Olivier Assayas Poll

Most of the outdoor scenes with Binoche and Stewart have a nice snap, and it's a relief to watch a director find ways to avoid static two shots. And the hotel bar scene with Jo-Ann was particularly elegant.

For all the didactic dialogue Assayas does allow himself the escape valve of letting Binoche express contempt for the shitty play she starred in all those years ago.

but not the shitty movie we're watching her in.

I wouldn't say 'sucks', there's a bunch of things I like in it. Better than Something in the Air. There are def things in it that sucks, though, the biggest one for me is all the unconvincing footage from the things Jo-Ann has been in. The unconvincing laughter in the interview is particularly cringeworthy.

SITA is much better, but I suppose I prefer Assayas movies that keep more of a distance between the characters and me.

on second-plus viewing, sils maria still isn't summer hours, but have started to feel similar affection for it (or is it just the leads?).

y'all didn't get it btw. it's ok, i didn't quite the first time either.

really need to see more from him

love how female/adult it is compared to the male/adolescent Nolanworld it's partly telling off

CGM makes me cringe but she's kinda supposed to. That she might not yield the same reaction from the four people she drew to see this is also kinda the point.

My favorite working filmmaker, I think.

Anyone seen Something in the Air yet?

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 25, 2013 8:34 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I voted for Summer Hours. That offhand, "slight" little thing kills me.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 25, 2013 8:36 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

New one looks interesting.

http://gu.com/p/4j9hv?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Bit of a spidery review there btw, as is Bradshaw's way.

Eh, spoilery

Clouds of sils Maria is embarrassingly bad, no? Holy shit, tottally cringing here.

you & i are in the minority it seems.

I'm closer to "not very good" after a second viewing

congrats on Cannes, Olivier!

seeing tom'w

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-nyff-2016-olivier-assayass-personal-shopper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgjN3x415Mg

Anders Danielsen Lie is in this! hubba hubba

saw this last night -- stewart was magnificent. enjoyed the Q+A too

it's a ghost movie, and i don't like em. It's better than Sils Maria at least (tho KS not quite as casually brilliant).

Not to derail the thread, but after watching KS in Certain Women last night I'm tempted to call her the best young American actress.

haven't seen enough of her work to comment definitively but she was seriously so great in this -- such a demanding role, it seemed like she was in almost every shot

morbs if you saw the saturday afternoon showing i was probably walking out of "julieta" as you were walking in! wasn't a good time to socialize but next time i'm in the city you, jordan and i should catch a mets game

fine with me!

yeah KS was on the cover of Film Comment 2 months ago, having at least a moment

irma vep was pretty fun!

I guess Personal Shopper is a 2017 release

PS limited opening tomorrow; willing to revisit someday. I was meh on it tho it has some suspenseful texting lol

OA says

To put it as simply as I can, I wanted to make a movie about the tension in modern societies between the stupid jobs a lot of people do and their spiritual longings. I think that the modern world is giving a lot of space to the material world by being such a consumer society, and with jobs that are increasingly weird, defined by new areas of the economy. We feel so much like pawns in the material world, which does not really respect our own spiritual longings, and I think we all in one way or another have to create our alternative to the material world. There is not so much religion around, so it has to be defined in other ways in terms of our relationship to art, to whatever, it’s all one in the same thing. So I wanted to create a character that would embody that tension, and then it evolved into something different and expanded....

I think that movies are always about something else than what they seem to be about, in some way or another. A few days ago I saw the Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake, which has been received as some sort of epitome of social filmmaking. Yes, sure, of course, it’s there—but I also see a movie of an old man scared of death. I see an old man, who is losing his grip with the world. It’s a very dark film about the human condition. It’s not a social film at all. It’s really like the last Leonard Cohen album.

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/olivier-assayas-lot-say-kristen-stewart

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/movies/personal-shopper-review-kristen-stewart.html?referrer=google_kp

I saw Summer Hours recently. Really good. I felt for these people and their possessions.

It's not top drawer Assayas -- I can see the joints holding it together, and Assayas must stop writing expository dialogue and scenes -- but it's moving and spooky enough. Jamesian too -- remidned me of Truffaut's The Green Room Stewart is first-rate.

Anders Danielsen Lie is in this! hubba hubba

― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius)

and his is the worst scene!

wasn't feelin' his brown hair either

I would say this is minor but it's not not top-drawer. His movies offer such unique pleasures it's hard for me to be too objective about them. I savor/anticipate them so. The crowd I saw it with was terrible and didn't seem to enjoy or even "get" the movie. I would love for him to widen his scope a bit more next time. Stewart is a great muse though.

Stewart is a good actress but there's something dour and depressing about her.

Stewart is a good actress but there's something dour and depressing about her.

Right on. She's really good in a really specific way but she's not a pleasant screen presence. Anthony Lane's New Yorker review of Personal Shopper nailed it for me:

She’ll never be a lovable actress, but neither can she be ignored; she’s so on, and so bereft of peace. She fidgets, twitches, snaps at her lines as if they were candies, and mops her hand over her face in the hope of wiping her cares away.

"bereft of peace" is a good turn of phrase to describe the tone of PS. So unsettled and unsettling.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/20/personal-shopper-and-frantz

I think that movies are always about something else than what they seem to be about, in some way or another. A few days ago I saw the Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake, which has been received as some sort of epitome of social filmmaking. Yes, sure, of course, it’s there—but I also see a movie of an old man scared of death. I see an old man, who is losing his grip with the world. It’s a very dark film about the human condition. It’s not a social film at all. It’s really like the last Leonard Cohen album.

god, the french and their love of abstraction. there isn't an extra layer to literally any movie that loach and lavery have ever done.

i thought stewart was so fantastic in the latest one

kept vacillating between being bored and utterly transfixed during Personal Shopper. The opening and the ending were brilliant, and that goes a long way. The best film I've seen this year, a great slow burn. sooooooo much better than Clouds of Sils Maria zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

hm idk i preferred sils maria to this; still dug shopper ok, lotta layers

via press release...

Assayas will write and direct Wasp Network, which is based on Fernando Morais’ book, The Last Soldiers of the Cold War.

Wasp Network is the unbelievable true story of Cuban spies in American territory during the 90's which reveals the tentacles of a terrorist network based in Florida with ramifications in Central America and with the consent of the US government.

cannot pull all the threads together yet (or maybe ever), but I thought Personal Shopper was tremendous. KS is so good it almost seemed that the movie as a whole was a meta-textual statement about her persona/performance.

yeah i saw it at NYFF and am still thinking about it

"it's me" - fade to white. one of my favorite endings in recent memory.

We just saw Personal Shopper yesterday, really enjoyed it. It's been a while since I saw Demonlover so my memory is a bit hazy, but I felt like this one did a better job the whole ghost-in-the-machine techno-disorientation vibe. And Kristen Stewart was really good -- she was in just about every scene, it's a heavy lift.

Did a better job WITH the...

Personal Shopper! Watched it last night. It's very good. And yes, Stewart was great in it.

I was blown away by Personal Shopper. Easily my favorite movie of 2017 so far. Incredible ending- that last shot (!!).

Can't understand Jean-Pierre Leaud's accent whilst speaking English in Irma Vep much of the time, and I've seen it before.

Sure would like to see this:

http://www.monabismarck.org/events/conversation-on-culture-greil-marcus-mai-68

Saw Cold Water last night. The whole bonfire segment was incredible.

Assayas did, if you take notice of such things, slip up with music chronology a couple of times. The film is set in '72, and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Cosmic Wheels" are '73. I doubt it was a slip-up, though, I think more likely he (wisely) didn't care.

I had the same reaction to the bonfire sequence - I didn't know much about it going in, and it was a lot bleaker than I was expecting, but that section was perfect. I loved how great/terrible the kids were at DJing - the audible scratches when changing records, just deciding to go back to the start of "Up Around the Bend" halfway through, etc.