A Feel for the Collective

Image by Fachrizal Maulana for Unsplash

For a long time I've thought about ensembles—not just the collaborative work of actors in a play or film but ensemble narratives and how balancing multiple stories or subjectivities affects the experience of a story and its political implications. This extends to the production circumstances—how collaboration is approached and how (and whether) profits are shared. In this 50th anniversary year of the brilliant ensemble film, Robert Altman's Nashville, I decided to write about the many meanings of "ensemble" as applied to film. The whole piece is at The Write Launch. "Against Protagonism: Why We Need More Ensemble Films."