“Sanguine Intimacy: Male Friendship in the 21st Century” (2024-2025)
My professor began the semester with this idea: the word “essay” is derived from the French infinitive “essayer,” meaning to “to try.” To write an essay isn’t to solve, but only to try. Through that lens, any topic seemed more approachable. “Sanguine Intimacy” was my attempt to remedy a question that kept returning to me, no matter how much I tried to push it away.
I centered my essay around Lukas Dhont’s film Close. I found its tender exploration of male friendship emotionally wrecking, depicted in a way I had never seen before. I built outwards from there, searching for other sources that explored the same topic from different, even possibly contradicting angles. I soon had a first draft, ready to begin editing.
My professor emphasized that the “video” of “video essay” often gets ignored, so I knew my visuals needed something to portray, too. I spent time searching for visual metaphors within the films I chose, while leaning on a musical rhythm for my cuts, further linking together the narration and video.
From the start, I knew I would implement Valentin Hadjaj’s score for Close; it weaves together the tenderness and heartbreak in a way that perfectly mirrored the themes I was exploring. Once I placed each track, the emotional content of the essay started to come together.
But something still felt wrong; my conclusion felt empty, like I was moralizing something distant. I felt like I was lecturing others over an essay I had originally written for myself. I knew I had to return to my personal life, to personal action. So I began recording on my laptop and called a dear friend from my hometown. Through a pause, I told him I loved him, something I had never done before. Sure, this meant a solid ending for my essay, but even further, it outlined a path of action, a step towards change within my own life.
This semester has shown me how little I cared about the things I wrote about before. Having this writing almost fall out of me, devoid of the usual indifference and fatigue, was incredibly refreshing. It was wonderful, really, to see how much changes when we’re allowed to follow our passions.
Connor Elmore, Recorded Music major at the Clive Davis Institute of Tisch, never thought of himself as artistic. Growing up in San Diego, his creative pursuits seemed to be forever scattered, never forming a defined outline of himself, nor a path for the future. But after his first year in art school, Connor has learned that his scattered creativity is his strength—whether it’s recording acoustic guitar demos in his bathroom, forming dance choreography in his head, or editing a video essay into the late hours of the night. He may not fit into a single artistic category, but maybe that in and of itself is beginning to give him a sense of identity. Maybe that’s where his future lies.