Carole Bouquet and André Dussollier in Unforgivable.

2012’s best so far and Sarris remembered

This year, I want to do the Mid-Year Reckoning differently, as a tribute to film critic Andrew Sarris’ recent passing. It was Sarris, during my grad school years at Columbia, who wisely advised that the percentage of good movies has not changed from the old days; now that the output is larger, the significance of sifting out the trash is more important than ever. Sarris’ indispensable work The American Cinema, first published in 1968, used the Nouvelle Vague’s notion of auteurism (cinema authorship) to categorize all Hollywood film history up to that point.

Sarris’ commentary on over 200 directors was an awesome feat, combining scholarship with sharp perception. His extraordinary assessments should still structure anyone’s thinking about movies, American or global.

Because The American Cinema emerged from cinema’s first half-century, it preserves aesthetics and values (pillars from Griffith to Sternberg) that have been lost in the recent years of criticism’s decline, in which media and box-office presence is given importance over the individual visions that Sarris knew were what made cinema an art form. He articulated that belief with idiosyncratic precision that to this day—when both Hollywood and the critical “community” have lost self-respect—is still awesome to read.

Each summer, my mid-year assessment has been a way to keep track of the movie year’s deluge, which, given the dozen or more films that open every week, is more than can be reviewed. Perhaps the reckoning might this time benefit from following Sarris’ model, as a reminder of the standards a film-lover has every right to uphold.

I take great exception to the TV pundit whose memorial to Sarris cited that he “loved movies.” Sarris’ work was greater than any fanboy obsession—everybody “loves” movies, but Sarris turned his interest into teaching, study and personal expression, the things that make criticism valuable, an art in its own right.

With continued respect for Sarris, one of the two critics who have meant the most to me, professionally and personally, I repeat The American Cinema’s first nine top-tobottom categories, citing the work of individual directors. It could help to understand how 2012’s best films so far might ultimately rank in film history or, as Sarris crucially demonstrated, in a personal pantheon rigorous enough to share with the world.

Pantheon Directors
Unforgivable (André Téchiné)—a tumultuous view of private lives as society and society as family.
The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)—examines the linkage of desire and despair to find the value of personal resurrection.

The Far Side of Paradise
Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)—the rare campus comedy genre visits private worlds that reflect the eccentricities we recognize deep down.
Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)— compares the innocence of youth and maturity.
Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)—tragedy found in the comedy of hopes squandered by misguided fashions. The Skinny (Patrik-Ian Polk)—clarifies the blur of sex and friendship that gay life faces straight-on.
A Thousand Words (Brian Robbins)—a Hollywood satire so casually profound it scared off the industry and its fans.

Expressive Esoterica
Americano (Mathieu Demy)—an Oedipal odyssey that finds cultural heritage in family legacy.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor)—addresses action movie tropes to satirize the deficiencies of contemporary genre excess.
The Lady (Luc Besson)—eloquently acted political biopic, refined non-comic-book heroism.
The Flowers of War (Zhang Yimou)—common tragedy and possibility, rapturously envisioned.

Fringe Benefits
Detention (Joseph Kahn)—traces moral chaos throughout recent pop history. Chronicle (Jonathan Trank)—youth’s visionary search for meaning.
Wanderlust (David Wain)—audacious mockery of Occupy sentimentality and its outdated hippie heritage.
That’s My Boy (Sean Anders)—empathy, heredity and its discontents.

Joyful Noise (Todd Graff)—the anodyne effects of music and the movie musical.

Less Than Meets the Eye
Roadie (Michael Cuesta)—great performance by Ron Eldard.
The Kid with a Bike (Dardennes brothers)— modern neuroses given fairytale attention.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Timur Bekmambetov)—trash made uncommonly spectacular.

Lightly Likable: Being Flynn, Darling Companion, Man on a Ledge, Where Do We Go Now?

Strained Seriousness: The Turin Horse, Safe, Neil Young Journeys, Magic Mike

Make Way for the Clowns: Ted, The Dictator, Casa de mi Padre

Oddities, One-Shots and Newcomers: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Gerhard Richter Painting, Locked Out, John Carter

To read more from City Arts click here.

A scene from Damsels in Distress.

“I like my characters to walk in clouds,” said the great comedy director Leo McCarey. “I like a little bit of the fairy tale.”

That confession well describes the McCarey classics that execute a precarious balance between realism and fantasy—The Awful Truth, Make Way for Tomorrow, Love Affair, The Bells of St. Mary’s, even his Ruggles of Red Gap (currently in revival at Film Forum)—which took a whimsical approach to the peculiarity of America’s historical identity. McCarey’s line also describes what distinguishes the films of Whit Stillman, whose new feature, Damsels in Distress, is his first movie in 14 years.

The volunteering girls at Seven Oaks College in Damsels in Distress occupy a peculiar world, set apart from working life. They walk in the clouds of the privileged pursuits of youth, enjoying the leisure of education and idealism about politics, romance and religion—in that order of importance, though not obviously so.

Violet (Greta Gerwig), a tall, healthy sophomore, is full of private tastes and philosophies—suicide prevention and tap dancing are her causes. She’s lucky enough to head her own beautiful-girl clique, a group who support each other and invite newbie Lily (Analeigh Tipton) to join them. They’re a bouquet of eccentrics, with names like Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Heather (Carrie MacLemore) and archly syllabic speech. Yet, like the vulgar beer-and-cocktail boys they are attracted to, each is so pretty and engaging she conveys Stillman’s fascination with the same human qualities and conflicts that made McCarey’s films so moving.

Damsels in Distress is Stillman’s youth movie. His previous films, Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco, surveyed young folk verging on the complications of adulthood, but his long absence has added charitable distance to Stillman’s take on maturity. This is, in part, his response to Mumblecore and the opportunity that movement provided for his brand of non-commercial class comedy, but Stillman is too focused and articulate to be mistaken for Mumblecore.

His awareness of class has always made him the most idiosyncratic indie. Whereas Mumblecore directors take their social advantages for granted, Stillman makes those advantages crucial to his characters’ spiritual struggles. (It’s in their romantic gamesmanship and political one-upsmanship, as when Violet jousts with the campus journalist.)

Seven Oaks is a Cloud Cuckoo Land version of a WASP enclave, the class and ethnic milieu that is now so foreign to mainstream comedy. Its identifying characteristics disappeared from view with the ’60s’ social upheaval (a loss addressed by a character in Stillman’s Barcelona, who reproves the vulgar ending of The Graduate). This setting allows Stillman to observe and conserve the moral process of people fighting off their anxieties and pursuing contentment, the telling niceties of socializing that once belonged to that forgotten genre, the comedy of manners.

By bringing a sense of manners back to the chaos of modern social license, Stillman could inspire Mumblecore to rethink itself in less slovenly terms, as a true aesthetic. (The already iconic Gerwig displays more delicate facets here than her exploitation in Greenberg.)

Stillman’s eloquent aphorisms and terse epigrams, too funny to repeat here, are spoken in an atmosphere of serenity and halation (photographed by Doug Emmett) that both satirizes and idealizes Ivy League seclusion. It is a world Violet and her gang long to escape by improving, bringing civility and joy in the courtly form of dance. This recalls how The Last Days of Disco, Stillman’s richest, deepest film, dared to look back to the waning disco era as a modern pilgrimage.

That was Stillman’s version of McCarey’s whimsical approach to the peculiarity of America’s historical identity. His youth movie hopes strongly for our present.

By Mara Siegler, for AVENUE Magazine

Actress Greta Gerwig got her start in the mid aughts as the sweetheart of the awkwardly dubbed ‘Mumblecore’ movement, a low-budget film genre marked by stripped-down realism, trailing sentences, and a do-it-yourself ethos. Slowly evolving into more mainstream fare, the 28-year-old has impressed even the toughest critics with The New York Times speculating she “may well be the definitive screen actress of her generation.” It’s a grand statement, but with upcoming roles in films by upper crust chronicler Whit Stillman and New York’s hometown auteur Woody Allen, she seems poised to prove it true.

Working with such quintessential New York directors seems a perfect match for Gerwig. The sandy blond Sacramento, California transplant came east to study English and philosophy at Barnard, graduated in 2006 and decided to call the city her home. “New York gave me my direction and purpose,” she gushes. “This city lit me on fire! My dad spent some time working in New York when I was a child and on one of my trips to visit him I saw 42nd Street on Broadway. That was it for me. Nothing else would compare. Acting and New York were tops.”

Being the type of woman that can say “tops” with no trace of irony is part of what makes Gerwig so endearing. Whether she is sitting in a bathtub with a friend wearing goofy goggles in the relatively obscure cult film Hannah Takes the Stairs, receiving the most uncomfortable oral sex ever filmed from Ben Stiller in Greenberg, or playing across Russell Brand as the quirky girl with an unabashed love for Grand Central in the big studio remake of Arthur, she exudes a sort of nuanced innocence and authenticity. She has brushed off the ‘It Girl’ label confessing, “I don’t even really know what that means,” and remains nonplussed about the recent attention she’s getting for her upcoming roles and new leading lady status. “I feel pretty good in general,” she says.

This month, Gerwig takes the lead and shows off her comedic and tap dancing skills in director Whit Stillman’s  Damsels in a Distress, his first film in 13 years. Known for focusing on the “urban haute bourgeoisie” with Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994), and The Last Days of Disco (1998), his new movie focuses on a group of preppie women promoting hygiene and dancing at a suicide prevention center as they desperately try and cope with the male population at their cloistered college.

Later in the year she will follow in the footsteps of Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow and Scarlett Johansson and many other beauties in the role as Woody Allen’s muse in Nero Fiddled, playing alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Alec Baldwin and Penelope Cruz. Fresh off Allen’s Oscar-winning and box office success, Midnight in Paris, the film was shot in Rome and is set for theaters this June.

The roles are a perfect fit for Gerwig. “In a way, New York City is the reason I wanted to be an actress. I was in love with the city through films —Woody Allen especially,” she exclaims. “I adore them both [Allen and Stillman]. I want more. If I could, I’d spent a few years making films only with them—perhaps alternating.”

It is sure to be a whirlwind year for the rising star who is already signed on for the 2013 HBO adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, but we are convinced she won’t let fame get to her head. When asked what she loves in the city, she told us unaffectedly, the subway. “Especially where all the subways converge at Times Square. There is an area where everyone is running from the NRQ to the 123 to the Shuttle – it is my favorite. It makes me feel alive and calm and part of something just by living here.”

Greta Gerwig in Damsels in Distress.

Whit Stillman’s Damsels in the Clouds

“I like my characters to walk in clouds,” said the great comedy director Leo McCarey. “I like a little bit of the fairy tale.”

That confession well describes the McCarey classics that execute a precarious balance between realism and fantasy—The Awful Truth, Make Way for Tomorrow, Love Affair, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Good Sam, even his Ruggles of Red Gap (currently in revival at Film Forum)—which took a whimsical approach to the peculiarity of America’s historical identity. McCarey’s line also describes what distinguishes the films of Whit Stillman, whose new feature, Damsels in Distress, is his first movie in 14 years.

The volunteering girls at Seven Oaks College in Damsels in Distress occupy a peculiar world, set apart from working life. They walk in the clouds of the privileged pursuits of youth, enjoying the leisure of education and idealism about romance, religion and politics—in that order of importance, though not obviously so.

Violet (Greta Gerwig), a tall, gangly-when-not-graceful sophomore, is full of private tastes and philosophies—suicide prevention and tap dancing are her volunteer causes. She’s lucky enough to head her own beautiful-girl clique, a group who support each other and invite newbie Lily (Analeigh Tipton) to join them. They’re a bouquet of eccentrics, with names like Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Heather (Carrie MacLemore) and archly syllabic speech. Yet, like the vulgar beer-and-cocktail boys they are attracted to (their “distress” Ryan Metcalf, Adam Brody, Billy Magnussen, Jermaine Crawford), each is so pretty and engaging she conveys Stillman’s fascination with the same human qualities and conflicts that made McCarey’s films so moving. His bouquet of eccentrintrics defines itself when one girl sees artichokes for the first time and exclaims”They look so weird!” (Those who don’t catch Stillman’s humor are likely to say the same.)

Damsels in Distress is Stillman’s youth movie. His previous films, Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco, surveyed young folk entering the complications of adulthood, but his long absence has added charitable distance to Stillman’s take on maturity. This is, in part, his response to Mumblecore and the opportunity that trust-funded movement provided for his brand of non-commercial class comedy, but Stillman is too focused and articulate to be mistaken for Mumblecore.

His awareness of class has always made him the most idiosyncratic indie. Whereas Mumblecore directors take their social advantages for granted, Stillman makes those advantages crucial to his characters’ spiritual struggles. (It’s in their romantic gamesmanship and political one-upsmanship, as when Violet jousts with the campus journalist. Her pursuit of humanism and a perfect relationship is explained by Heather: “Only excellence can glorify the Lord”).

To read the full review visit CityArts by clicking here.

Damsels in Distress, directed by Whit Stillman.

I told myself I wasn’t going to drink last night. I lied. That lack of conviction lead me where I stood at the end of the evening, waiting outside the little girls room for one of the lead actress’ who starred in the film I saw two hours and seven Coronas earlier, to come out, so I could tell her how great she was in the movie, and that it was probably in her best interest to start dating me. I was wholly confident this tact would work, as long as she didn’t come out with a gaggle of friends…
The evenings screening, held by the Cinema Society with Town & Country and Brooks Brothers, was for Whit Stillman’s latest hats off to WASP life and SAT words, Damsels in Distress. Sitting in the back row of the theatre with my friend Stan, a stranger plopped down and nudged me, “Back row, eh?” he winked. “That way we can take off if it sucks, right? Ha!” I shrugged.
The stranger ducked out two-thirds of the way through.
The movie’s faults lie in its age. This is very clearly a movie about young twenty-year-olds, written by someone out of their young twenties. The edge and jaunty satire that was relevant in Stillman’s first film Metropolitan (1990) feels tepid and droll in 2012. It’s just… white. The movie is Wonderbread white. And while some liken Stillman’s pedantic writing to that of Woody Allen, I make the point that Woody is Jewish, so his neurosis is infused in the writing. Stillman is Ivy League, so his writing is infused with Xanax and not much conflict. The shortcomings of the film as a plot driven vehicle, were salvaged thanks to the phenomenal young cast, who handled Stillman’s buffalo cent words with elegance. Not faltering between the likes of hackneyed, chastisement or an argument over the correct pluralization of the word doofus. With scene after scene of two olive dry martinis, it was necessary for the audience to take a trip for a sip at the Soho Grand, where the after-party was held in The Club Room.
Lovely attendees ranging in age slurped down their “martis,” swirled some Woodbridge Sparkling Wine or drank the elderflower concoction handed out at the entrance. It had a red flower petal in it. I drank it and felt girly, which isn’t a bad thing, just a fact. I traded it in for a Corona, and spritzed a lime on the group I was conversing with. It seemed the stranger had snuck out of the screening to make an early entrance to the after-party. A lovely woman in the group asked if he enjoyed the film. He laughed, “I hated it!” This started a conversation on social faux pas’, and the woman admitted she had a particularly bad one earlier in the evening. She had attended the “From Scotland with Love,” event. Men were kilted up, and she jokingly asked one of them if he shaved his legs in preparation.
“No ma’am,” he had said. “I lost both my legs in Iraq.” He then pulled up his kilt revealing two prosthetic legs. The woman shook her head. “I wanted to die.”
At the bar I fell in line with a dapper Brit in a pin-stripe double breaster. He was gregarious, and flounced me around the room introducing me to him and her and his and… hers? He told me he loved his wife, that he had always had a passion for fiery women. “That’s why I liked the film.” I furrowed my brow, none of the women had seemed particularly “fiery” to me. “They’re all batsh-t crazy! Beautiful little lunatics.” A photographer passed by, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Take a picture of me and my boyfriend!” I liked this guy. Sense of humor. She asked to take some candids, so he told me about how awful Wrath of the Titans was while flashes broke. “That’s what you learn when you have kids, there are so many awful movies out there.” He patted me on the back and went to sit down with a friend.
Four more beers in and I was walking around the room feeling like Midas. I’ve got the Corona touch. I had told a talent manager I didn’t like the movie. “I represented one of the actors in it.”
“I said I didn’t like the movie, I didn’t say I didn’t like the acting.”
I had failed flirtations with a beautiful Canadian woman. I had asked what she was reading: Game of Thrones and The Return by Joseph Conrad. Sexy. “Do you have siblings?” she had asked. I nodded. “How did you torture them growing up?”
“I didn’t,” I replied. “I was the younger one. I got tortured.”
“I was the younger one too,” she said. “But I tortured the older ones.”
“That’s because you’re a sadist. I’m a masochist.”
The films cast was spread out around the room. Adam Brody leaned against a mirrored wall, talking to Ryan Metcalfe who plays one of the singular “doufi.” The actresses’ were on couches here and there, but one in particular had caught my eye. I had read a profile of her before I had left for the screening, which happened to mention she was single and kind of a nerd. Just. My. Type.
I made eyes with her, and she caught on, looking back seductively. Or maybe it was a different adverb, worriedly? I was pretty much staring at her. Murderer status.
Nah, it was probably seductively.
“Noah, we’re leaving,” a friend called out. “You coming?” I turned around one more time, but she had returned to her conversation. I placed my Corona on the bar and made way for the exit, but as I was about to turn left into the elevator bank, I noticed the lithe creature slinking off to the ladies’ room. Her long black dress, picked up so she wouldn’t trip over the pool, seemed oddly familiar in all its backless glory. Holy sh-t, did I remember what this girls dress looks like? I need to get a hold of my creeper status ASAP. But it couldn’t have been a coincidence that this woman, this starlet to be, had left for the restroom at the same time I had left in general. No. She must be following me. A little of the ol’ cat and mouse, ay? I can play that game missum!
I stood by a pillar, futzing with my hair. I was waiting for her to return, for her to smile when she recognized that I had caught on to her none too innocent ploy. What to say when she came out? “You. Me. Now.”
“I read about you earlier tonight. I know you’re single.” Jesus, I’ve seriously become a creeper. When did that happen?! “You were great in the movie, how about you and I go make-” NOPE. The door to the ladies’ room opened. She stepped out alone. Walking towards me, to me, for me.
But then the door opened again and two loud-mouthed lovelies called after her. The gaggle of friends had magically appeared, and with it my Midas like confidence. She passed me by, and all I could do was smile, which, she did in fact return and then left forever. There I stood, drunk in the Soho Grand. Another damsel in distress.