I saw The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover in a theater near me recently. You want "vulgarity and excess," goddamn. The crowd loved it too, but I don't live in an over-educated, emotionally stunted metropolis.
I think we're going through an artistic period of very blunt truth-telling, call it 'epater la woke-oisie.' My favorite movie in this vein so far is The Brutalist. I'm not sure this period is producing great art, but maybe it will make room for great art again in the future.
Greenaway is absolutely ESSENTIAL viewing these days. Unabashedly artistic and pretentious, hyper-focused on aesthetics and visuals a la Wes Anderson, but with an impish air of humor paired with an adult discussion of death.
ZOO and especially Drowning by Numbers are also outstanding. Both fixate on decay and excess in a way that Wuthering Heights failed to do
I really enjoyed The Drama, but I take your points here. I remember seeing The Devils with a friend on Halloween once and as we walked out, he said, "Now there's some real medicine for the soul." Truer words never spoken.
I’ve located a lot of the hedonism and fearlessness you’ve mentioned here in his more recent work (The Idol, Euphoria S3), but I’ve also embraced that he’s working mostly on the surface level.
The formats that took real risks in the last decade came from writers who built the world before anyone greenlit it. The showrunner with the bible nobody asked for. The novelist whose IP was too strange to pitch until it wasn’t.
The Dionysian doesn’t wait for permission. It arrives already structured.
Thank you for a fascinating piece; I enjoyed The Drama a lot, to be honest, and found it good food for thought, though I don't know if I fully thought it was a good movie. I'm curious what your thoughts on After the Hunt are? That's also a film I had complex thoughts on and felt the critical discourse was largely uncoupled from what the film was trying--albeit imperfectly--to do.
Thinking about this, I don’t believe Cinema ever really lost its courage, we just lost the capacity to immerse ourselves in the broader range of films out there. Its such a saturated space now, but there’s hidden gems to be found always. <3
I have longed for a shot-by-shot remake of The Devils for ages. I'm old enough so I can say "time immemorial." Like they did with The Lion King but IRL and not using computers.
I saw The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover in a theater near me recently. You want "vulgarity and excess," goddamn. The crowd loved it too, but I don't live in an over-educated, emotionally stunted metropolis.
I think we're going through an artistic period of very blunt truth-telling, call it 'epater la woke-oisie.' My favorite movie in this vein so far is The Brutalist. I'm not sure this period is producing great art, but maybe it will make room for great art again in the future.
Greenaway is absolutely ESSENTIAL viewing these days. Unabashedly artistic and pretentious, hyper-focused on aesthetics and visuals a la Wes Anderson, but with an impish air of humor paired with an adult discussion of death.
ZOO and especially Drowning by Numbers are also outstanding. Both fixate on decay and excess in a way that Wuthering Heights failed to do
I really enjoyed The Drama, but I take your points here. I remember seeing The Devils with a friend on Halloween once and as we walked out, he said, "Now there's some real medicine for the soul." Truer words never spoken.
Sam, I love your writing, and would be interested to hear your thoughts on the new Euphoria
Pretty low opinion of Sam Levinson as a writer and filmmaker, unfortunately
I’ve located a lot of the hedonism and fearlessness you’ve mentioned here in his more recent work (The Idol, Euphoria S3), but I’ve also embraced that he’s working mostly on the surface level.
The answer might not come from cinema first.
The formats that took real risks in the last decade came from writers who built the world before anyone greenlit it. The showrunner with the bible nobody asked for. The novelist whose IP was too strange to pitch until it wasn’t.
The Dionysian doesn’t wait for permission. It arrives already structured.
Sam, Glad you're back as the reviews film critic. I agree with the rest of the comments in that I would love to get your thoughts on after the hunt.
I liked it more than most!
Thank you for a fascinating piece; I enjoyed The Drama a lot, to be honest, and found it good food for thought, though I don't know if I fully thought it was a good movie. I'm curious what your thoughts on After the Hunt are? That's also a film I had complex thoughts on and felt the critical discourse was largely uncoupled from what the film was trying--albeit imperfectly--to do.
Thinking about this, I don’t believe Cinema ever really lost its courage, we just lost the capacity to immerse ourselves in the broader range of films out there. Its such a saturated space now, but there’s hidden gems to be found always. <3
I have longed for a shot-by-shot remake of The Devils for ages. I'm old enough so I can say "time immemorial." Like they did with The Lion King but IRL and not using computers.
Why remake something that's perfect as is?
We’re talking Hollywood here.