Onion interview with director Whit Stillman: he's dry, self-effacing, and funny, just like his movies:AVC: To extend the Citizen Kane analogy, you were nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar [for Metropolitan] on your first try, just like Welles.
WS: I like these analogies. [Laughs.] But my idea was that The Last Days Of Disco was going to be the Citizen Kane of romantic comedies. [Laughs.] I like to defend Disco because it got a beating in some corners.
AVC: Why do you think that was? Why didn't people respond to it?
WS: I think I touched the third rail of popular culture, which one should never do. The third rail of cliche. A lot of people had very firm ideas of what disco was. They weren't my ideas, nor what I wanted to show. And then I later found out that many of the people who were so authoritative about how our disco period wasn't "real" disco had no information of their own. They were just going from having seen Saturday Night Fever or something. I imagined these journalists lambasting us for inaccuracy to all be habitues of Studio 54. No, not at all. [Laughs.] They would all preface their comments with, "Well, in that period, I only liked punk music. I hated disco. But this film is not..." Whatever. Anyway. For me, it was exactly as it was in my head.
Or later:AVC: Those scenes in The Last Days Of Disco work a lot like the closing scenes in Metropolitan and the closing scenes in Barcelona, in that they all introduce a note of hope into movies that are about a golden era coming to an end.
WS: For me, the present is a golden era that's ending too. That's the greatest golden era. Right now. [Laughs.] I just like pining for lost times. I can pine for this morning.
more whit.
WS: One of the downsides of money is if there’s no money there are very few real jerks are attached to your project. And if there is money you do attract some very difficult unhelpful people.
JH: Have you been behind a camera at all since Disco? For a commercial or anything?
WS: Zero. That was probably a mistake. I had the idea that I shouldn’t do commercials. And I think the commercials industry also had the idea that I shouldn’t do them. (laughs) We were in total agreement. I was once approached to do a soft drink commercial and I actually bought the soft drink and hated it. It was disgusting. (laughs)
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Onion interview with director Whit Stillman: he's dry, self-effacing, and funny, just like his movies:Or later:
- tom moody 3-05-2006 1:56 am
more whit.
- dave 3-07-2006 6:39 pm
WS: One of the downsides of money is if there’s no money there are very few real jerks are attached to your project. And if there is money you do attract some very difficult unhelpful people.
JH: Have you been behind a camera at all since Disco? For a commercial or anything?
WS: Zero. That was probably a mistake. I had the idea that I shouldn’t do commercials. And I think the commercials industry also had the idea that I shouldn’t do them. (laughs) We were in total agreement. I was once approached to do a soft drink commercial and I actually bought the soft drink and hated it. It was disgusting. (laughs)
- tom moody 3-07-2006 7:29 pm