THE WHITE ALBUM

In 1979, Joan Didion published her second book of essays, "The White Album." The titular essay, which this script adapts, is comprised of fifteen sections that weave together reflections on a period of time (1966-1971) that was marked by acute disorder and dysfunction, both at the scale of Didion’s own life, and in the world at large. 

Taken together, these scenes form a rich but disjointed tableau. Things echo, recur, mirror, parallel, and otherwise enter into dialogue with one another, but nothing ever entirely coheres narratively or thematically. The sense of disorientation is very much the point. 

Following that form and logic, this film avoids most of the usual tropes of biographical drama. It is uninterested in Didion’s formative experiences, reluctant to engage with any of the more prurient details of her life, and hesitant to offer any definitive statement on or assessment of her legacy. 

This film exists around her, and because of her, but it is not about her; she is not the subject. Her indirect perception of things, rather than her direct experience of them is what matters here; how she struggled and perhaps in the end failed to make sense of the world around her, and her place in it. 

Flash pictures in variable sequence, images with no meaning beyond their temporary arrangement. Not a movie, but a cutting-room experience.