TODD HAYNES HAS spent much of his career making films about people who struggle to express even the most basic emotional need. Sometimes the web they're stuck in is one they have spun themselves, a filigree of delusion and self-protective lies. Other times, they fear society's judgment. In his best films-the thwarted lust and romance of Poison, Far From Heaven, and Carol; the suburban rot of Safeit's both. His new movie, May December, follows a famous actress named Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) who travels to Tybee Island, Georgia, to meet the notorious woman she's about to play in a biopic: Gracie (Julianne Moore), who filled the tabloids 20-odd years ago after she seduced, and got pregnant by, a middle-school boy named Joe. Now that boy is a man (Charles Melton), and he and Gracie are still together and raising their own nearly grown children. The intrusion of Portman's glamorous outsider makes Joe question what he had forced himself to accept about his lifebut in classic Haynes style, that's no guarantee he'll break free.
I noticed something rewatching your films: You've shot a lot of scenes of disapproving townspeople gawking at the protagonist for doing something transgressive. You've also got a lot of scenes where people are gawking at someone because they're famous. May December has both.
Those are almost invariably nods to similar shots in Fassbinder melodramas where he separates protagonists who are put into a fraught situation with the mores of the culture. In May December, looks in general are a motif throughout, along with which characters have access to seeing things. Natalie Portman's character, Elizabeth, is an actor, somebody whom people look at and project onto. At first, we presume she's going to be our view into this story, but she's hardly the anonymous, objective reporter in the dark.
Is this the first movie you've ever made about filmmaking?
Denne historien er fra September 25 - October 08, 2023-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra September 25 - October 08, 2023-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Early and Often: David Freedlander - Momentum vs. Machine The Trump and Harris campaigns battle it out for every last vote.
WIth two weeks left to go, the contours of the 2024 presidential election are clear: Both campaigns need voters who usually don’t vote, and Kamala Harris needs to bring the Democratic coalition, including its Trump-curious members, back home.While the Republican side plans to spend the remaining days of the contest trying to lure low-propensity voters to the polls, the Harris team will attempt to persuade voters of color to return to its side and will try to increase numbers among white voters in previously red suburbs.
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
