Kent and Wonder discuss the non-fiction short, Bob’s Funeral, a funny and touching story of two family funerals told in first-person by filmmaker, Jack Dunphy. Emerging themes include generational humor, generational trauma, the way that humor grant us distance which grants us contemplation, and the finality of death as the ultimate reality check. Astrologically these themes correlate with Saturn, and the 4th and 8th houses.
Distribution: More info
Director: Jack Dunphy
Run Time: 19 minutes
Artist Statement:
Music Credit: spacedust by airtone
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:13.479] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye. Wonder Bright: And I'm Wonder Bright. Kent Bye: And welcome to the Story All the Way Down podcast, where we're breaking down the archetypal dynamics of films from Sundance 2024. And this is the sixth of six of our section on Family, Land, and Ancestors. And today we're going to be breaking down the short film called Bob's Funeral, which actually won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Shorts at Sundance this year. So this is a short by Jack Dunphy. And yeah, as of right now, there's no distribution that's been announced for.
[00:00:45.348] Wonder Bright: And I also don't think we have, like, a real synopsis. I have one line in front of me. Should I read it? Kent Bye: Oh, yeah, go ahead. Wonder Bright: Searching for the root of generational trauma, the director takes a camera into his estranged grandfather's funeral.
[00:01:01.266] Kent Bye: Yeah, so this was a film where I actually was really looking forward to it because the artist statement from Jack Dunphy is really- It was hilarious. It was amazing, yeah. We'll try to link it here in the description so you can go watch it because, yeah, there's this film where he's essentially taking a camera to his father's funeral, and then you end up learning a lot about his family. This is a section on Family, Land, and Ancestors, and so this is a film that's really reflecting on families. Funerals are actually a time when a lot of the family comes together and an opportunity to start to ask questions or provoke. And so I think in the film, Jack says something along the lines of, suddenly when he has a camera in front of him, he turns into this more objective journalist, or at least someone who's willing to kind of ask these deep piercing questions. The overall tone of the film has got a very humorous tone. There's a lot of jokes, or moments of laughter, but he's got this other aesthetic where he's kind of doing this gonzo journalism type of stuff at a funeral, but also you're learning more about the dynamics between he and his father and his father's father with these kind of, like, paper cutout puppets that he's using to kind of animate some of these different sequences that he's talking about. So you're kind of jumping back and forth between him telling these stories and seeing these animated cartoons with these paper cutout animations and then cutting back to these documentary moments where he's interacting with his family. So yeah, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on the piece.
[00:02:35.902] Wonder Bright: I'm really concerned that this podcast is going to be longer than the film. (laughs) And also that it won't do justice to it because it's going to be, like, we're trying to explain a joke and of course you can't explain a joke. The whole point about a joke is you've got to just experience it. It's such a sweet, funny, silly, like, poignant film and I really, really loved it. It's shocking the kind of punch that it's able to get across in such a short amount of time. Jack is a compelling protagonist, you know, going out there and interrogating his family, but, oh boy, are they a match for him. I love them. I loved every last one of them. They were all so funny, and acerbic, and dry, and also simultaneously just completely loving and accepting of Jack and all of his myriad neuroses, which were just a mirror for their own. And it has this sort of,, like noisy feeling, but it's just very real and raw. I loved it.
[00:03:53.049] Kent Bye: Yeah, it's gonna be hard to match the experience of watching the piece because it is like a poem and the way that...
[00:04:00.919] Wonder Bright: And it's silly. It’s so deliciously silly.
[00:04:03.300] Kent Bye: He says at the beginning that he's really competing with his family for who can make each other laugh the most. Like, on their way to the funeral, they're kind of jostling each other and trying to get each other to laugh. And a lot of moments that I think are going to be difficult to really capture without actually seeing it. However, in terms of looking at the primary significations of this piece, I do think that there's a lot of themes of the 8th House of death where they're talking about a funeral and what happens in the course of a family coming together. So there's a lot of 4th House themes. That's kind of, like, an overarching theme of this section, but there's also a lot of saturnine constraints and restrictions and the inability of sometimes to break down and pierce as to what's actually going on underneath the surface. And so you see a lot of restrictions for Jack trying to push past certain points, but coming into different barriers. And I think the fact that he's talking about his father, and his father's father, then there's a lot of that kind of father and Saturn, Kronos connection, but also the 4th House connection as well. But yeah, he's also exploring this moment of wondering why his father didn't speak at his father's funeral when he's a writer and always speaks. Other intergenerational trauma that is kind of alluded to in terms of all the different siblings of Jack's aunts and uncles who are speaking about his grandfather. There's a lot of eulogies that are not really honoring the life in a way that is really celebratory, but more like people getting up and kind of expressing their grievances and traumas around the relationship with their father. And so there happens to be another death in the course of this film, where a lot of the same people who were eulogizing their father are now eulogizing Jack's father, who ends up dying by the end of this. And so you see this contrast between how they were really shut down in one context, but then really open and loving and joking and having much more of a celebration. And so you see throughout the course of this film, a contrast between something that is much more of a Jupiterian celebration in the context of Jack's father versus Jack's grandfather, which is much more, shut down, constrictive and saturnine in that way. So you see that during the course of this piece, the contrast between those two primary archetypes.
[00:06:24.136] Wonder Bright: Mm hmm. Yeah, for me, this is Saturn all the way down for all the reasons that you've just mentioned. And additionally, you know, Saturn is often depicted with, like, as the grim reaper with a scythe, you know, like Saturn contains within its myriad of meanings, death. So there's that. But then additionally, let's not forget that Saturn is also often in charge of humor. You're just not going to find a comedian's chart who doesn't have Saturn in a strong placement. And part of the reason for that is, you know, as Rob Hand talks about, because Saturn is so far away from the Earth and because it's cold and distant, like, even the ancients would describe it as cold and distant and, like, very little light. And so Saturn is associated with being dry, cold, and just very removed. But those things allow us to have perspective. And of course, one of the very words that we use for humor is when someone is dry, because they're able to say statements of fact about things that no one wants to speak the truth into. And so this whole family is extremely saturnine in their humor. They're so dry and acerbic and witty in ways that are really removing the, like, compulsion to burst into tears, or they're having laughter as an honest reaction to grief in a way that is just deeply saturnine to my way of thinking. And I just I love it for that. It’s, like, a full throated, like, complete expression of Saturn from beginning to end. And it's a tour de force.
[00:08:13.937] Kent Bye: I think there's also another Saturn signification of humiliation, and I feel like there's some jokes that are humiliation based that are also in this film that I think are also quite funny that I'll leave to the viewer to see. It's hard to translate within the context of this conversation, but yeah, there's some really funny moments. But I think at the same time, the note that it ends on is very serious. Like, Jack talks about writing the eulogy for his father and just has a lot of really beautiful things that he has to say. Yeah, the saturnine nature that's really tethering you to these dimensions of physicality and the reality of whatever the situation is, and so I feel like there's a lot of stark realities that are being explored within this piece. So yeah, I totally sign on to Saturn being one of the primary significations. And given that, I'm assuming that one of your prescriptions of this film, would it happen to be Saturn?
[00:09:13.291] Wonder Bright: (laughs) Yeah, absolutely. And specifically for people who want to have an experience of a full throated Saturn. And by that, I mean when that capacity for dryness and remove and distance is translated into a space of contemplation and honesty, and, like, the best kind of reality check, the kind of reality check that gets you in touch with your deep human nature, and an ability to laugh and delight in being among the living.
[00:09:48.368] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, in this film, I would love to bear witness to Jack Dunphy, who is a really talented and brilliant storyteller in this, and the way that he's telling the story, both in the craft of the animation, but also just his sense of humor, and his whole family's sense of humor, I can definitely see where he gets it. You know, like you said, short and sweet, packing in so much within such a short amount of time. And yeah, I just want to bear witness to Jack and his ability to weave together all the elements of the story in such a compelling way.
[00:10:20.359] Wonder Bright: Yeah, definitely. I want to bear witness to Jack, and specifically his desire and passion for showing us his family and sharing with us his origin. I will be watching for him in the future.
[00:10:37.060] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, that's all that we have for today. And I just want to thank you for listening to the Story All the Way Down podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do, spread the word, and tell your friends, and consider signing up on the newsletter at storyallthewaydown.com. Thanks for listening. Wonder Bright: Thank you.
