal rules. I wrote the film mostly in short scenes. The first draft was out of order; then, I structured them in the second draft with that kind of thinking in mind.

Sandoval: It is fascinating how The Feeling is pretty much bookended by the same scene of Ann and Allen having the same conversation about where Ann went to school. I think this is an interesting way of tackling audience expectations of a conventional character arc. In that specific scene, there is an implication that Ann ends up where she began.

Arnow: Yeah, I was very interested in subverting traditional narrative story structure and, specifically, traditional character progression, where someone starts out at point A, then is in a very clearly different point B by the end of the movie. I don’t feel like that’s actually true to how people live their lives, so I was interested in subverting that by creating a character arc where the progression is much smaller. It’s uneven. Maybe sometimes the arc moves forward, sometimes backward—not to imply teleological progression here, but just to say that people’s lives have their own shapes, and I don’t think they are reflected in traditional “hero’s journey” storytelling.

Sandoval: I don’t mean to reduce a film that is as prickly and spiky and complex as The Feeling, but what I got from it just based on the title itself, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed—there’s an implication of a kind of resignation and acceptance. I noticed this possibility of something real and genuine coming through encounters and exchanges with partners, our work and our family—encounters that feel outwardly transactional, mechanical or ritualistic, and seemingly devoid of real feeling—and how the character deals and grapples with that possibility through Chris. Or am I being too sentimental about it?

Arnow: I mean, I think that people have strong feelings about Chris and Allen watching this film. I personally don’t see it as a film about someone grappling with relationships, sexuality and self, and don’t necessarily see one type of relationship as having higher value than another. I feel like we always wrestle with all of these things and was hoping that that journey would be one that resonates with people.

Sandoval: I’m curious, since we both write, direct, edit and also act in our work: How much would you say the characters you write and play in your work are autobiographical and whether you refer to your characters as versions of yourself?

Arnow: All those films vary in their levels [of autobiography]. The Feeling I consider autofiction because while it’s not autobiographical, it does draw on personal experience. In addition to casting myself to play a version of myself, I also cast my own parents to play the parents in the film, and there’re some friends who play the friends. With all these things, I was hoping to tell the story with more specificity and give it more authenticity. It’s important to me to call it autofiction because it does have a lot of things that are verifiable about my life. Like, I was a clinical e-learning media specialist and I went to Wesleyan. So, I think it’s an important part of the fabric of the film. I did things like record sound that I could hear from my apartment to build into the sound design. I really wanted to create a rich fabric for the film that I hoped would connect more with people by placing the characters in a fleshed-out context.

Sandoval: Speaking of the creative elements, like the minimalist art direction, the sound design, the wide shots, especially for some of the scenes between Ann and Allen—how did your aesthetic come together?

Arnow: I see this as a comedy first and foremost. So, I was really interested in using a long-shot, long-take style to see the scenes play out in their absurd context. One of the interests for me in making this film was to see the comedy and beauty of everyday life situations. When you just step back and look at it from a distance to see things play out, it adds so much. In terms of the style, I wanted to have a static camera and avoid shallow focus and complete symmetry, mainly to kind of create a slightly uncomfortable, dissonant look that reflects, in some ways, the protagonist’s experience. Our wonderful cinematographer, Bart Cortwright, worked with me to find those slightly off compositions.

Sandoval: Let’s talk about the performance style.

Arnow: I’ve worked with deadpan humor in my own performance before. So, I was building on that style that I’ve developed in my past films. It was important to me to have a variety of actors and acting styles in this film. That includes both first-time actors and professional actors, mainly because I wanted to really create a complex mosaic portrait of this person’s life, and I think having a variety of acting styles was one part of that.

Sandoval: How was it working with someone like Scott Cohen, who’s done other work?

Arnow: Scott was wonderful to work with, a very generous collaborator and incredibly talented. We had a couple days rehearsing before the shoot, which was very helpful. He and other actors also knew about some of the autofictional inspirations for the film and characters. And we talked through character a lot and went over blocking.

Sandoval: I’m curious how the rehearsal or the blocking happens when you’re doing a scene that involves nudity. Do you prepare for it any differently?

Arnow: Yes, we definitely did a lot to make sure that we created a comfortable and safe environment for all the actors, including myself. Any scene that was an intimacy scene was rehearsed in advance and blocked out, and the blocking was discussed in advance of those rehearsals. We did a lot to make sure that everything was communicated, that we checked in about comfort levels throughout and that we followed all standard intimacy scene protocols.

Sandoval: How long did the post on the film take?

Arnow: July 2022 to April 2023. I edited it and was working on it a lot but also taking other jobs sometimes, as they came up.

Sandoval: I read that you’d done a few focus group screenings. How do you take up the feedback that you get from these screenings in terms of continuing to edit and revise the cut?

Arnow: I love doing rough-cut screenings. I was surprised to hear that this apparently is controversial and some people are against these kind of screenings, especially for a more independent-minded film. But I like them, mainly to get information about how people are seeing the film, what they’re taking away from it, how they’re reacting. I like to know what’s working and not working for them. Sometimes, the solutions proposed aren’t necessarily what I’m taking away from it, but it’s more hearing what might be a problem area and where I’m losing people. I just want to make sure it’s working.

Sandoval: I’m curious because you’re a filmmaker with a very strong and idiosyncratic vision. In the same way, my work has its own aesthetic. I’m kind of ambivalent about how to process people’s reactions to the film, about whether they get certain parts or whether they didn’t or whether I should make changes accordingly to make it more accessible to them. Now that The Feeling has been out, how have the audience’s reactions been and were they pretty much what you were expecting?

Arnow: I’m mainly happy that the humor seems to be playing well for people. And, yeah, I think it’s been somewhat consistent with things that I’ve heard from rough-cut screenings.

Sandoval: And what are some of the favorite things that you’ve read? Do you read the reviews?

Arnow: On Letterboxd, there is a very spirited thread about which songs from Les Mis people like the best. I feel very happy to see that the film has ignited some serious debate and is bringing together the fan community.

Sandoval: Speaking of that musical theater scene, is that autofiction? Is that you?

Arnow: I mean, I really wanted to have a lot of different elements in the film, including music and a sense of political background. So, I think I included both music and politics in the film for the same reason, of just wanting to create that full complex portrait. For example, in a lot of films about sexuality or relationships, there is no sense that the main character has any political opinions, unless that’s, like, her job. So, just having characters talk about politics or music, I just wanted to show a fuller portrait of character.

Sandoval: I thought that was a fascinating scene because it comes after the conversation about how Chris is not a fan of musical theater at all, especially Andrew Lloyd Webber’s work. Then, in the next scene, we have Ann essentially regaling him with a full-on performance.

Arnow: That is a Harry Potter song that I wrote myself in high school. So, I guess that speaks to your earlier question about interest in musicals.

Sandoval: Now that The Feeling is out and has been well received, are you going to pursue your other feature project that I read you were working on before, or is there a new project that you’re developing currently?

Arnow: Yeah, I have a couple of features in development, and I still might go back to Fucking Imaginary Friends. I’m proud of that and would be interested to make that, definitely.

Sandoval: With your shorts and first fiction feature now behind you, how do you think your sensibility evolved over these works? What do you notice has changed the most? What stayed the same, and how do you see this aesthetic or this style changing at least in the next project that you’re working on?

Arnow: I found it so exciting to work with sound design, and in this one maybe more than I have in my past films. I think because the film was non-traditionally structured, sound was really important in creating a rhythm that helped drive the narrative forward, creating stronger juxtapositions between certain scenes or having the sound be more similar between different scenes—really using it as punctuation of the deadpan comedy, giving each gesture and movement more weight and leaving the backgrounds slightly quieter than usual. Our sound designer and mixer, Eli Cohn, was a great collaborator in working with this kind of documentary approach that incorporated all these personal elements, such as sound from the neighbors. Writing with sound design in mind is something that I would be interested to continue with.

Sandoval: Besides the sound design, I noticed that there’s really not much of a score in the film. I think that’s missing with all your work.

Arnow: There’s no score. I feel like I’ve always been interested in sound design. Bad at Dancing used the flushing of the toilet to add to the comedy and punctuate the dialogue. I find that when the comedy is very minimalist, sometimes the score can make you not absorb it as much. It’s more exciting to me to find comedy from the sounds that are made from the gestures of the scene. When a yoga mat unrolls, hearing the sound of that is funny, but if you add some yoga music, it becomes less pronounced and is less humorous.