Wednesday, May 27, 1998
Whit Stillman will survive
FILM: The writer- director of ‘The Last Days of Disco’ offers
the final
installment in his ‘night-life trilogy,’ and explains why
both
socialites and intellectual dialogue have a place on the dance
floo
By Tommy Nguyen
Daily Bruin Contributor
The name Whit Stillman became a film adjective when, in
"Metropolitan," the writer-director introduced us to his odd little
corner of the world: a place where adorably delusional Park Avenue
teens spend their disposable time by debating topics from Jane
Austen to Fourierism, trotting off to posh shindigs at the Plaza
Hotel and prattling on and on about the bleak future of their
preppy class.
There’s a funny and all too indicative exchange in that movie –
which earned an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay –
where Tom, the young idealist, asks a disillusioned veteran preppy
if people with their background were "doomed to failure."
"Doomed to failure?" the man begins to chuckle. "No, no that
would be far easier – no, unfortunately, we simply fail without
being doomed."
And that’s pretty much a Whit Stillman film for you: a taut
string of snazzy upper-crust repartee, plucked by a kooky
percentage of society who rattle their brains and mouths because
they constantly feel the pressure to exploit their "class
prerogatives." For detractors, however, Stillman’s intelligentsia
of snob-nobbing glib-meisters can be an unbearably irksome lot,
leaving them totally immune to any humor found in overstated,
bourgeois neuroses.
"Some people say that my films are aridly intellectual,"
Stillman admits. "But we’re trying to get as much emotion and good
conscience in as we can without feeling that we’re pandering. Sure,
there are some people who don’t like my characters, but still love
the films. And I like my characters very much, even within their
limitations."
Of course he does. Stillman (a Harvard graduate) knew and grew
up with these people, and if his films seem preoccupied with the
personal failures of his characters, it’s only because Stillman
knows well that these members of this surfeited culture are equally
preoccupied.
Likewise, Stillman invariably tells his stories with a waggishly
insightful regard for cultural endings: the last parties of
debutante fussiness in "Metropolitan," or the last vestiges of the
Cold War in "Barcelona." What’s interesting about "The Last Days of
Disco," which Stillman wryly describes as "Salinger and Fitzgerald
with a heavy duty disco soundtrack," is that Stillman inserts the
demise of a social class inside the demise of a seemingly unrelated
social era.
But Stillman, who used to crash the club scene while working in
New York publishing, sees the connection quite clearly; in fact,
preppies may have had a foul hand in disco’s early ’80s
downfall.
"A large uptown heterosexual crowd was trying to get in,"
explains Stillman. "And as a result places like Studio (54) and
Xenon slowly went upscale – they had a very dressy element. Some
people would hire limos to drop them off at the clubs, thinking
that would help. Or like the girls in the movie, who think they can
get in by being dropped off in a cab – at least if you came in a
cab, (that meant) you were coming from Manhattan."
The girls – two recent Hampshire College grads named Alice
(Chloee Sevigny of "Kids") and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale of
"Shooting Fish") – do get picked from the line, not only because
they "look really good tonight" as Charlotte points out, but
because the major discos at that time were hard-pressed to fill
their widening floor space, and club owners knew that preppies had
cash to spend
So inside the movie’s grand discotheque, which Stillman never
names, the two girls inevitably begin to gather with other yuppie
outsiders (which include Mackenzie Astin, Matt Kessler, Robert Sean
Leonard and Stillman-regular Chris Eigeman).
"Most of the people at the clubs – paying the bills, buying the
drinks – were outsiders," Stillman recalls.
And indeed his film’s perspective is unusual among the recent
crop of other "disco" movies, which try to titillate audiences with
the insider’s view, whether it’s through the eyes of the porn stars
of "Boogie Nights" or the club kids in the upcoming "54."
"I was actually insanely happy with the release of ’54,’"
Stillman says. "Because I thought ’54’ was going to cover all the
things I didn’t want to cover, taking the heat off my film by
focusing on the journalistic aspects of the period.
"But I think in a way ‘Boogie Nights’ is more of an issue for
us," Stillman continues. "For some reason people are associating us
with that movie. Yes, ‘Boogie Nights’ coincides in the same period
a little bit, it has a disco word in its title, disco songs and a
disco sequence. But ‘Boogie Nights’ is about sex, not about disco.
When you went to the discos, you simply did not see people
fornicating on the floor. There was a feeling that the clubs were a
very sexy, dramatic place, but that was sort of an idea that you
had in your head."
Instead, what was bouncing away in Stillman’s mind was the pure
cinematic allure of a strobe-lit universe, which was brought to the
director’s attention several years ago when Stillman was editing
the disco sequences in "Barcelona."
"Visually, it seemed to have all the elements of sound, music,
color," Stillman remarks. "’Last Days’ isn’t about that, but (the
disco backdrop) gives the story time to breathe – it allows the
things that the characters say to one another to sort of exist over
time as the characters go off to dance. We don’t have to listen to
them the whole entire time."
Oh, but beware of this new development in the director’s
aesthetic predilections – for, as freaky as it may seem, not having
to listen to characters talk may be something we’ll just have to
get use to in the next Whit Stillman film. Though he wants to set
aside his so-called "night-life trilogy" (characters from
Stillman’s two previous films make cameo appearances in "Last
Days") and work on new projects, the director seems oddly
determined to make an action-mounted period piece about the Civil
War. But, fair enough – why limit filmmakers to being
adjectives?
"So far they don’t want to know about my Civil War movie,"
Stillman confides almost in a whisper. "They want me to make a
movie about American literary types in Paris during the 1950s, but
I prefer to do my Civil War movie. Basically, I’m going to go ahead
and do it and see who finances it. And I think it can be done with
almost the same budget of ‘Last Days’ because I don’t think they
realize that 20 guys riding on horseback is not more expensive than
400 extras getting down in a disco."
FILM: Melnitz Movies will screen "Last Days of Disco" tonight.
The film opens Friday.
Photos courtesy of Grammarcy Pictures
(Left to right) Chris Eigeman, Kate Beckinsale, Mackenzie Astin,
Matt Ross and Chloee Sevigny portray antagonists and friends just
ejected from a disco in Whit Stillman’s "The Last Days of
Disco."
Kate Beckinsale (left) and Chloee Sevigny are publishing house
assistants who become regulars at a popular Manhattan nightclub in
"The Last Days of Disco."