There is a scene in 'Metropolitan' where one of the films early 20's, Manhattan, WASP, elite characters discourses on his disappointment with what he views as the misleading title of the 1970's French comedy 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie'. In deed 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' could work as an alternate title to this movie, and while Luis Bunuel meant it in jest, Whit Stillman means it in less jest.
Stillman, whose 1994 film 'Barcelona' I recently saw and inspired me to view the directors small cannon, comes from this elite world, his father John Sterling Stillman was an assistant secretary of commerce under the Kennedy administration. The directors first film, which would employ a numbers of actors that would appear in his later work, casts an eye that is both affectionate and bemused. His characters are generally good people, but they are also kind of ridicules and self involved, and that is largely a result of the world they were born into.
A lot of the humor in this film is extremely specific, but the average viewer should be able to catch on. From residents of the east side of Manhattan looking down on residents of the west, to the general lack of drivers licenses among the small group of friends who make up our main cast, "I can't believe you don't have a drivers licensee?" "I'm no jock.".
The film takes place over the Christmas break and a bi-annual tradition around this time is 'The International' a premier debutant ball that seems designed chiefly around non Manhattenites making their Manhattan social debuts. Characters unable to get tickets for this even instead watch it, as spectator sport on TV, the way their lower class contemporaries would watch football games or the Oscars.
Dry and surprisingly winning you like these characters, who generally you might expect to resent. As the character Nick Smith says 'The titled aristocracy is the scum of Earth. Though I can't very well hate the untitled aristocracy because that would be self hatred'. ***1/2
No comments:
Post a Comment