America, the Discontent: Hal Hartley’s Dated Composite Trust (1990) and the Cheap Renewal of the American Independent
Landen Fulton
Camouflaged by cheap buzzwords like “arthouse” and “indie,” A24 and Neon have jury-rigged the theater (and subsequently the award season) with 21st-century pseudo-progressive cinema tailored to palatably satiate popular audiences weary of the well-overdone, formulaic Hollywood blockbuster. Yet, as nauseatingly safe as these films may be, the recent critical rise and renewal of the (alleged) American independent can only be traced back to the genre’s Cold War roots and its satirically nihilistic portrayal of post-conservative Americana. In Hal Hartley’s Trust (1990), the iconic caricatures and motifs of the 90s American arthouse are preserved in a surprisingly ineffective time capsule where a hyper-stylized, hyper-genred narrative produces nothing but a lifeless period piece of 90s ideals. Although Hartley debuted alongside the likes of Linklater, Hanes, Araki, Jarmusch, and the class of genre-defining American filmmakers, his filmography remains relatively (perhaps appropriately) forgotten.
Hartley’s sophomore feature is riddled with 90s tropes so explicit that it dilutes itself to a comedic exaggeration of its own movement and remains today only a repository of post-Reagan American discontent. Trust’s relatively simplistic narrative follows naive high school dropout Maria Coughlin (Adrienne Shelly), who, after vowing to marry the quarterback who knocked her up, finds herself lost and estranged from her family. On the streets, she meets Matthew Slaughter (Martin Donovan) — a misunderstood, supposedly smart, and prone-to-violence electronic repairman. Bonded over the shared experience of domestic violence and the general melancholic directionless affect plagued upon cinematic portrayals of youth both now and then, Maria and Matthew begin an all too expected romance. Together, the two face the growing pains of adulthood and its uncertainty. Against the approval of their troubled middle-class parents, they decide to get married and keep the baby.
Trust is defined by sterile, deadpan characterizations of familiar archetypes. Preeminent French director Robert Bresson relegated the contemporary nuances of performance to a mere tool for narrative progression. His prominently non-professional actors (whom he famously coined his “models”) were cold, undramatic, and delivered their lines with little to no inflection. Similarly, Hartley effectively carries on this vein of dramatic minimalism, as his characters’ blank deliveries never seem to match their emotional or situational intensities. Maria and Matthew remained poised and impenetrably distant throughout the duration of a tumultuous script. The inexpressive nature of Hartley’s characters may offer room for an ambiguous interpretation, but concurrently mimics the existential dread that independent directors love to impose upon both young American characters and audiences who cannot grapple with their own alleged freedom. Consequently, their outward lack of depth successfully prompts audiences to fill in the gaps with the preceding reigning 90s stereotypes and a projection of personal experience in hometown USA.
Yet, even as uncomfortably familiar archetypes and straight-faced portrayals muddy diegetic transparency, Hartley’s Bressonian contribution to American independent cinema is counterbalanced by his accompanying artifice. The film’s consistently over-saturated blue hues attempt to stylistically compensate for the static performances and visually establish the plot’s pensive tone. Unlike Bresson’s New Wave, Trust is not driven by dialogue or realism. Melodramatically bleak representations of conventional locations — high schools, gas stations, and the uninvitingly barren suburban homes — stain the American experience with Hartley’s somber affliction.
There is no precise stylistic code within the American independent movement, but Hartley follows the techniques of his contemporaries to bring the cinematic atmosphere to the foreground of plot progression and any form of social commentary. Yet, his execution feels entirely less authentic. This hopeless perspective on both the coming of age and rom-com is visually inescapable, as if a composite, satirical portrayal of all low-budget, arthouse representations. A counterfeit of its otherwise comparable 90s contemporaries, Trust’s stylized artifice and blatantly outdated cinematic atmosphere have turned it into an increasingly noticeable outlier.
By the third act, the couple unsuccessfully tries American conformity. Maria tests the waters of blue-collar work, and Matthew attempts to succumb to corporate hierarchy. He begs his former engineering company to rehire him now that his impending family needs the stability of income and benefits. As a result of the classic capitalist drive toward job security, Maria expresses her unhappiness with how boring it’s made Matthew. Unsurprisingly, he ultimately quits his job after the company demands that he blindly sacrifice his morals for labor. The 90s were the peak of media’s dismissal of the nine-to-five, but over 30 years later, this sentiment seems incredibly dated. The monotony of an office job and its need for moral flexibility may still resonate with contemporary audiences, but Trust’s portrayal fails to capture any nuance or originality from the capitalist American landscape today. As a result, the frivolousness of a trope rooted in faux rebellion can only be viewed today as an ironic champagne problem, exclusive to late twentieth-century complaints.
The nuclear family, the high school full of directionless teens, their fear of corporate complacency, and the incessant need for an escape — the hallmarks of popular culture and American independent film’s response are summarized and oversimplified within Hartley’s cinematic parody. Trust recycles the melancholic atmosphere of a conservative era America to communicate a strikingly inauthentic bleak representation of it. Hartley disavows Stillman’s sarcastic wit, Linklater’s romanticism, Jarmusch’s post-punk cool, and Araki’s exaggerated comedy to produce an uncanny composite of dated ideals and filmic stereotype. Almost comparable to today’s dominant indie cinema, his work is nothing but a simulacrum of American independent film and its accompanying culture. Perhaps A24 and Neon’s similar reproduction of the American independents’ early establishments will age just as Trust — a tacky, condensed imitation of contemporary tropes and ideals, hidden under the guise of independence.