criterionforum.org

Posted: **Thu Jul 07, 2005 12:59 pm**

Whit Stillman (1952 - )

"I'm anti-verite. I think the verite style is a completely false thing. Most things are false to arrive at a truth; verite is falsity without acknowledging its falsity."

Filmography

Features
Metropolitan (1990)
Barcelona (1994)
The Last Days of Disco (1998)
Damsels in Distress (2011)
Love & Friendship (2016)

Television
The Cosmopolitans [pilot] (2014)

Books
The Last Days of Disco With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards, by Whit Stillman (2000)
Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman, edited by Mark C. Henrie (2001)
Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan is Entirely Vindicated, by Whit Stillman (2016)

Web Resources
"Why the World Still Needs Whit Stillman" by John Hendel, The Atlantic (2010)
"Whit Stillman Pays a Visit to Jane Austen", by Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker (2016)
2016 interview with Graham Fuller, Film Comment
Collection of video/audio/other interviews from 2007 to present, WhitStillman.org

Forum Discussion
326, 485, 807 A Whit Stillman Trilogy
Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman, 2011)
Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman, 2016)

Posted: **Thu Jul 07, 2005 1:17 pm**

Fletch F. Fletch wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2005 12:59 pm I've been a big fan of his movies, Metropolitan and Last Days of Disco (Barcelona left me kinda cold) but he's seemed to dropped out of sight since. I've always felt that he and Noah Baumbach were the heir apparents to the Woody Allen/Upper East Side film sub-genre. The only bit of news I could find about Stillman's current projects was an article in Fade In magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2005:

Currently living in Paris, Stillman has been busy adapting Winchester Races, a project with British producer Stephen Evans that would combine two unfinished Jane Austen novels, The Watsons and Sanditon, into a single script. The script would merge two characters: Emma Watson, a young woman who returns to her family after a long absence during which she's been raised by her aunt, and Charlotte Hayward, an attractive country girl who is taken up by a family of comically optimistic real-estate speculators. Should it eventually get made, the film would return Stillman to familiar territory. Both Metropolitan and Barcelona were considered Austen-esque comedies of petty manners.
Anybody heard anything else about this or what Stillman's been up to?

barcelona has always seemed like his strongest film, ldod his weakest, in my mind. He has always seemed more at ease and in control than baumbach, even if his pal wes anderson seemingly cribbed barcelona riffs non-stop in the royal tenenbaums. I just thought whit eventually became sick of the studio system, not making money, and returned to a quiet life somewhere outside of the US. But this is splendid news, even if it doesn't amount to some sort of end result.

Posted: **Thu Jul 07, 2005 11:08 pm**

There are a couple good interviews with him archived on the NPR site, including his participation in a roundtable discussion on "snobbery" from 2002.

I always wondered what had happened to him. I never read the "Last Days" novel he wrote. Has anyone? Has he written anything else lately?

His DeNiro, Chris Eigeman, is also someone who I wonder about and is sadly underused these days.

Posted: **Thu Jul 07, 2005 11:49 pm**

Zumpano wrote:I always wondered what had happened to him. I never read the "Last Days" novel he wrote. Has anyone? Has he written anything else lately?

I read it. It's pretty cute, and actually has a good deal to offer in addition to the film. Ever the clever one, Stillman has the narrator write the novel as a clarifacation of the events described in the movie, correcting errors and embellishments as though they were based on fact. Worth a look if you enjoyed the movie.

Zumpano wrote:His DeNiro, Chris Eigeman, is also someone who I wonder about and is sadly underused these days.

I missed Malcolm in the Middle in its first run, but I happened to catch a re-run recently featuring Eigeman as the new teacher of Malcolm's gifted class.

Posted: **Fri Jul 08, 2005 1:20 am**

I recently watched the episode of "Homicide" that Stillman directed, which featured Eigeman, and was wondering what had happened to him.

Posted: **Fri Jul 08, 2005 1:36 am**

souvenir wrote:I recently watched the episode of "Homicide" that Stillman directed, which featured Eigeman, and was wondering what had happened to him.

He actually works pretty steadily, though not in the sort of roles Stilman fans probably hope to see him in. He's been in a couple tv series, most recently as Lorelai's (pre-Luke) uptight-yet-scruffy beau on Gilmore Girls, and he's had supporting roles in a couple of biggish movies, I think.

Posted: **Fri Jul 08, 2005 2:37 am**

souvenir wrote:I recently watched the episode of "Homicide" that Stillman directed, which featured Eigeman, and was wondering what had happened to him.

How was that, anyway?

Posted: **Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:26 am**

Whit Stillman...is that the guy who yodels when he sings...?

Posted: **Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:31 am**

backstreetsbackalright wrote:
souvenir wrote:I recently watched the episode of "Homicide" that Stillman directed, which featured Eigeman, and was wondering what had happened to him.
How was that, anyway?

It's not a typical episode, but still good. There are frequent cuts to a support group with Eigeman, Rosanna Arquette and an older couple who all had family members murdered in the episode. The support group parts are shown as first person interviews and seem like narration. It's 'talkier' than most episodes.

Posted: **Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:13 pm**

backstreetsbackalright wrote:I read it. It's pretty cute, and actually has a good deal to offer in addition to the film. Ever the clever one, Stillman has the narrator write the novel as a clarifacation of the events described in the movie, correcting errors and embellishments as though they were based on fact. Worth a look if you enjoyed the movie.

Sounds intriguing. I'll have to pick it up. Has anyone ever read Barcelona and Metropolitan: Tales of Two Cities that collects the screenplays from these two films. According to some of the reader reviews on Amazon they contain cut scenes, etc. Altho, the availability and price of used copies is a bit steep for my tastes.

Posted: **Tue Jul 12, 2005 4:19 am**

ISI Press has a great book of essays on Stillman's movies called Doomed Bourgeouis In Love. All the essays are by literary critics and not film critics, though. They latch onto the whole "Austenian" concept of his films and the whole idea of how he's like Woody Allen. Still, its worth a read and cheap at $15. I miss Stillman a great deal. It's too bad they never got him to direct a few episodes of West Wing or Frasier. He was supposed to do a movie about Francis Marion of South Carolina and American Revolution fame.

Posted: **Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:56 pm**

There's a nice write-up about Metropolitan, here:

http://www.stopsmilingonline.com/archiv ... ml?id1=396

hard to believe the film is 15 years old!

Posted: **Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:24 am**

souvenir wrote:It's not a typical episode [...]

There were no typical episodes of that show

Posted: **Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:49 pm**

My problem with Whit Stillman is that when I want to refer to him my mouth starts saying 'Slim Whitman', don't know why.

Posted: **Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:04 pm**

Le Feu Follet wrote:My problem with Whit Stillman is that when I want to refer to him my mouth starts saying 'Slim Whitman', don't know why.

Ross already made that joke a year ago.

Posted: **Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:20 am**

Ross already made that joke a year ago.

Wasn't intended as a joke, just a problem I have.

Posted: **Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:58 pm**

I just saw Barcelona and chuckled a lot. It's a lot less annoying when you only have two characters talking that way for a whole film as opposed to most of an ensemble cast, and the jump in quality (scripting, acting, timing etc.) from Metropolitan is very noticeable and much appreciated. So that's +1 for Whit.

Posted: **Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:59 am**

I searched and couldn't find this posted, but here's the National Review interviewing Whit Stillman

Posted: **Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:47 pm**

That's possibly the sanest piece of writing I've ever seen come out of the National Review. Of course, it is an interview.

Posted: **Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:05 pm**

I was hoping it was a new interview, but it's from 2000. It's good nonetheless.

Posted: **Mon May 11, 2009 8:52 am**

Hulu has Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco on their website. Unfortunately, it does have commercials at certain points.

Posted: **Sat May 23, 2009 7:43 pm**

RagingNoodles wrote:Hulu has Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco on their website. Unfortunately, it does have commercials at certain points.

I'll have to inform a friend of mine, he's been wanting to watch it.

Posted: **Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:43 am**

Why the world still needs Whit Stillman

Posted: **Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:58 am**

His new film sounds somewhat interesting. I'll hope for the best. The only Whit Stillman film I've seen is the Criterion of "The Last Days of disco", which was awful. Whit gets a lot of praise, so I assume Metropolitan and Barcelona are better films and Disco was a misfire?

Posted: **Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:03 am**

I like it a lot, but it's the least of the three

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