160 Characters
160 Characters
A life-changing love affair told through rediscovered text messages.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit how much I love The Sopranos. (It’s so Straight Bloke 101 – “This week, why your dates definitely want to hear your theories about that final scene…”)
I’ll happily read almost any writing about the show too, from the pseudo-academic, to the many hagiographies of the show’s creator, David Chase.
One of my favourite observations about Chase’s brilliance was very simple – he understood that people don’t usually say what they mean.
Once we shift our focus to what’s not being said – what gets missed, or lost, or mangled in the telling – storytelling becomes so much richer.
In 160 Characters (2015), Victoria Mapplebeck plays with this idea exquisitely. It’s an autobiographical tale of a love affair, told through the text messages she exchanged with her then-partner.
Named after the message limit on older mobile phones, the film tells a big story through small snippets of communication.
We become fixated on minute details, subtle shifts in tone and changing sign-offs (complete with disappearing kisses).
Victoria, who is currently working on her first feature documentary, often mines her own life for subject matter, and likes films that blur the boundaries between truth and fiction.
At times, that’s been a controversial idea in the documentary world. But that blurring happens every day, when what we say, what we think and what we do invariably come apart.
I spoke with Victoria over Zoom from her home in London. You can see more of her work on her website. Her feature doc, Motherboard, is due out next year.
Why did you want to tell this story?
I think there's a couple of big themes. The first one was about technology – the way we shape technology, but also the way it shapes us.
This story began when I was doing a Nokia upgrade, when Jim would be maybe three or four. I realised that I'd unwittingly archived the whole text thread narrative between myself and his dad.
It was a very brief relationship, like six weeks, but I had this pretty epic storyline of the dates, the initial, loved-up period, then when I found out was pregnant, trying to negotiate what we would do, right the way through to him coming back into Jim's life.
I remember looking at that and thinking, my God, what a huge arc.
I think it was just the beginning of a culture that turned into ghosting – what Sherry Turkle describes as us expecting less from each other and more from technology.
And then I think the other theme that I still think is really interesting is a sense that families now come in all shapes and sizes. We're not stuck with the nuclear family model anymore.
But there is still to this day, a prejudiced or dated idea of single parents all living on sink estates, watching day-time and TV being terrible mothers.
I really wanted to challenge that narrative of shame about being a single parent and do a sort of celebration, because having Jim was one of the happiest things in my life.
Yeah, there were some difficult things. One of my favourite scenes is when I'm trying to draft and redraft the news of the birth to his dad in a text message. It feels wrong, but that's where we were at.
So it’s got quite a melancholy tone, but I think you also get these absolute moments of joy.
What was the biggest challenge?
I think there is a challenge that lots of documentary filmmakers face when they're making a past tense story but they weren't gathering archive at time.
I didn’t film Jim being born. I remember thinking, oh, just start living your life. Not everything has to be through a lens. But now I'm kicking myself, because I would've loved that footage.
So I had to find a technique that I think works, where I try and put the viewer in the space where I was when I sent or received the text messages.
I want you to feel like I'm trying to think, what do I put in this text? Or how I might feel when either I don't get a reply, or I receive a difficult message.
The other big challenge was tone. I remember sitting down with my very brilliant editor, Lisa Forrest, and saying, I do not want to seem like a victim.
It used to really bug me when people said, “You're so brave.” Because I loved it, you know?
And I think Lisa really got that, she really understood that, even if there were some sad things I was representing, that we didn't sell the whole experience as a complete tragedy, or imply that Jim's life had been majorly flawed because he had an absent dad.
What would you do differently if you made the film again?
At the time I was making it, I was trying to seek much bigger funding. I went back into the documentary festivals where there are forums and you’re pitching.
I've probably learned a few lessons along the way about producing. But you don't creatively learn anything as a filmmaker when you are sidetracked by the fundraising route.
I felt like I lost time doing that, and I wouldn't do it again.
What are you most proud of?
There’s now this culture of guerrilla filmmaking, where people have found the tools to make really great work for zero budget. I feel proud to have been a part of that.
I love teaching, and it's something that I've really passed on to my students, that you learn through practice.
Don't fiddle around with bits of paper or online research – get out there and make. And of course you have a brilliant tool in your pocket that you can do that with.
And then, it's changing, but certainly when I made 160 Characters, there weren't that many women's stories being told by women directors.
All of the themes I've talked about – wanting to explore how women navigate relationships, and parenting, and motherhood. I’m proud to have done that in a way that's interesting, a sort of 3D representation.
When I was pitching for the feature I’m working on now, we spoke to a commissioner who rejected us. He said your films are very small and personal, and we want epic.
I thought I've got nothing to lose, so I said, “I think there's something pretty epic about raising a kid on your own, and the point where that kid, after a decade, decides that he would like to meet his dad for the first time.
“And then when I went through cancer, how a family copes with that. They're pretty epic storylines.”
How did this film change you?
I don’t totally subscribe to the idea that autobiographical storytelling is always cathartic.
I think sometimes it can be really hard. But fundamentally, I learned that when you put something under the microscope, it gives it less power over you.
You name it, and somehow you feel like you've got some kind of agency, even if it's saying, this is a total shit show and it's ruined your life and it's miserable.
I found that was almost like cheap therapy. And so pretty much anything shit that happens to me, I creatively explore it.
I was making my brother laugh recently, because he thinks that I'm a total workaholic. I said, I will just get this feature done, and hopefully it'll come out in a year's time, and then that's it. I've done my feature, and I won't do one again.
And then I heard myself saying, actually, never say never…
Victoria’s willingness to put her personal experiences and private battles into her work is an incredibly generous artistic act. There’s no half measures with stories like these – either you open up completely, or you risk making something that doesn’t ring true.
Thanks to Victoria and to you for reading. You’re all #champs.