The Midnight Gospel

[ianungstad]

The Midnight Gospel from the creator of Adventure Time is getting some serious acclaim ahead of it's debut on Netflix this Friday.

[therewillbeblus]

The Midnight Gospel from the creator of Adventure Time is getting some serious acclaim ahead of it's debut on Netflix this Friday.

The trailer for it looks like the best thing ever.

[therewillbeblus]

The Midnight Gospel

I feel strange with this labeled under the umbrella of TV despite its form being fragmented as such in episodes on Netflix, as it’s more of a long film in progression and a sense of finality of a whole chapter. From the minds of Pendleton Ward and Duncan Trussell this looked wild but I wasn’t prepared for the depths this visual podcast traversed, which plays like a warped version of Waking Life. The juxtaposition between really significant conversations incorporating differing perspectives and unique observational commentary on universal shades of nature verbally overlapping with absurd visual content and silly gags in imaginative adventures is what might happen if Godard took hallucinogens and filmed a modern speed-dating version of My Dinner with Andre. At other times this plays like a less restrained Adventure Time, as if that show’s pure imagination wasn’t already free enough. There is so much wild creativity mingling with the exact kind of philosophical conversations I love, crave, and need in my life, and a celebration on the individuality of expression that becomes incredibly therapeutic. At times this is an essay film that strokes my philosophical spot of celestial passion in the perfect way, but also progresses as layered unrelated narratives of contrasting tones using diverse sensory modalities and lands in a crescendo of pure emotion as everything does and should.

The series is episodic in nature but has a cumulative goal, which builds to what seems like a detour

SpoilerShow

in the sixth episode where Clancy breaks from focusing on the conceptual escapist fleeting exchanges and needs to turn outward to his actual life and inward to his own issues, authentically without as safely detached cathartic results. The reveal of the idea of acceptance being tangible in thought but not practice is enlightening and validating even without inspiring expected growth. It’s the worst episode but by design, contrasted with the others it meditates on how truly tedious that challenge can appear, and kicks off the final two which delve deeper into philosophical and emotional core ideas that are more corporeal linked to personalized processing for Clancy.

The collage of visuals matches the melting pot of ideas in a very exciting wild projection that feels like a new form of art. I don’t know, I could talk about specific episodes and how they each manifest in avenues that are touching, hilarious, smart, silly, personal to me and objectively genius, but instead you should just watch it. This is one of the best films of the year, for those who want to, or can, go to the bold places the film takes us. For me it’s as in-step with my own philosophy as any work I’ve seen to almost frightening levels, but words- my words cannot convey what these guys do with theirs projected into visual poetry that can only be described as cosmic existential sublime.

[Murdoch]

I've watched a few episodes of the Midnight Gospel and I've enjoyed it, but it's really something I can only take one episode at a time (which isn't a bad thing). It's reminiscent of Waking Life in its animated conversations where the participants ruminate on spirituality. Trussell is great, a captive audience for each of his interviewees as they discuss their views on marijuana, Christianity, et al., and I like that each episode focuses on one topic instead of jumping around. I can certainly see how these conversations were pulled from a podcast, and the surrounding animation is often just Ward's freewheeling surrealism as a backdrop, letting the conversation speak for itself while filling the frame with beautiful noise.

Those coming in seeking another Adventure Time will be disappointed, as there is neither a story nor discernible characters to be found. But it's a great way to spend a late night half-hour.

[therewillbeblus]

I'll just port over my writeup from last night that I put in the "Films" list if it's going to be discussed in the TV thread. While I agree that it's episodic (obviously) I do think that it builds to an aggregate that sneaks up on you, especially if you consider all the parts as easy conversations that are conceptually secure until they threaten his/our personal vulnerabilities. The movement of conversation when staggering the ideas' proximity in orbit to one's sensitive psyche has a kind of abstractly linear trajectory, and in that sense I view it as a film, but I'd rather discuss it in one place!

(MOD EDIT: Quoted text removed after thread split)

[Murdoch]

The last episode, in which Trussell speaks with his late mother about mortality and facing death while she and he age, absolutely destroyed me, making me reminisce about Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day in its honest yet devastating exploration of the nature of life and existence. I agree now, having seen the whole arc, that there is a trajectory and overriding theme that ties each episode together, one probing into our need to understand existence and how other people and the world function. It's a series I already want to rewatch having just finished the finale several minutes ago, now more receptive to its aesthetic having digested the whole.

[therewillbeblus]

Couldn’t agree more. It’s a trick in the episodic nature until near the end (that sixth episode detour) when the mirror is shoved in our face, not manipulatively but in the spirit of the show to further contemplate whether these vulnerable conversations are actually safer than we think unless we apply them to our own individual pain. The philosophy that served as a pleasurable medium for self-gratification becomes a modality of therapy. Nobody has seemed to validate this before (sure there is ‘existential therapy’ but it’s not the same and not really taught or practiced) and it aligns so deeply with my own thought process and beliefs I want to cry just thinking about it. This is one of those occasions where because of the ending to a film, it becomes one of the best of the year.

[swo17]

This has apparently been non-renewed, and it can't go elsewhere because Netflix owns the rights.

In my mind there's one more season but the sentient glass "deciding" cube they keep in their catacombs vibrated 'No more." And it's hard to argue with a cube.

We support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with; we program for a diversity of audiences and tastes; and we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.

Er, wait, that was about something else

[Never Cursed]

They canned their entire 2D animation division after the most recent quarterly, so this sadly doesn't surprise me. Peruse this Variety article if you want to feel bad about the other stuff that wing of Netflix was working on (an Ava DuVernay YA series, an adaptation of Antiracist Baby), as well as what 3D animation projects remain (Kung Fu Panda and Jurassic World spinoffs)

[therewillbeblus]

Definitely a bummer. Although The Midnight Gospel seemed like a self-contained miniseries to me, I’m definitely curious for what else could’ve been in store. One of Netflix’s greatest treasures, for those still in the dark