People watching is one of my favorite things to do. Whether I’m perched up at my favorite bar, visiting a new place, or just trying to pass the time, it’s an incredible wellspring of inspiration, understanding, and humor. There’s also a sense of superiority in surveillance — maybe because you’re the only one privy to all of the patterns and/or paradoxes arising. The most memorable moments are shocking, but I’d argue the best are the ironic ones. Irony reveals the comedy of life’s everyday contradictions, the sublime humor of inadvertently incorrect titles, and the absurdism of unawareness. I may be partial, but the best place to experience this is in New York City. A single sitting can showcase every type of person from every walk of life and every corner of the world. Captured with precision and playfulness, this week’s Staff Pick Premiere utilizes visual gags, physical humor, esoteric references, and subtle reveals to recreate a series of the most iconic, ironic street scenes glimpsed in big cities. Culled from decades of New York living, filmmaker Amy Nicholson whisks us through a hilarious highlight reel of her favorite ironic moments in “Irony.”
The concept of irony traffics in two very different realms: it’s a highly respected form of humor, but can also be seen negatively, as an armor against sentimentality and vulnerability. While there are darker elements to some of the vignettes, Nicholson chose her subjects carefully, creating a pleasant and oftentimes hysterical jaunt through the city. “I wanted to create a short film that felt like going out for a walk and catching some little odd bits of life out of the corner of your eye,” she explains. “Kind of like the way I discovered them.” Each ironic idea was an event or amalgamation of events that Nicholson witnessed directly. Many of the ideas she developed while riding her bike around the city, spotting wildly dressed people, overhearing bizarre conversations, and witnessing a car wreck. “I have almost been mowed down by a wide variety of vehicles I consider pretty ironic: traffic cops, Access-A-Ride vans, ambulances, a front-end loader, and a truck full of port-o-potties,” she says. “So I thought, ‘hmmmm…run over by a hearse.’”
For such a fun and breezy film, the story behind the scenes was quite the opposite. Isn’t that ironic? Locations for the film put the crew smack dab in the middle of Times Square, busy streets, bumpy subways, and problematic weather conditions. Nicholson claims, “It could only have been more difficult if I added some cats.” But the hard work paid off because every vignette they went out to make they got right. “No one was more surprised than me,” Nicholson jokes. Each sequence feels like something you’ve seen yourself and chuckled about, but the story never went further than your friends and relatives. Here, however, placed one after another, the stories of hypocrisies and defects in our society form a sort of quiet, comedic opera, culminating with Dionne Warwick’s song “Walk on By.” The film could’ve been hours long, but Nicholson was strict that it be short and straightforward. She wanted to capture the odd bits of real life. “It’s such a cliche to say life is funnny, but it’s so true,” she says. “Maybe that’s my way of seeing it as not boring.” And Nicholson’s life is anything but boring. If you enjoyed this short, you should rush over to her Vimeo page and check out her other shorts “Pickle” and “Beauty School,” as well as her two documentary features Muskrat Lovely and Zipper: Coney Island’s Last Wild Ride.
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