Whit Stillman Articles
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Notable Festivals: Sundance From his 1990 debut, METROPOLITAN, to 2011’s DAMSELS IN DISTRESS and beyond, director Whit Stillman has built a celebrated career exploring the idiosyncrasies and quirks of Old Money America through a series of original films produced within the independent sphere. His unique writerly flair enables him to express his insights into this…
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Over the past decade, television has undergone rapid, major change—to the extent that many are calling it a new “Golden Age” of television. Up until very recently, television was referred to as the “boob tube” for very good reason—programming was cheap and disposable, the writing was lazy and clichéd, and the banality of reality television…
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Notable Festivals: Venice (Closing Night), Toronto, Stockholm (American Independents) Following the release of 1998’s THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, director Whit Stillman promptly sold his Manhattan digs and relocated to Paris. The reasoning is unclear, but given his romanticism of European countries and a lengthy stay in Barcelona during his youth, I can’t say it’s entirely…
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Inducted into the Criterion Collection: 2009 With his previous two films, METROPOLITAN (1990) and BARCELONA (1994), director Whit Stillman had built up a reputation for sobering depictions of the urban/East Coast bourgeoisie. His themes and characters are a world onto themselves, often crossing over from one film to another seamlessly. As a result, Stillman found himself creating an informal…
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The year 1996 saw Whit Stillman branch out from the world of cinema and try his hand at the television medium. Interestingly enough, this maker of old-money parlor dramas chose to take a stab at that classic lynchpin of primitive TV: the police procedural. I vaguely remember HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS airing around that timeframe, which…
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Notable Festivals: London, Stockholm Independent Spirit Award Wins: Best Cinematography Inducted Into the Criterion Collection: 2016 After the breakout success of Whit Stillman’s METROPOLITAN in 1990, speculation naturally turned to what he would do as a follow-up. Following up on his debut film’s slightly-autobiographical bent, Stillman drew inspiration from his time spent in Spain as a film…
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Notable Festivals: Cannes (Quinzaine des Realisateurs), Locarno (Silver Leopard), Sundance Independent Spirit Award: Best First Feature Inducted into the Criterion Collection: 2006 Directors like Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach are well-known for their depictions of a particular subset of Americans: the East Coast elite. Usually hailing from affluent section of Manhattan and old-money families, their…