A few months ago I saw I Saw the TV Glow and was sobbing by the end of the film. There were lots of reasons for this (I was sobbing watching Here earlier today for some reason) but one of the biggest factors was the film’s sense of self-expression. I think it was the scene were the two leads are reunited in the supermarket, throughout the film I was thinking how the film weirdly mirrored my own Dead Bort, in both structure and themes of identity, within this scene in the supermarket it clicked as to why I felt such a mirroring of the two.

They’re films made purely from a place of self-expression.

And I felt like a fucking idiot coming to this realization. Kindergarteners learn that art is mainly self-expression within their first week of play, I was shocked it took me this long to relearn that simple idea.

Art is just self-expression.

And with this one new phrase in the back of my pocket I’ve been using it as a catch all validation of everything I do. I spam my story post, why? Because it’s a form of self-expression! I make this website, why, because it’s a form of self-expression! I’m someone whose whole life has somehow become consumed by the artistic pursuit of getting all my ideas down on paper and then down on shitty digital and then compressed on YouTube and broadcast to the Instagram story section, my whole life has been dedicated to expressing myself in any form I can. I quite like the version of myself I perceive, and I think its become a huge fear of mine that people don’t see this version of me. After having seen the TV glow I wrote down on a review card at Cinema Nova: “I wish people perceived me the way I perceive myself.”

All this in a roundabout way to say, I don’t think I’m a narcissist, I’m just an self-expressionist. There have been many times in my life where I’ve felt as though I was the tallest poppy in the field, mighty and majestic, loving the world of being a poppy, smelling the air and describing its contents. I know I’m a tall poppy, but that’s because I appreciate the form. To stop speaking in riddles for a moment, I think of myself as a pretty great filmmaker for my age, but I do feel as though many can tend to see me as a bit full of myself, and my writings here probably aren’t doing myself any favours, but I don’t know man, I love the magic of cinema, I love the world of filmmaking projects around me, if I don’t think I’m great I don’t think I’d be able to do this. As you’ll find out as this blog goes along and perhaps even crosses into production territory, I’m not the biggest fan of the actual filmmaking process. I have extreme anxiety on set that at times feels unreal. The reason I make films is not because I love setting up the shot and feeling oh so rewarded when the midnight rays hits the centre of the love interest’s face, no, I love when I see my film''s DVD cover, when I see it included on Letterboxd lists with a flood of middling reviews. I’m not doing it for the love of the game, I’m doing it for the love of watching the game, and if I didn’t love watching myself play in hindsight I would’ve retired a long time ago. I make films without knowing what they mean so that when I watch them back I can derive my own meaning from them just as any audience member would, I want to see what I’ve expressed from the deepest pit of my stomach and examine it in the cold light of day. I want to express myself. I love my own films so much because I feel as though they tell me things about myself I never would’ve known.

After watching I Saw the TV Glow I looked at myself in the tram reflection home. I saw a boy with a buzzcut and no eyebrows (a “self-imposed celibate exile” as I christened it), and it made me extremely sad. This is not the way I perceive myself. My whole life I’ve had long hair for some indescribable reason other than “it makes me feel like myself.” And without that long hair recently I really don’t anymore. I remember I started questioning the themes of Dead Bort shortly afterwards, the idea of another identity you never knew you had haunting you, being the only one people will truly see despite your real essence being so clear but only to yourself. I always thought Dead Bort was this tale about my fear of unoriginality but perhaps it was something more about my own identity. I remember during the VCA pitch night they displayed my photo and pronouns, “he/him”, and I wondered for a slight second if seeing “he/they” would’ve felt more “right”.

Without long hair I’ve been thinking about how I’m not perceived femininely when I feel more drawn to that internally, despite looking the most masculine I’ve ever looked. I thought perhaps people would see me the way I see myself if I was “he/they”, just see me in a bit more of the “feminine” light that I yearn to be seen under. Writing this out I worry it comes off as a bit insensitive but gender is a spectrum, you know, and it is (in some ways) more accepted than ever to kind of investigate this spectrum. I’m not “he/they”, maybe, let me get long hair again and ask me how I feel then, I just guess I feel a bit unlike myself right now and want to correct that, I want me and the people surrounding to see a dreamboy, I guess, a pretty boy, a cute thing.

Even expressing this now I assume people will roll their eyes, wondering why I’m trauma dumping on main, but again, I have to say once again, I have an unexplainable lust to express myself. And I don’t care if people don’t read it right now (perhaps I hope not everyone does) but in 5 years I’d love for someone to read this and get to know Nick Murcott in 2025 a little bit better, he’s a sad guy right now and I hope someone can relate to that.

I was gonna write a bit more about The King of Darkness and ponder why no one really goes in-depth on their creative processes online that much, but perhaps I’ll save that for another day. I’ll end on another discussion of a word that I use to validate myself even more than “self-expression”.

The word is “earnestness” was brought up frequently during the promotional cycle of Being Funny in a Foreign Language, I heard Matty Healy repeatedly use the term “earnestness” to a ludicrous degree. But there is something extremely beautiful in being earnest about yourself, your version of self and the art you make. If I’m ever insincere about the making of/or the art I create, I want someone to punch me in the back of the head.

My films are the only thing that convey the way I want to be seen because it’s raw, earnest self-expression and I know my passion bleeds through the screen.

- Nick Murcott