I was looking forward to The Vast of Night. Preoccupied with the representation of sound in media, a film entirely about retro sound technology is something of great personal interest. Released widely, however, at the very beginning of the pandemic, it took me weeks to sit down and commit to watching the film. During this past year of isolation and heightened anxiety – propelled by the pandemic and other personal traumatic events – I have found it very difficult to watch anything at all. The inability to find consistent comfort in places I have always gone to in the past – film and television – has been a challenge and somewhat disheartening. Alone in my apartment for most of the year, all I had was technology to keep me connected, and sound, as it turns out, is the best company. The number of podcasts I listened to this year is unreasonable but friendly conversations in my ears drove out the loneliness. Sitting in silence has become near impossible, and I’m so grateful for those voices. The Vast of Night ultimately struck me beyond just being a film that utilizes sound in interesting ways but also as it encapsulates its importance in a year of isolation: connection over soundwaves, mutual fascination, and the undeniable power of friendship – especially in very strange times.
Andrew Patterson’s 2019 film is, on the surface, a Spielbergian-style science fiction film about a mysterious thing in the sky over a small New Mexico town in the 1950s; it is also set-up with a Twilight Zone-inspired framing device as if it is an episode in a sci-fi anthology series. What pushes the film beyond these familiar formulas is its focus on the relationship between its two main characters, established in the film’s opening sequence, a four-minute-long take, and how their relationship revolves around sound technology. These first scenes follow teen Fay (Sierra McCormick) as she walks from a basketball game at her high school gym to her part-time job as a switchboard operator. She is accompanied by recent grad and local radio DJ, Everett (Jake Horowitz), as he heads to work at the station. Fay just got a new high-tech tape recorder and enthusiastically wants Everett to show her how to use it. The camera slowly pans through the gym, then the parking lot, and onto empty streets, all while shadowing the pair. After hearing an unknown sound coming through the radio, Fay and Everett become enmeshed in the mystery of the object in the sky. While the film continues on to be a fairly straightforward UFO science-fiction story, it is Fay and Everett’s animated conversations that provide the film with a distinctive tone. The Vast of Night is profound in its affectionate, yet simple, depiction of sincere connection – grounded in an obsession with audio. The presentation of sound in The Vast of Night – as both dialogue and in the representation of sound technologies – has become a microcosm of my media consumption this past year and, more largely, reflects the affective nature of sound, especially when visuals become more limited.
It is worth noting that The Vast of Night does not suggest a romantic relationship between its two leads, or even much information about how or why they know each other, aside from it being a small town and their shared interests. They are eccentrics who aren’t alone, and The Vast of Night avoids the stereotypical depiction of A/V nerds who initially feel misunderstood or unaccepted. Neither Fay nor Everett is at all like Will Byers in Netflix’s Stranger Things, who uses song to reach out to friends and family from the parallel universe in which he finds himself trapped. Will’s specific choice of singing The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” is significant because it is a song that distinguishes him as an outsider. One friend calls it “that weird song he loves;” it is a further signal of difference. Fay and Everett have each other and that is inherent acceptance and reassurance right from the beginning of the film. There is such joy in Fay’s wide-eyed curiosity about audio technology and Everett’s gentle teasing yet genuine eagerness to share his knowledge. Additionally, their interest in audio technology allows them to make meaningful connections with other people in the town: through interviews, fielding calls on the switchboard and taking requests from the radio station. These first scenes, however, especially negate what could be an overpowering sense of nostalgia – despite the ‘50s sci-fi-inspired setting, the introduction of Fay and Everett’s friendship is completely grounded in an earnest portrayal of connection.
The opening scenes are somewhat cacophonous, beginning in a crowded high school gym, as students and the audience wait for the basketball game to start; the camera usually stays behind the characters, constantly moving, shooting in medium shot from a distance. Fay and Everett speak over each other, and it feels as if the audience is thrown into a space without much context as the locals keep repeating stories and anecdotes with slight changes. Something is wrong with the electricity in the gym, and Everett is pulled in to try to fix it, eventually running into Fay as they decide to walk together to their respective jobs.
As they move from the gym to the parking lot, extricating themselves from the hubbub of the event, Everett explains to Fay the ins and outs of interviewing using the recorder. In one shot the camera is placed behind a car windshield, slowly zooming closer towards Fay and Everett who are further away in medium shot. Everett encourages a nervous Fay to make her first recording, but the effect of having the camera so far away creates the feeling that we are overhearing a private conversation; we are most certainly bearing witness, but clandestinely. It is as if they could turn around and “catch” the camera watching at any moment. Fay and Everett continue to speak with locals who are parked outside the high school waiting for the game who all know Everett as the local DJ and Fay as the local switchboard operator. He boosts Fay’s confidence as she interviews the townspeople, calling her the “Queen of Cayuga” and “500-Watt Fay,” and she delights in hearing her voice played back. Though the crowds are thinning, the two are still engaged with those hanging out around the high school. The camera remains a distance away, peering at the two from behind cars.
As they become more isolated from the rest of the community, alone in the night, the camera in turn reacts to their more private conversation. It is still respectfully watching from a distance, but now travelling behind them on the street, low to the ground; their faces are mostly obscured, suggesting that the weight of this moment should rest solely on their conversation. There is a continued sense of spied-upon intimacy, as scenes are not set up in typical two shots. The scenes are lit by streetlights and car headlights, which sometimes blind the camera, obstructing the view of Fay and Everett entirely. Additionally, when the two stop moving, the camera slows, not wanting to interrupt their conversations or be seen. It is not dismissing the image entirely – it is interestingly shot, as the camera weaves towards and away from the two as they walk – but instead places the focus more directly on the conversation; it is not about where these two are or where they are going, but that they exist in this moment, sharing their dreams and ideas. The “creeping” camera emphasizes not only the audience’s encroachment but Fay and Everett’s own engrossment in their conversation – despite the feeling that something is following them, they wouldn’t even notice if there were.
Once into the streetlamp-lit night – where “cool DJ” Everett is no longer showing off for others – the conversation moves into Fay’s domain; she regales Everett with facts from interesting and prophetic scientific articles all while he records. One particularly striking anecdote she mentions is about “tiny T.V. telephones,” stating that everyone would have one on their person at all times, so if your friend did not answer, you would know they were dead. Told in a somewhat wonderous way, this hits quite differently in 2021, especially as we are tied to technology now more than ever as we become increasingly more isolated.
These scenes also present a gradual move into acousmatic sound – sound for which you cannot see the original source; in film, this is usually depicted as offscreen sound. The camera continues to shift away throughout this opening sequence, as Fay and Everett approach their jobs, both of which involve acousmatic sound: radio and telephone. Not being able to clearly see their faces throughout these scenes, too, creates a disconnect. We might as well be hearing them recorded on tape – or through the radio or a podcast. We are distanced from the two, bearing aural witness to their friendship, but visually detached. The audience is purposefully placed in a position of listening rather than fully seeing. Fay and Everett’s obsession with audio technology is manifested in the cinematography, as we are consistently kept at arm’s length from the two, shifting focus to their friendly exchange.
Despite my reliance on sound media this past year, The Vast of Night’s depiction of friendship has allowed me to reconsider that experience as not a rejection of visual media, but as a reworking of my relationship to cinema – it is still helping me cope, just in unique ways. What is so effective about Fay and Everett’s conversation and how it is shot, is that it is also similarly compelling in the podcasts I have listened to, only without the visual component entirely. I have recently begun re-listening to Matt Gourley’s charming podcast I Was There Too (2014-2018), where he interviews actors who had small roles in significant film scenes. There is a 2015 episode in which he speaks with Paul Rust about his experience on Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009). While it is clear the two have some professional connection, they don’t know each other all that well. As they talk not just about Rust’s career, but their mutual love of film, you can actually hear their friendship solidifying – Gourley opens the episode by mentioning that Rust is “one of my favorite guests so far.” It is both heartwarming and intimate, like observing a private moment between two people. I have followed this audible friendship since first listening to that episode six years ago now; Gourley and Rust currently have a long-running podcast, With Gourley and Rust (2018-present), where they chat for up to three hours about horror franchises, going film by film; they recently discussed the Alien franchise. They refer, despite the often violent content of the films that they are watching, to the podcast as “cozy listening” – just two friends who bonded over film, finding joy in taking a few hours to talk about their mutual obsession with slasher films.
Podcasts like With Gourley and Rust have the same effect as Fay and Everett’s friendship in The Vast of Night. I haven’t seen every Friday the 13th film in the franchise – I did, however, listen to all of the hours-long episodes of Gourley and Rust breaking down the twelve films. Long walks and isolated days went by faster listening to friends earnestly chat about their obsessions and discuss how much they look forward to sitting down to talk each week. I have realized I am the camera in The Vast of Night, bearing witness to these conversations, involved but not really there. I am given permission to second-handedly jump in on these audible friendships.
Even more pronounced this year, I am missing spaces of communal enjoyment – in Chicago, that’s longing for magic cinematic spaces like the Music Box Theatre – but podcasts like With Gourley and Rust, that celebrate a love of film through sincere friendship, do help to ease that yearning. The conversation scenes in The Vast of Night demonstrate that joy so completely. It is these primarily aural depictions of media obsession that drove my own coming back to cinema. In the middle of a pandemic, I started writing film reviews again after years away from film criticism finding community with other like-minded cinephiles. Community, even if it is only perceived through my headphones, is what helped push me back to those spaces, even if, for now, they are only virtual.
My media consumption has become more reliant on the aural than the visual, but perhaps not, as I originally thought, any less cinematic. In the end, it is unclear what happens to Fay and Everett, after the appearance of the mysterious UFO and their subsequent disappearance. All that is left is Fay’s recorder, itself an observer and archiver of their friendship. In the vast of night – or the depths of a pandemic – maybe the most meaningful thing is a voice, a connection to a friend to delight and obsess over shared passions, and isn’t that the greatest thing ever?
