Filmmaker Whit Stillman is in Williamstown, Massachusetts tonight for a special screening of his 1990 debut “Metropolitan” at Images Cinema. The film explores the lives of wealthy teenagers in Manhattan’s elite Upper East Side. A masterclass in dialogue, “Metropolitan” kicked off a career-long effort by Stillman to celebrate and interpret the work of English novelist Jane Austen. "Metropolitan" received an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay and won Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.
STILLMAN: Well, it's true that the Gossip Girl novels use some of the elements, such as a character named Serena, but what I like to sort of overclaim credit for is that there had not been a Jane Austen movie since 1940, and in “Metropolitan” coming out in 1990, the characters talk about Jane Austen throughout the movie, and it's kind of based on the plot of “Mansfield Park,” and they talk a lot about the Jane Austen novel, “Mansfield Park.” And then five years after metropolitan came out, all the Jane Austen film adaptations started appearing [in] 1995. And that's sort of the gestation period for development people saying, hey, what about doing a Jane Austen novel? And so, “Sense and Sensibility” came out in 1995, which is a great movie, and I think there is one for “Persuasion,” and then there's a “Clueless” adaptation. So, I like to claim credit for some involvement in the Jane Austen film revival, but, but I won't claim too much credit for Gossip Girls.
WAMC: Something that’s so wonderful about the film is the intense attention to detail, and I feel like there's these quiet moments with Tom and with Audrey where they're in these spaces with items that are clearly very meaningful to them, doing quiet rituals that are very lived in and well-practiced. I'm interested- For a director coming into his debut film, there's a lot of stereotypes about debuts being sort of raw demo reels, but you really made something so restrained and attentive. How did you fetter your energy the best to achieve that kind of quiet moment that you come back to throughout the movie?
Well, I was pretty old as a first-time filmmaker. I think the film came out just as I was turning 38, and I think that another aspect of making a first film or writing a first novel is you don't really know whether you're ever getting a chance to do anything else, so you try to pack it full of everything you can. So, I do watch the film now that it's screening, such as at Williamstown, and I do notice that that we really tried to pack it full of significance.
I think Rick Von Sloneker has got to be one of the great antagonist names of film history. When did Rick Von Sloneker come to you? It has sort of a timeless quality, like a Marx Brothers villain or something. It really is this- It's such a great name,
I can't quite tell you the whole story, because it might get me sued, but the name was very resonant for me. There was a person with a similar name who stole one of my first girlfriends away from me, so it meant something to me. And I mean, sometimes we pride ourselves in making films without two-dimensional stereotypes, but having a two-dimensional, cattish stereotype in this film I think really helped the film. It's good to have a bad guy.
Well, in the movie, you have the great character Nick Smith say the immortal phrase, one of my favorite lines in the movie- “One of the worst guys in modern times,” which is just such a, like- It's so on the nose. It's like, this is an antagonist, and we will treat him as such. I love that.
Yes. I need to, in future films, work on better villains.
Now, obviously the screenplay received incredible laudation for good reason. It's just so good. I'm interested- This movie has this very lovely, loose feeling to it where it really reveals itself in its final stages after a lot of these sort of red herrings and misdirections and intentional comedy of errors and what have you. When you were writing it, how did you follow the story in the way that that retained so much naturalism as to how Tom and Audrey finally acknowledge their feelings for each other to each other?
Well, it's a big struggle with a lot of screenplays of having an ending, and sometimes you embark without an ending and you find yourself lost in the middle. In this case, about halfway through, I decided, okay, this has to have some kind of ending. So, I thought up the ending and then did backward movement on the story, sort of like the Transcontinental Railroad coming from both coasts and meeting in the middle- And there's always that worry that you won't find the tracks meeting for the golden spike. In this case, it sort of worked, but there is a kind of a moment when the film kind of goes down – because there's a very funny character, the Nick character you mentioned, who leaves at a certain point, spoiler – and then it sort of changes tone, becomes a different kind of film. So, the last third or last fifth is sort of different.
Tell me about the appeal of going on the road with these movies. What do you get out of this? What conversations do you seek out? What makes this a fun thing to do for you?
It's hugely fun and rewarding. I mean, when you're first showing films when they're coming out, you're so worried about everything- You're worried about the reviews, you're worrying about whether they'll do well. And then by this time, people sort of know what it is and know if they want to see it or not want to see it, and people come and they're pretty interested and pretty enthusiastic, and it's a really fun evening, and catching up with people who've seen others of the films. And it's just super fun. It's the best part of making films, to be able to do this kind of thing.
Do you have sort of a go-to Whit Stillman guide to the young independent filmmaker working on their debut? When you revisit your debut in this setting, I'm sure you get a million questions about this general theme of what it's like to actually go back and observe your first effort. What is your sort of go-to suggestion for folks in a similar place?
Well, I think the most important decision they make is choice of subject. You see a lot of people spending all their energy and creative process on a topic that just not many people are going to want to see. In this case, maybe you could say the same thing about “Metropolitan.” But for me, it was really resonant and dramatic. It had a lot of the dramatic elements of unity and time and place and all that. It had resolution. And also, there's a director, Abraham Polansky, and he said all cinema kind of has an element of pornography in it. And “Metropolitan” is a very clean film. It's PG-13, it's almost too moralistic in certain ways. But there's kind of a social pornography to it, because it's talking about class things in America that make people uncomfortable, and there's sort of a weird fascination, a guilty pleasure considering this group, and do you hate them, or maybe they're not so bad, and so there's that element. I think people- It's really good if the subject can kind of work in people's minds a little bit. I just saw a film recently, the Clint Eastwood film “Juror #2,” and people say, oh – I keep pushing the film on people – and they say, oh, is it really good? And I don't want to say it's so good, but when it's over, you really want to think about it. And, you know, that's a lot. You want a film that you kind of want to think about it after it's done, what did I just see?
Do you have any other recent movies that have stood out to you as being particularly, something you'd note and say, this is a good recent movie that Whit Stillman says is pretty good?
Yes, absolutely. Over in Rhinebeck, I caught “Between the Temples,” a really wild comedy. It's really, really interesting and funny, and I hope it gets awards attention. I don't think they're pushing it that much, but it really should get awards attention. “Between the Temples,” really weird, funny comedy.
I wanted to ask you about how work is absorbed by broader culture- For whatever reason, National Review magazine loves Whit Stillman. It's a sort of bastion of American conservatism, and they've written a stunning number of articles really highlighting you and praising you. I know you've talked about trying to remain apolitical in your work, and I'm sure it's constantly a source of suffering to see how anyone from any background might interpret work you make, but how do you handle that as an artist, seeing things with an ideological sort of bent sort of cling to some of your work?
Well, I don't think National Review likes me anymore, but there are a couple people there who like the movies, and I like to have the movies so that anyone from any political angle can enjoy them. The one I kind of regret the point of view a little bit is the second film, “Barcelona,” that was more political. And that case, I had not lived in Europe much. I sort of was taken to Europe by my spouse, and it's the American version of Europe in certain ways. And having lived over there more time, I guess I see their point of view more than I did. And so, I would make a sort of fairer film balancing between the American and European perspective than “Barcelona.” But otherwise, I think the films try to play it fair and let each side, except for Rick Von Slonekers, be fairly well depicted.
There's a lot of pessimism about the world of filmmaking and a lot of concern about corporate conglomerates squeezing the life out of the industry, cost skyrocketing, risk taking dipping, etc. How do you buy into contemporary concerns about the state of film? Is that something that you're concerned about? Are you optimistic? What's the Whit take?
I think there are two things. It's been really sad and worrisome to see a great film company like Warner Brothers kind of fall apart. And I'm really concerned, because at a certain point, I gave them all my negatives and other material for two of the films that they ended up having the rights to because of acquisitions of other companies. And I was thinking when I was sending it to them, boy, these negatives are going to be well cared for, well treated, it'll all be fine. But I see these companies firing everyone who's doing the responsible work. I see that no one's selling “Barcelona” anymore. It's crazy- With these head reductions, they fire the people who are going to be doing the sales, so you'll be getting the revenues. So, they save a little bit of money in salary, but they lose all that revenue. And so, it's really sad to see something like Warner Brothers fall apart so badly or be crushed by its Wall Street oriented obsessions. But at the same time, when these companies that were great recede, there is space for other companies to come to the fore and do a really great job. And then there are the eternal companies who keep chugging along like Sony Classics, who did “Damsels In Distress.” And so I'm hopeful, I think you have to be hopeful. I really see people starting to come back to cinemas. Indie cinema now has acquired a young audience when it used to be an old audience, so that's renewed. The old audience didn't come back after COVID so much, but the young audience has discovered it, and companies like A24 are taking advantage of that. So, as some of the great companies decline, there’s space for new companies and efforts.
