I must interrupt my series of scintillating posts on adventures in Wyoming for an alert — David Zahl, over at the ever-intriguing Mockingbird Blog, recently published an interview he did with Whit Stillman, the elusive director of Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days Of Disco, which has just come out on DVD in an extras-laden Criterion edition.
Check out the interview here.
I loved Metropolitan, but only loved parts of Stillman's two subsequent films — I think it may be time to give them a second look, because Stillman is such an eccentric and interesting artist.
Stillman is no longer willing to work within the conventional industry precincts, even the conventional independent precincts, or what's left of them — which suggest to me that he may be one of the directors who will help lead us out of the current cinematic wilderness.
The new rules for filmmakers should be:
Never work on anything that's been done better before.
Never work on anything that isn't meant to change people's lives.
Never work on anything that won't leave some kind of mark on the history of cinema.
The Era of Regurgitation in movies should be declared officially over.