Whatever happened to Whit Stillman?

This probably means I should see all the films again, and kind of want to, but I recall them kind of depressing me while watching, and they seem too long because of that, which makes me always reject the idea. It's a conundrum. Maybe if he just made 25 minute shorts? A specialty-channel tv show? Dear Whit, that would be good.

I feel kind of guilty for how much I enjoy Stillman movies, too, but I think Metropolitan is genuinely good.

And Chris Eigmann [sic] is awesome in anything: "I thought the surealists were just a bunch of social climbers."

Will wait for life to settle down and try again in a different mood, since everyone I love loves Whit Stillman.

I've heard about a million different projects he's supposed to be working on, all of them v. diff-sounding--a Thomas Jefferson thing, a Cultural Revoltion one and, most recently, something set in Jamaica.

I mean this, from Variety in 2003:

Five years after his last movie, "The Last Days of Disco," American writer-director Whit Stillman is developing a Jane Austen project with Brit producer Stephen Evans. Paris-based Stillman, who first found fame with his Austen-esque comedies of preppy manners "Metropolitan" and "Barcelona," is adapting two unfinished Austen novels, "The Watsons" and "Sanditon," into a single script, titled "Winchester Races."

His script merges the character of Emma Watson, a girl returning to her family after a long absence being brought up by her aunt, and that of Charlotte Hayward from "Sanditon," an attractive country girl taken up by a family of comically optimistic real-estate speculators.

Chris Eigeman is indeed awesome. I love his Whitman characters' rants about things, esp. in Barcelona on anti-Americanism and shaving.

He reminds me of TOMBOT.

WS: And these internet things like “whatever happened to Whit Stillman?” (laughs) I wonder the same thing myself.

ha ha.

I wrote a pilot for Chris Eigeman, feature player in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, Barcelona, and Last Days of Disco. The network loved the script but wouldn't let Chris star in it. (And that is the TV business, folks.)

Meanwhile, Krush Groove, which featured Jonah's brother, is the story of the birth of Def Jam Records, an event for which I was present, as label founder and producing legend Rick Rubin was one of my best friends at NYU. (I actually, ahem, play bass on the first two releases of the seminal hip-hop label.)

Warren Bell as Bernard Edwards!

What does this mean? You are put off them because you perceive them as "trendy"? You feel as though they are not meant for you because you are not trendy enough? What are you on about, man?

The first is snobbish and the second is insecure.

What it is about them that you think is trendy? The fact that they are spoken highly of by some on people on ILE?

At some work thing he told me he used to come to London in the mid-70s just as punk was spunking, due to family friends, but he misspent his time with sockless jet trash at Tramp and Annabel's instead (as you do). I thought he was great.

was gonna say it's deep cuz it's in his blood since his grandfather invented the term "WASP." but turns out with quick search it was just his godfather. but still...

Totally OTM. He made a movie about society preps, about as far from "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" as imaginable. Adapting Jane Austen for NYC debs in the 70s, casting a redhead lead(!), a film about the "UHB" made on a shoestring budget.

The commentary (Stillman, Nichols, Eigeman, plus the editor) is highly recommended. Stillman mentions that his impetus was wanting to make a film set in the present where everyone were dressed formally like in the golden age of cinema (38-45) and the story extended from that thought.

Stillman mentions Carolyn (and others) being typecast in her attempts to continue her career... She was a gal from Queens working a makeup counter from pretty modest background before Stillman's wife found her and brought her to Whit's attention. She "wore" a Manhattan accent for the film. Same with Clements (who had to hide his Canadian accent).

Even Taylor Nichols still gets typecast as a New York preppy, in the commentary he mentions he was born in Kentucky and raised in Michigan until he moved to New York in his mid-twenties.

I don't love her in everything, but I thought it was kind of a perfect part for her.

Gerwig was perfect yeah

The Amazon pilot is getting rebooted into a spy series.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/whit-stillman-the-cosmopolitans.html

This is great to hear! I really liked The Cosmopolitans pilot.

His commitment to making the series happen puts me in mind of the Sambola!

And he's still hoping to make his Jamaican film.

Haven't made it through the whole interview, but having not really known a lot about Stillman himself previously, I'm amazed how autobiographical his early movies were (worked in publishing in the late '70s, moved to Barcelona afterwards etc.).

I'd been fearing just this. pic.twitter.com/dLLH5HVkfC

— Whit Stillman (@WhitStillman) June 24, 2020

Stillman on Twitter is really leaning into "lifetime white-shoe Republican repulsed at what his party has become"

Despite the Gerwigmania gripping our nation, not only is Damsels In Distress OOP on both DVD & Blu, it's also not streaming except as a rental from Direct TV (or as a purchased download from the usual suspects).

Somebody should get on that.

and the Cosmopolitans pilot while they're at it.

Oh yeah, that's not officially available<anywhere>

Except there's a epk promo on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Il8Xc8UYPA

He's Got An eBay Store!

https://www.ebay.com/usr/westfilm2012

I don't like to buy original items, I prefer to look at ebay listings, that way I get the content of the original item *and* the viewpoint of the seller who wrote the ebay listing

y'all I just rewatched "Damsels" recently and it's GREAT, completely preposterous in the absolute best way, get this shit back in print