Whit Stillman
Encyclopedia
Whit Stillman is an American writer-director
known for his sly depictions of the "urban haute bourgeoisie
" (as a character in Metropolitan
terms the upper-class WASP
s of the U.S. sociocultural elite).
(or "comedies of mannerlessness"): Metropolitan
(1990), Barcelona
(1994), and The Last Days of Disco
(1998); he also published a novel based on the last of these films. A fourth film, Damsels in Distress, is expected to be released in 2011, and is premiering at the 2011 Venice Film Festival as the closing film. His Manhattan-based, mannerist comedies influenced the films of Wes Anderson
and Noah Baumbach
.
Stillman's protagonist
s voice admiration for opposition political theorists and literary figures like Charles Fourier
, Jane Austen
, and Samuel Johnson
. His films, correspondingly, show an interest in the rise and fall of beneficent social situations, the expression and alteration of human vice
and virtue
, and the influence upon these trends exercised by culture and the cultured. In Metropolitan, this is expressed by one of the characters' obsession with the "Urban Haute Bourgeoisie" and how his generation of old money is doomed to failure. In The Last Days of Disco, the theme is yuppie
s and how this derogatory term actually characterizes good features and qualities.
between 1984 and 1988 while running an illustration agency in New York, and financed the film by selling his apartment (for $50,000) and with the contributions of friends and relatives. Loosely based on real-life events Stillman had experienced while living in Washington, D.C., with his divorced mother during the week of Christmas break 1970 during his first year at Harvard, Metropolitan tells the story of the alienated Princetonian
Tom Townsend's introduction to the "Sally Fowler Rat Pack" (SFRP), a small group of preppy
, Upper East Side
Manhattanites making the rounds at debutante balls during Christmas
break of their first year in college. Though he is a socialist deeply skeptical about the SFRP's upper-class values, Tom (Edward Clements) grows increasingly attached to the cynical Nick (Chris Eigeman
) and plays an important part, of which he is largely unaware, in the life of Audrey (Carolyn Farina
), a young debutante. Many of the exclusive interior locations were lent to Stillman by family friends and relatives. Stillman was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991 for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize (Drama) at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival
. He won the 1990 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best New Director.
, his first studio-financed film, was inspired by his own experiences in Spain during the early 1980s. Stillman has described the film as An Officer and a Gentleman
, but with the title referring to two men rather than one. The men, Ted and Fred, experience the awkwardness of being in love in a foreign country culturally and politically opposed to their own. Serendipitously, one of the film's stars, Taylor Nichols
, met a Spanish woman during production, whom he later married, thus echoing what Stillman had done years before.
was loosely based on Stillman's experiences in various Manhattan nightclub
s, including Studio 54
. The film concerns Ivy League and Hampshire
graduates falling in and out of love in the disco
scene of Manhattan in the "very early 1980s". It concludes a trilogy loosely based on his own life and contains many references to the previous two films: a character considers a move to Spain to work for American ad agencies there after meeting with the Barcelona character of Ted Boynton, and Metropolitans heroine Audrey Rouget reappears briefly as a successful publisher, as do a few other characters from that film, as clubgoers. In 2000 Stillman published a novelization
of the film, The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards.
, Adam Brody
and Analeigh Tipton
. It premiered September 10 at the 2011 Venice Film Festival as the closing film, to favorable reviews. The film is "about three young women at an East Coast university, the transfer student that joins their group and the young men they become entangled with."
, Stillman was raised in the upstate New York
town of Cornwall
, the son of an impoverished debutante
(Margaret Riley Stillman) from Philadelphia and a Democratic politician (John Sterling Stillman, an assistant secretary of commerce under President John F. Kennedy
) from Washington, D.C.
His godfather is E. Digby Baltzell
, who popularized the term WASP
. He attended Harvard University
where he was a member of the Fly Club
and tapped by Michael Kinsley
to take over the humor columns for The Harvard Crimson
. After graduating from Harvard in 1973, Stillman began working as a journalist
in New York City
.
He was introduced to some film producer
s from Madrid
and persuaded them that he could sell their films to Spanish-language television
in the U.S. He worked for the next few years in Barcelona
and Madrid
as a sales agent for directors Fernando Trueba
and Fernando Colomo
, and sometimes acted in their films, usually playing comic Americans, such as his role in Trueba's Sal Gorda.
After completing his film trilogy, Stillman departed from independent comedy and started researching and writing a series of scripts set abroad. The weekend that The Last Days of Disco was released, he left his loft conversion in Manhattan's SoHo
and relocated to Paris
. He returned to New York in 2009.
, but in a recent interview, Stillman says the adaptation is not "happening, at least with me." He has long been writing another film, Dancing Mood, set in Jamaica
in the 1960s.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
known for his sly depictions of the "urban haute bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
" (as a character in Metropolitan
Metropolitan (film)
Metropolitan is the first film by director and screenwriter Whit Stillman. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.-Synopsis:...
terms the upper-class WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
s of the U.S. sociocultural elite).
Films
Stillman has filmed three comedies of mannersComedy of manners
The comedy of manners is a genre of play/television/film which satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters, such as the miles gloriosus in ancient times, the fop and the rake during the Restoration, or an old person pretending to be young...
(or "comedies of mannerlessness"): Metropolitan
Metropolitan (film)
Metropolitan is the first film by director and screenwriter Whit Stillman. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.-Synopsis:...
(1990), Barcelona
Barcelona (film)
Barcelona is a 1994 comedy film written and directed by Whit Stillman and set in Barcelona, Spain. The movie stars Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman and Mira Sorvino.-Plot:...
(1994), and The Last Days of Disco
The Last Days of Disco
The Last Days of Disco is a 1998 sardonic comedy-drama film written and directed by Whit Stillman and loosely based on his travels and experiences in various nightclubs in Manhattan, including Studio 54. The film concerns a group of Ivy League and Hampshire graduates falling in and out of love in...
(1998); he also published a novel based on the last of these films. A fourth film, Damsels in Distress, is expected to be released in 2011, and is premiering at the 2011 Venice Film Festival as the closing film. His Manhattan-based, mannerist comedies influenced the films of Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials....
and Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach is an American writer, director and independent filmmaker.-Background and education:Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987 and ...
.
Stillman's protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
s voice admiration for opposition political theorists and literary figures like Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
, Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
, and Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
. His films, correspondingly, show an interest in the rise and fall of beneficent social situations, the expression and alteration of human vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...
and virtue
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
, and the influence upon these trends exercised by culture and the cultured. In Metropolitan, this is expressed by one of the characters' obsession with the "Urban Haute Bourgeoisie" and how his generation of old money is doomed to failure. In The Last Days of Disco, the theme is yuppie
Yuppie
Yuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...
s and how this derogatory term actually characterizes good features and qualities.
Metropolitan
Stillman wrote the screenplay for MetropolitanMetropolitan (film)
Metropolitan is the first film by director and screenwriter Whit Stillman. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.-Synopsis:...
between 1984 and 1988 while running an illustration agency in New York, and financed the film by selling his apartment (for $50,000) and with the contributions of friends and relatives. Loosely based on real-life events Stillman had experienced while living in Washington, D.C., with his divorced mother during the week of Christmas break 1970 during his first year at Harvard, Metropolitan tells the story of the alienated Princetonian
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
Tom Townsend's introduction to the "Sally Fowler Rat Pack" (SFRP), a small group of preppy
Preppy
Preppy, preppie, or prep refers to a modern, widespread United States clique, often considered a subculture...
, Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
Manhattanites making the rounds at debutante balls during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
break of their first year in college. Though he is a socialist deeply skeptical about the SFRP's upper-class values, Tom (Edward Clements) grows increasingly attached to the cynical Nick (Chris Eigeman
Chris Eigeman
Chris Eigeman is an American actor best known for roles in the Whit Stillman films Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco....
) and plays an important part, of which he is largely unaware, in the life of Audrey (Carolyn Farina
Carolyn Farina
Carolyn Farina is an American actress best known for roles in the Whit Stillman films Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco. She plays the same character in both films...
), a young debutante. Many of the exclusive interior locations were lent to Stillman by family friends and relatives. Stillman was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991 for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize (Drama) at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. He won the 1990 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best New Director.
Barcelona
BarcelonaBarcelona (film)
Barcelona is a 1994 comedy film written and directed by Whit Stillman and set in Barcelona, Spain. The movie stars Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman and Mira Sorvino.-Plot:...
, his first studio-financed film, was inspired by his own experiences in Spain during the early 1980s. Stillman has described the film as An Officer and a Gentleman
An Officer and a Gentleman
A Officer and a Gentleman is a 1982 American drama film that tells the story of a U.S. Navy aviation officer candidate who comes into conflict with the Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who trains him. It was written by Douglas Day Stewart and directed by Taylor Hackford...
, but with the title referring to two men rather than one. The men, Ted and Fred, experience the awkwardness of being in love in a foreign country culturally and politically opposed to their own. Serendipitously, one of the film's stars, Taylor Nichols
Taylor Nichols
Cecil Taylor Nichols is an American actor best known for roles in the Whit Stillman films Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco. His characters in these films were insecure, stuttering sidekicks to those of the more outgoing Chris Eigeman...
, met a Spanish woman during production, whom he later married, thus echoing what Stillman had done years before.
The Last Days of Disco
The Last Days of DiscoThe Last Days of Disco
The Last Days of Disco is a 1998 sardonic comedy-drama film written and directed by Whit Stillman and loosely based on his travels and experiences in various nightclubs in Manhattan, including Studio 54. The film concerns a group of Ivy League and Hampshire graduates falling in and out of love in...
was loosely based on Stillman's experiences in various Manhattan nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
s, including Studio 54
Studio 54
Studio 54 was a highly popular discotheque from 1977 until 1991, located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. It was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming a CBS radio and television studio. In 1977 it...
. The film concerns Ivy League and Hampshire
Hampshire College
Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1965 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts...
graduates falling in and out of love in the disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
scene of Manhattan in the "very early 1980s". It concludes a trilogy loosely based on his own life and contains many references to the previous two films: a character considers a move to Spain to work for American ad agencies there after meeting with the Barcelona character of Ted Boynton, and Metropolitans heroine Audrey Rouget reappears briefly as a successful publisher, as do a few other characters from that film, as clubgoers. In 2000 Stillman published a novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
of the film, The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards.
Damsels in Distress
After a 13-year hiatus, Stillman released his fourth film, Damsels in Distress, starring Greta GerwigGreta Gerwig
Greta Celeste Gerwig is an American actress and filmmaker. Gerwig first came to prominence through her association with the mumblecore film movement...
, Adam Brody
Adam Brody
Adam Jared Brody is an American film and television actor and part time musician. He began his career in 1995, appearing on Gilmore Girls and other series, and subsequently came to fame for his role as Seth Cohen on The O.C. Brody later appeared in several film roles, including Mr. & Mrs...
and Analeigh Tipton
Analeigh Tipton
Analeigh Christian Tipton is an American figure skater, actress, and fashion model, most noted for placing third on Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model and for starring in the 2011 film Crazy, Stupid, Love....
. It premiered September 10 at the 2011 Venice Film Festival as the closing film, to favorable reviews. The film is "about three young women at an East Coast university, the transfer student that joins their group and the young men they become entangled with."
Background
Born in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Stillman was raised in the upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
town of Cornwall
Cornwall, New York
Cornwall is a town in Orange County, New York, USA. It is located about 50 miles north of New York City on the western shore of the Hudson River. The estimated population in 2007 was 12,827....
, the son of an impoverished debutante
Debutante
A débutante is a young lady from an aristocratic or upper class family who has reached the age of maturity, and as a new adult, is introduced to society at a formal "début" presentation. It should not be confused with a Debs...
(Margaret Riley Stillman) from Philadelphia and a Democratic politician (John Sterling Stillman, an assistant secretary of commerce under President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
) from Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
His godfather is E. Digby Baltzell
E. Digby Baltzell
Edward Digby Baltzell was an American sociologist, academic and author.-Life and career:Baltzell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a wealthy Episcopalian family. "Digby" attended St. Paul's School, an Episcopal boarding school in New Hampshire. He attended the University of Pennsylvania,...
, who popularized the term WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
. He attended Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
where he was a member of the Fly Club
Fly Club
The Fly Club is a male-only final club at Harvard University, founded in 1836.Both the Fly and A.D. Club, another Harvard final club, trace their beginnings to the Harvard chapters of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. The A.D. surrendered its chapter credentials in 1865 and broke off from the national...
and tapped by Michael Kinsley
Michael Kinsley
Michael Kinsley is an American political journalist, commentator, television host, and pundit. Primarily active in print media as both a writer and editor, he also became known to television audiences as a co-host on Crossfire...
to take over the humor columns for The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
. After graduating from Harvard in 1973, Stillman began working as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
He was introduced to some film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
s from Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
and persuaded them that he could sell their films to Spanish-language television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
in the U.S. He worked for the next few years in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
and Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
as a sales agent for directors Fernando Trueba
Fernando Trueba
Fernando Trueba is a Spanish book editor, screenwriter, film director and producer.Between 1974 and 1979 worked as a film critic for Spain's leading daily newspaper EL PAIS. In 1980, founded the monthly film magazine CASABLANCA, which he edited and directed during its first two years...
and Fernando Colomo
Fernando Colomo
Fernando Colomo , is a Spanish film producer, screenwriter and film director. He has acted in small roles in his films and others.- Filmography :*1973 Mañana llega el presidente *1974 En un país imaginario...
, and sometimes acted in their films, usually playing comic Americans, such as his role in Trueba's Sal Gorda.
After completing his film trilogy, Stillman departed from independent comedy and started researching and writing a series of scripts set abroad. The weekend that The Last Days of Disco was released, he left his loft conversion in Manhattan's SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
and relocated to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He returned to New York in 2009.
Current projects
Stillman stated in 2006 that he was working on several unfinished scripts. He was for a time slated to direct a film adaptation of Christopher Buckley's novel Little Green MenLittle Green Men (novel)
Little Green Men is a satirical novel by Christopher Buckley, first published in 1999. The novel follows a fictional "Inside the Beltway" talk-show host whose career and life is altered forever when he is abducted by aliens.-Plot:...
, but in a recent interview, Stillman says the adaptation is not "happening, at least with me." He has long been writing another film, Dancing Mood, set in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
in the 1960s.
External links
- Doomed Bourgeois In Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman
- Whit Stillman unofficial website
- A conversation with filmmaker Whit Stillman The Charlie Rose Show, June 8, 1998
- A conversation with Whit Stillman The Charlie Rose Show, September 27, 2000