I find flashbacks annoying. They impede narrative momentum, scramble
time frames, disrupt cause and effect. The worst, for me, are the jarring,
disjointed Blue Valentine variety in
which time jumps without notice. Those are the flashbacks that, as Anthony Lane
says, in his review of Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester
by the Sea, in this week’s issue, “take some getting used to.” Lane
describes them perfectly:
They’re not announced in any way. They don’t look different
from what’s happening now. They just cut right in, like a car pulling in front
of you, and you have to brake for a second and take stock. Near the start of
the film, for instance, Lee learns from a phone call that Joe has suffered
cardiac failure, in Manchester; by the time that Lee has driven from Boston to
the coast, his brother has died. Suddenly, we flick to Joe sitting up in bed,
in hospital, being given a diagnosis. The past is upon us, without ado, and we
have the curious sensation of watching a living person in the immediate
aftermath of his death. The is and the was are looped and tied together.
Lane isn’t irked by Lonergan’s use of flashback. He finds
meaning in it. He makes sense of Lonergan’s art. This is instructive. I must
learn to be more tolerant of flashbacks. Manchester
by the Sea will be a good test.
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