Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch American Honey
2016 · Andrea Arnold · American Honey on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 3 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Notice the frame is nearly square, not wide. (camera)
Ryan shoots a road movie in Academy ratio on 35mm. The width is gone, so America arrives in pieces. A sunset through a windshield, light on an arm, an insect at the edge.
Payoff: The prosperity Star is selling her way toward is never in the shot with her. In the reading: out-of-field-absolute. What this frame can never contain is what the reading calls an absolute out-of-field, a beyond no pan could reach.
Listen for where each song is coming from. (sound)
There is no score. Every track plays off a phone, a car stereo, or somebody's mouth. When the crew sings along in the van, the music is an object in the room with them.
Payoff: The bodies have to meet the music instead of being told by it how to feel. In the reading: movement of world. When the song gets bigger than the body and starts carrying it, that is what the reading calls movement of world.
Watch how Star changes at each front door. (performance)
She rearranges her face and her story for whoever opens up. In an oil worker's kitchen she is one thing. In a wealthy suburban living room she becomes another.
Payoff: Every doorstep sets out an American class position, and Star's posture is where you can read it. In the reading: the gest. A posture that exposes a social relation is what the reading calls a gest.
Notice how long scenes run past the point. (cutting)
Joe Bini holds. Hands out a car window, a field going by, a stretch of highway with nothing advancing. The film keeps handing you time where a tighter cut would move on.
Payoff: The subject is experience rather than incident, so those held minutes are where the film puts its weight.
Watch for insects, dogs, and weather at the edges. (setting)
Arnold keeps cutting away to creatures and open country that have no business in the plot. A moth on a hand, a stray dog, wind moving through a field.
Payoff: The world keeps going regardless of the hustle, and those cutaways are where Star's inner life is kept.
The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch the edges of the frame. What Star is chasing is always just outside it, arriving in pieces.