UPSTREAM COLOR, a new film from Shane Carruth (Primer)

xpost--the movie is intentionally vague, that is.

i dunno if i got texas so much as strip mall but yeah, it's a thing

texas (or most of it) = strip mall.

I cannot think of a better no-budget movie than Primer in recent times, especially in the sort of sci-fi genre. Interested to hear of other examples and especially if they are more interesting than Primer. For me this movie delivers more than the way overrated Looper. Not that I didn't enjoy Looper cos I thought it was quite ace, but just not as good as the hype.

I think the vérité style and time travel is a major winner, more of a headfuck when it is done in a normal people chatting shite styley.

Edit
this = as in Primer not seen Upstream Color.

these profiles are fascinating but I keep having to slide past the descriptions (such as they are) of Upstream Color's plot because I really don't want to know.

Did like his snide encapsulation of many reactions as "I know what it's about, of course, but you won't."

This was great; my date was pissed that the whole thing turned on the brutal exploitation and torture of a woman so maybe avoid if that's gonna not set well with you.
It's basically a horror movie! Major Philip K. Dick influences, lotta body horror. It's not abstract and the story is not difficult to follow at all. Just a unique voice.
Carruth spoke after the showing and when someone asked him how much the movie cost, he said he'd rather not say. That Primer benefited from the legend but that he was more than a little tired of hearing how it was such a good movie for so cheap and he wants this one to stand on its own merits.

he was more than a little tired of hearing how it was such a good movie for so cheap and he wants this one to stand on its own merits

That is a strange thing to say. Especially when you take a decade out, the only frame of reference people have is his last film and they are being complementary! Can't wait for this movie it sounds ace! obv I don't mean the torture shit but I imagine it won't be crass, exploitative shit.

I didn't think it was; i think my date just reached maximum density on the "tortured woman must rebuild her shattered life" trope as a way to kick off a story.

apparently he's "nearly" done with his next film and this one won't have any super-real, fantastic plot devices. it's not a spoiler to say that, like Primer, Upstream Color rotates around some supernatural elements but only in the sense that Eraserhead does too

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

He kinda went for the Hollywood ending huh. (JOKES)

I agree with forks, not super difficult to follow overall. But of course the profusion of details and the repeated events mean that there's probably plenty to decipher.

Basically a love letter to tape, I guess?

And the animation from Kris' old job had to be his test renders for A Topiary right? Any confirmation on that?

Please someone else post about this movie tonight before I start writing some 10000 word essay about my THEORIES

It is from a topiary, he confirmed that.

I think i can handle seeing this again.

Cerulean Credit Union tho

this sounds amazing, I have no idea when and how I am going to be able to view this but I sure hope it is sooner than later (not likely)

at the latest you can snag the digital download on May 7th.

this sounds amazing, I have no idea when and how I am going to be able to view this but I sure hope it is sooner than later (not likely)

I want to see it in the theater. There's a screening near me on May 10.

http://erbpfilm.com/film/upstreamcolor#screenings

http://www.walkerart.org/calendar/2013/upstream-color

IZ DED

this is so teal and orange

the whole thing turned on the brutal exploitation and torture of a woman so maybe avoid if that's gonna not set well with you

:|

just bought tickets for the Sundance London screening. extremely excited. anyone else who's interested over here had better hurry up - two of the three days are sold out

Carruth appears to be having a moment.

hoo, this movie

reaching for the cosmic with Thoreau and piggies

I wasn't remotely bored, but I got nuthin otherwise

re body horror, more sci-fi to me, but "Cronenberg througha Malick strainer" zipped through my mind.

if either wanted to be baffling, that is.

I liked it a lot!

i dunno about this one

(i didnt really know about primer either)

kind of a bunch of "hogwash" if u ask me

i got "love story" much more strongly than "horror" or scifi from this

"tortured woman must rebuild her shattered life" trope as a way to kick off a story.

this is exactly how id say it also - sure it's disturbing on screen but its essentially a stand-in for any past trauma imo

i dont think i get the field sound recording scenes

there's a lot of stuff in this film i'm not sure i "got" in the sense that I could explain it to someone but very much in the Lynchian sense where it makes logical sense within the body of the film and I don't really care about it cohering outside of the narrative setting of the film

yeah I never felt very compelled to figure out Primer but I was happy to vibe to it. Hope this is similar.

it's way more vibey than Primer. Primer definitely rewards untangling of its gimmick; this can be grokked on the first watch, and the puzzle-hunt details really are just details

Yeah, I didn't feel confused about anything here bar a couple of details.

a good non-spoiler tip i think is to just take everything completely literally

this movie was great -- i saw it last weekend but didn't realize there was a thread. cronenberg-via-malick is appropriate, i really liked it. i think after i saw it i had a lot of things to say about rituals and people's habits and worms and plants, but it's all gone now. that's probably for the best. i liked this movie a lot.

i should see this maybe? it's playing here, shockingly.

you should see this, almost definitely. it's at worst a little disorienting and silly, at best you'll love it.
nobody else vibed the philip k dick comparison?

so good

feel like the obliqueness of his ideas really keep ppl from talking about his filmmaking--the look of this, the editing, the sound editing were all insanely high quality.

it's funny, he's been pretty open in discussing this but the sampler character is still such a major monkeywrench to me. i think everything baffling about this film ties to that character in one way or another.

It's simple, the Sampler controls the people through their bonded pigs by playing them his environmental field recordings

I was really impressed w/ Carruth's score; don't remember taking note of the music (was there any?) in Primer.

there was music in primer but he's gotten better. i'd need to double check but i thought there was a bit toward the very end of this that was a lot like the music at the very end of primer

IFC is selling the score on vinyl

so I thought this was...something. really looking forward to seeing it again but this first viewing left me feeling rather aloof from it all. but maybe I was just tired.

I think part of my failure to engage was due to not really feeling the visual style of the film. even the shots with a bit more visual flair felt a little flat to me--but again that maybe ties back into feeling like the movie was at arm's length to me.

Also uh SPOILER but.....

that piglet at the end was her "baby" wasn't it?

Was there some indication that it came from a new litter from "her" pig, is that what you're saying? If so, I missed it. Just seemed like it was probably a random piglet from the time after the victims took over the farm.

every day my killfile grows stronger

LL otm

quick, let's write to theaters to make sure to cancel all their Shane Carruth screenings lol

unlike with most of these cases, the subject actually was never actually on the "winning" side of their industry so no real campaign to dislodge is required

Perfectly reasonable to think a small arthouse theatre might do a re-screening at some point in future.

I don't know about cinemas, but Primer was screening on Mubi just a few weeks ago.

I wonder, sadly, if his recent sudden release of the Modern Ocean script and various other things that he'd previously hidden away for years was some kind of pre-emptive attempt at distraction, or positive self-publicity, before any bad stuff came out.

wow that Variety article was stomach-turning

Sickened by this. I can forgive arrogance or eccentricity in artists, but not willful cruelty or stalking.

I suspect some substance abuse issues, and if that's the case I hope for his sake he has an intervention (and stays away from AS). I liked his movies, they were engaging puzzles or awkwardly affecting, and had a unique eye and voice. But he's off my list.

Fuck this guy

He's still tweeting a lot and it's an absolute horror show.

#respectTheArt

kind of upset I even pasted this in here now, you just know that his whole fucked-up game in putting the order in a random photo on his twitter was to get people to notice it and have the attention fuck with Amy Seimetz. Disgusted.

I followed him on twitter when he started leaking all sorts of unreleased stuff. Now he seems to be having some sort of breakdown. He's currently quoting lyrics from the new Taylor Swift.

what's his twitter handle? i searched and did not find anything that looked like the right one.

he has taken over the upstream color account

With you I serve. pic.twitter.com/2Th5PvOGOO

— Upstream Color (@UpstreamColor) July 29, 2020

he's going on about a mouse in his house?

he does not see to be doing well

yeah not even saying this to be make him seem more sympathetic or anything but he seems to have either really cracked or is doing an excellent job of making it seem that way

He’s another good example of the sort of person whose main outlet is seeking attention and is prone to sudden reversals of favor in relationships and a propensity to feeling persecuted.

Lol.

Trying to picture Hitchcock being kicked off as director after an 'incident' and acting out on his own twitter.

the literal only upside of this is finding out that Seimetz has a new movie and it looks sick

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/07/amy-seimetz-abuse-allegations-shane-carruth-1234576617

it seems like she's hooked in with Benson/Moorhead and possibly the Coatwolf people now which is neat to me

and as others mentioned I can't recommend Girlfriend Experience s1, which she co-wrote/directed with Lodge Kerrigan, highly enough. (fair warning that Carruth briefly cameos as...a dead-eyed psychotic sex pest :/)

Go with what you know.

Anyway all these years I've heard 'these films are incredible, you've got to see them' and thought "Okay one day" but I did hear a very indirect rumor a couple of years ago via a Twitter friend that he was at the least pretty shitty and thought "Hm, maybe not." After all these past few days I shrugged and finally just read the Wikipedia summaries and hopefully I won't think of the guy much again. Life's too short.

I screened Upstream Color to/with different friends and the reactions were always delightful. no ugliness on Carruth's part will diminish the specialness of those experiences. but as brad said the nature of the situation and the fact that the movie is almost entirely an intimate Carruth/Seimetz two-hander makes a rewatch very difficult to imagine. and certainly I would never again be an evangelist for it as I was then even if I'm more flexible on the art/artist issue than some/most.

yes it's truly an amazing film. it's too bad it's tainted now due to his fucking shitty behaviour.

Anyway

Shane Carruth, the director of independent films “Upstream Color” and “Primer,” was arrested last week at the home of his ex-girlfriend on allegations of domestic assault. https://t.co/6kCVq1sRgd pic.twitter.com/oFfT6TF2rH

— Variety (@Variety) January 19, 2022

Ugh!! This guy is SO awful — makes me wonder how he made it as far as he did.

being awful probably helped 🤮

So unusual for awful people to be successful in film.

valuable insight jimbeaux

xp you have a pretty rangey definition of “successful in film”

It doesn't ALWAYS hold true, but given this and several other recently documented cases, there's definitely reason to be, shall we say, hesitant about men whose art involves 'the brutal exploitation and torture of a woman', as Forks put it way upthread long before anyone suspected a thing about him. Waving those red flags where everyone can see 'em

xp Yeah, I stretched it for purposes of the joke, but otoh Primer is still pretty fucking good.