Whit Stillman doesn’t make movies at a rapid clip — 14 years elapsed between his “Last Days of Disco” from 1998 and “Damsels in Distress” in 2012 — but the movies he makes have a great shelf-life.
That’s why his first film, a 1990 comedy of manners called “Metropolitan,” still resonates with 21st century audiences, and why that film is being screened Thursday, March 3, at Emory University.
The screening is free and open to the public, and will be preceded by a talk from Stillman himself. It's one offering from the school's Department of Film and Media Studies, which is also presenting a series of French New Wave films that continues through April.
Stillman appears in Atlanta as his latest movie, “Love & Friendship,” an adaptation of an unfinished Jane Austen novella, is readied for a spring release.
That Stillman, an acerbic chronicler of upper-crusty mores, should choose to adapt Jane Austen for the movies (but without zombies) makes perfect sense. What Austen did for 18th century England, Stillman does for the somewhat hapless Ivy-educated East Coast ruling class.
“Metropolitan,” loosely based on real events, is about the travails of a pack of Manhattan prepsters making the rounds of parties during Christmas break. Stillman financed the film by selling his apartment. With a budget of $250,000 the film earned back $3 million and won an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay.
Stillman became a figure of adoration and critics became alternately exasperated and glowy:
“Stillman is sometimes simply too damn smart for his own good,” wrote Salon. “You can’t always tell at whom he’s poking fun, or why, and it becomes unfortunately easy to typecast him as the WASP answer to Woody Allen and conclude that his movies are insufferably irritating documents of privilege. He himself is aware of that possibility the whole time, and bastes his entire worldview in a rueful, ironic-romantic glaze.”
The screening is co-sponsored by Paste Magazine, which wrote “Seeing ‘Metropolitan’ makes you feel smart and witty and somehow elevated. Not bad for the price of a movie ticket.”
"Metropolitan" will be shown Thursday, March 3, at 208 White Hall, on the Emory University campus. Free. Whit Stillman speaks at 4 p.m. and the movie will be screened at 7:30 p.m. A small reception will follow. Information: 404-727-0589. arts.emory.edu/about/departments/film.html
