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

why do you do this

i for one will never be able to watch it again bc it stars shame carruth and amy seimetz as two people in a relationship

“throw it out because it isn’t very good” fuck off

woof i wrote that before i even read the details, continue to fuck off lj

if you think it's good, don't throw it out idk

and yeah granted it might be hard to see it again given what's transpired with the lead actors irl but i'm firmly against the cancelling of art itself due to the artist's later transgressions

sorry if i phrased it a bit glibly but i was reacting to the extremely basic & regrettable sentiment 'welp time to throw out UC!' which is imo performative solidarity of the most pointless kind. you know that seimetz's work is in that film as well right?

at this point I can usually pretty comfortably do the art/artist separation jive when it comes to already released work (esp with film as there are so many components) but yeah no more interest going forward.

i'm firmly against the cancelling of art itself due to the artist's later transgressions

― imago, Tuesday, July 28, 2020 5:06 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i’m proud of you but did you have to make this argument fucking immediately

i’m not canceling upstream color. i will fundamentally never be able to watch it again without being sick to my stomach

that is fair

Doesn't sound like there's much chance of anything going forward. Agreed that the subject matter of UC and the fact that seimetz and carruth play the leads will make this a particularly difficult case of separating art and artist. My dvd (rewatched recently, it stands up imo) likely to sit unopened on the shelf for the foreseeable

I was being sort of glib the way I phrased it, so I get why imago reacted as he did, but Brad has well elucidated the reasons why I won't be able to watch this film again. I'm generally against "cancelling" works of art too, but you really can't separate art & artist here.

i'm disappointed in shane carruth
don't have much else to say
i wish male brilliance weren't so frequently paired with narcissism and abusive behavior

Upstream colour should be cancelled, as in no cinema should screen it again, nor should it be available on any platform either at least until Carruth isn't able to obtain any kind of material benefit from this.

He should never be involved in another project either, and he should be hounded from public life.

It's absolutely fine and sensible to throw out the art with the srtist. It's just not required to do so.

I'm glad we leapt immediately into this extremely fun conversation

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.