SCÈNE 14. Devan Joseph, Filmmaker, Musician, and Media Producer

A booming soundtrack, the open road, blue water and ecstatic skies transport us to the exhilaration of youth.

Aug 30, 2024

Welcome back to Mise-En-Scène! Edition number 14.

We’re in great hands today with guest curator Devan Joseph (@devanjjoseph)—filmmaker, musician (he’s one-half of MAURICE, the Brooklyn-based creative outfit), and media person (his video producer credentials are impressive and run deep). Devan and I originally met when we both worked at Genius, the music media company and lyrics annotation platform. I was instantly struck by his nose for emerging filmmakers, experimental formats, and—a favorite debate if you’ve ever spent time in the music media mines—movies that masterfully wield needle-drops.

Devan’s Mise-En-Scène pick, Waves (2019), written and directed by Trey Edward Shults and distributed by A24, exhibits all three traits. The drama—part suburban American family chronicle (very reminiscent of Ordinary People), part romantic coming-of-age story—features a lush original Reznor-Ross score and richly textured soundtrack that’s wall-to-wall with potent gems by Frank Ocean, Tyler, The Creator, Amy Winehouse, Tame Impala, Kanye West, and even Dinah Washington. One glance at Shults’s screenplay for Waves and you’ll see that the tracks, intentionally baked in, serve as an extension of the characters’ interior lives. It’s no wonder the film was originally envisioned as a musical: exquisite visuals of young people against bracing, revelatory songs that underscored the plot.

The film begins with a euphoric driving sequence set to Animal Collective’s “FloriDada.” Explains Devan: “There are so many incredible car scenes in this movie, but this is the open and serves as our introduction to Kelvin Harrison, Jr. and Alexa Demie’s characters, Tyler and Alexis.”

After the break, Devan1 explores what makes the opening sequence in Waves one worth revisiting and paying homage to.

“WHAT’S THE BRIDGE THAT’S GONNA TAKE ME HOME?!!”: FILMMAKER, MUSICIAN, AND MEDIA PRODUCER DEVAN JOSEPH ON WAVES, 2019

DEVAN ON HIS FIRST VIEWING OF WAVES:

My friend Jason dragged me to an outdoor screening of Trey’s first film Krisha in 2015. We were blown away by how anxiety-inducing and engrossing that movie was, so we’ve been following him pretty closely since. I love a good high school drama, so Waves was highly anticipated; we went to see it opening weekend. Now, it’s one of my favorites of all time. I have the poster hung up in my apartment.
I am so disappointed more people haven’t seen it. I feel like present-day A24 would do a much better job promoting it. There are multiple moments on every watch where I’m sobbing, and at times I can’t explain why.

DEVAN ON DERIVING INSPIRATION FROM THE FILM’S OPENING SCENE:

I feel like so many movies have tried and failed to capture this type of thing, but this sequence in particular is just perfect. I show this scene to people who have no context on the movie or its characters and it still works. We just completely ripped it off for the last MAURICE video for “Mothers.” We sent our DP friend a YouTube link to this scene and asked, Can we pull this off?

wearemaurice

A post shared by @wearemaurice

DEVAN ON HOW WAVES DIRECTOR TREY EDWARD SHULTS CAPTURES THE FEELING OF FREEDOM ON THE OPEN ROAD:

Growing up in the suburbs, getting your license was a really big deal. Cars end up being this sanctuary. There’s so much freedom with being able to drive yourself and your friends around. And Trey really understands that in Waves.
The details [of the sequence] remind me so much of my experience at this age. I would spend so much time curating the music for the car. And the way [the characters are] blasting the music, windows down, and being a little too distracted performing for [themselves], to the point where the actual driving feels a bit like an afterthought. Even the way Tyler and Alexis are hanging out of the car. I don’t know why we all had the urge to do this, but when the music is really hitting, the constraints of the car can’t hold you.
And then there’s what’s happening outside of the car: the clear skies, the water as they’re driving across the bridge, everything is so blue. I spent a lot of time driving to the beach, and it transports me right back to that place, to the point where I can smell the water.

DEVAN JOSEPH RECOMMENDS

If Devan clocking what makes a good car scene on film is any indication, this gentleman knows his multimedia. (I’m not even getting into his expertise of HGTV, past, present, and future.) Devan’s taste is both rangy and incredibly specific, surprising and delightful. Below, find a list of his latest cultural pleasures, from Jerrod Carmichael’s meta-content to top-shelf Japanese whisky tea.

Young Jesus’s new album, The Fool (2024).

Devan says: A white dude from Chicago who goes by “Young Jesus” singing the way he does just shouldn’t work, like, at all. I have a hard time describing his music because it really sounds like it would be insufferable, but this may be my favorite album of the year. I haven’t heard too much lately that’s as ambitious and earnest as this project is. There are some huge concepts, and the lead singer definitely does not hit every note, but the imperfectness of it makes it more appealing to me.
StreetEasy on TikTok.

Devan says: One thing about me is I’ll watch a random house tour in a second. I’ve seen every single AD Open Door. And the great thing about the StreetEasy TikTok is they’re like minute-long tours of NYC apartments I can’t afford. The woman who does the VO nails it every time. And, without fail, someone from Ohio will be in the comments saying, “For that price, you can own a small town in Ohio.”
Molly by Blake Butler and Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show (HBO).

Devan says: As someone who likes to mind their business but is also fascinated by people who like to tell their business, I found these both extremely compelling, but also deeply personal and raw in a way that feels inappropriate to consume at times. It’s rare to see people in this state of vulnerability. But I also couldn’t stop thinking about the people dragged into both who didn’t necessarily sign up for it.
Japanese Whisky Tea from Harney & Sons.

Devan says: I just got put onto this recently. I’ve never actually had whisky, so I can’t speak to the whisky-ness of the tea. It’s not an everyday tea, but I pull this one out when I want to treat myself. It tastes like God made this tea in upstate New York during a bonfire.
Hanif Abdurraqib live.

Devan says: This may be kind of a useless recommendation, because I think he’s done touring for his new book, There’s Always This Year. But his live reading is maybe the closest thing I’ve had to what some people experience when they go to church. Hanif has a way with words that makes sense of the jumbled mess that’s in my head but I’m unable to articulate. I’ve always felt seen by his writing, but hearing this stuff read just made it all that much more visceral.

That’s all for now! I hope you savored the double dose of Mise-En-Scène this week. (If you haven’t already, check out SCÈNE 13. published this past Monday, featuring Kalena Yiaueki on Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz. Now that film, another non-traditional musical, would make an interesting double feature with Waves.)

I’d like to thank the brilliant, thoughtful, and creative Devan Joseph for his excellent M-E-S selection, all-around fascinating taste, and candid thoughts. Go follow him, stream music from his group MAURICE, and peruse his investigative journalism on chicken bones (for real).

Waves is widely available to stream: try Prime Video or Apple TV, for starters.

Thanks, as always, for being here and for supporting this newsletter. For extra credit, you can follow this project on Instagram at @yourmiseenscene. My comments and DMs are always open for feedback or just general geeking over films, TV, theatre, the new Sabrina Carpenter album… Is there anyone, or anything, you’d like to see featured here? Write me!

I’ll be moving this newsletter to a monthly cadence moving forward in order to allow time for more creative projects (whee!), so we’ll see each other again in September, and a month after that, and a month after that. Fret not; it’s always going to be quality over quantity around these parts.

Hasta la vista, baby!

Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.