bbook:

To a certain group of twenty-something urbanites like me, Whit Stillman is something of a god. I was too young to really appreciate the writer-director’s most famous film, The Last Days of Disco, Stillman’s 1998 portrait of a group of post-collegiate New Yorkers pairing up in the fading days of the disco scene. But seeing it as a post-collegiate New Yorker, the alienation resonates. I dug into Stillman’s earlier work—1990’s Metropolitan and 1994’s Barcelona—which complete his “doomed bourgeois in love” trilogy, and eagerly awaited the next Stillman masterpiece. It took a while, but after 14 years, Stillman has finally delivered. His newest film, Damsels in Distress, is another comedy of mannerlessness set at a fictional northeastern college, and hits theaters April 6. The new film is full of familiar Stillmanesque characters, still immensely relatable: imperfect, sometimes obnoxious, and all struggling to find where they fit in. Though Stillman was at the forefront of the ’90s independent film boom, he never really fit in. Despite delivering three critically acclaimed films (he received an Oscar nomination for Metropolitan), his movies lacked the gritty edge of Pulp Fiction or Boogie Nights. Rather than embrace the supercharged techniques of Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, Stillman took a more classic approach to filmmaking: completing character-driven scripts, avoiding salacious subject matter, and examining the morals at play within societal constructs. “I really think films started going bad around 1942,” he tells me. Coming from him, this is not particularly shocking.

Whit Stillman Ditches the Middle Class and Goes Back to School

mikemoody:

Part of an exhibition of artwork by David Lynch at New York City’s Tilton Gallery. See also: “I’m Happier and Happier”: A Tortuous Q&A With David Lynch on the Inspiration For His New Paintings

One of the great injustices of life is that unique thinkers are often dismissed as crazy, their outside-the-box ideas celebrated by some but gawked at by many. Such is the case with one of Hollywood’s most enigmatic actor / auteurs, Crispin Glover.

From “On the Road with Crispin Glover.”

standardhotels:

Esquire (1965) by George Lois - Read our exclusive interview with the original “Mad Man” here.

But that all started to change when the ad guy Bill Bernbach had his epiphany after working with [influential graphic designer] Paul Rand. He realized that you needed two people to make great advertising, and created the world’s first so-called creative agency with the idea of a team of an art director always working with a writer. […] Before that, art directors were nothin’. They’d sit in a room with their thumbs up their asses waiting for the copy writer and the account guy to come down to their office and give them a piece of paper and say, “Make a layout.” Not design an ad. Make a layout. They didn’t get involved in the creative process. Advertising had always had great writers but what it lacked was visual impact.

In honor of this evening’s event: ”’Mad Man’ George Lois Gives Some Damn Good Advice.”

“I had a collection of songs that I thought were really strong. I took them in [and] played them for the record company. They weren’t interested. They told me they were too dark. They wanted me to have international radio hits and ‘be the Annie Lennox of my generation.’ I kid you not; I am quoting directly. I just thought, Fuck this.”

—Shirley Manson, from “Q&A: Shirley Manson and Butch Vig of Garbage Talk About Their Comeback, and Why Manson was the Lana Del Rey of the 90s”.

chagalov:

Agnès Varda, Autoportrait morcelé, 2006  [+]

You know, the boundaries between contemporary art and cinema are so rigid. It’s unbelievable. The film critics don’t know my artwork and the art world doesn’t know my films.
— Agnès Varda, interviewed by Liza Bear, 2009 [read here]

from connaissancedesarts

colleennika:

Video Premiere: Phlo Finister’s London Mod-Themed ‘Wrong ’ | Colleen Nika | Rolling Stone

Yves Saint Laurent’s glasses, by Ivan Terestchenko.