thread for Sean Baker since he allegedly doesn't belong in "ten greatest living American filmmakers" thread

Argue about The Florida Project here.

Well, violently down the middle on Florida Project.

For awhile, yes, Alfred is right that the movie takes for granted that "these horrifying children are charming little dears" and, left-field quips aside, not remotely convincing. Eventually, it settles into truly expert "everyone has their reasons" territory -- many moments of unforced efficiency. (Am thinking of the interlude with Willem Dafoe's son, I think, saying he doesn't want to "do this anymore," and also clearly understanding why Dafoe's character feels compelled to continue. And how the sudden pattern of bathtime play interludes gently invites the audience into a new and unpleasant plot point.)

And it has a knack for portraying squalor in a way that makes it clear how adults can see their environment one way and kids another way entirely. But one of the movie's most obvious but well-realized examples -- the birthday fireworks a half-mile away from the real show -- just underscored how the abrupt ending didn't fucking work. After Tangerine, which had one of my favorite endings in recent years, this was a damp squib. Even taking into consideration how it brings "reality" crashing into a 6-year-old girl's life so violently she has nowhere to turn to but desperate fantasy. But the movie's a lot stronger when it sticks to things like the tourists' helicopter endlessly taking off: exciting to kids, a slap in the face to the destitute adults.

Still, I'll refrain from calling any filmmaker willing to devote serious career energies into depicting the American underclass condescending until we actually have anything remotely like an appropriate proportion of filmmakers devoting serious career energies into depicting the American underclass.

― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, October 23, 2017

And my review.

He transcends the notion of an 'American filmmaker' since he is still so good. Starlet is a must-see as well, btw.

A review that I suspect will be more characteristic of the response to TFP the more mainstream it pushes: https://letterboxd.com/vjmorton/film/the-florida-project/

Frederik, I admire your opinions on ci-ne-mah more than I do on American politics, but I'm having a hard time accepting how anyone can transcend anything – and why this should be a quality to which artists should aspire! – or why we should look for Metaphors For America. Surely films that make such obvious statements should make one suspicious.

The transcendation thing is a joke, don't sweat it :) I meant 'metaphor' in the way that I look for imagery that communicates. That dares to use aesthetics to say something about the world. And that's the same for me whether we are dealing with the US, Denmark, France, etc. When you and Morbs say that I don't know shit about America, my counterpoint wouldn't be that I do. It would be that i don't know shit about Paris or Portugal either, but I still write about Nocturama and The Ornithologist. And so do you. I look to art for - amongst other things - brave, strong personal views of the world. And it has value through it's aesthetic power, not because it is accurate or 'gets it right'. And I do honestly feel like American cinema suffers under a regime of literalness, where people are suspicious of aestheticification.

On a macro level, Frederik is right.

I agree broadly w/ your take Eric.

And I do honestly feel like American cinema suffers under a regime of literalness, where people are suspicious of aestheticification.

i.e. the Sundance ethos. And you're right. But in TFP the aesthetics are put to work in a film as didactic and literal as any Sundance lab project.

I hasten to add the "do you know why I like this tree?" lapses are few and far between in the movie, but they're there. (Another: "I can always tell when adults are about to cry.")

I disagree with Alfred on the conclusion. There are big and obvious metaphors and music and ending, but there's a much more subtle aesthetic, off kilter, non-narrative, scenes going on a bit too long, always seeming just slightly weird, and it's the combination of the two that I love so much. I've been writing quite a bit about Baker, and have been searching for photos that could underline my aesthetic points, but I've repeatedly found that somehow, somewhere, they become edited so they look more 'normal'. Characters are moved to the center. Unimportant stuff - which is what I love about the shot - is cut out. Of course, that could just be bad promotion, but I do find it interesting. He is weirder than he gets credit for.

A wide channel through the middle of mainstream American film is incredibly similar in tone and mood, sure. I think mistaking it as literal is a problem with both producers and audiences; it's the same metaphor and story devices used every time, and we've grown accustomed to them and mistake their use for a reproduction of reality.

I'm all for alternatives but another prevalent mode has been "indie shit that freaks out the norms by showing people living fucked up lives" which can be good at times but isn't a "brave, strong personal view of the world"

Hey, at least it's better than Escape from Tomorrow amirite?!

good intentions now make for sterling cinema

I should really just catch up and watch all the Florida tourist films in one go

xp a heartening evolution for a frivolous medium

i still need to watch Tangerine! i don't know why it has taken me so long. also, i don't think i ever saw Greg The Bunny. also, he was born in summit, new jersey. my dad grew up there. so did Ice-T. Ice-T and my dad. rollin' hard through the suburbs.

his early stuff is all good

cool, he deserves his own thread. like i said elsewhere, Tangerine is one of my favorite movies of the decade so far, and I was letdown by the meandering Florida Project:

Saw it today. In between Fred & Alfred but erring on Alfred's side - my main issue with the movie is it lacks any forward momentum, and the ending feels tacked on and forced. I was intrigued by the helicopter that kept taking off and landing by the motel, and when the cops & CPS came, I got the idea that the girl was going to run and jump into the helicopter and fly away. A beautiful, absurd fantasy of an ending that was making me cry even as it didn't play out. I thought the idea of them seeking asylum in the Magic Kingdom was nice, but again, the movie was so poorly paced & kind of boring as a mood/atmosphere piece. Some things I loved: the colors obviously, Willem Dafoe's performance (yes Alfred, perhaps not the most common landlord, but I've known a few landlords that he reminded me of. he was my favorite part of the movie by far), Baker escalating situations beyond where most directors would stop or cut (the one parent beating the shit out of the other, the pedophile, the johns coming into the room when the kid was there).

As far as it representing Florida or America or being a "See? This is real America" - well, I trust the guy that actually lives in Florida. Fred, I think the fantasy of this movie does its subject(s) a disservice. I still liked it, and it confirms Baker's status as one of America's most interesting directors, but I was let down- mostly because I loved, loved, loved Tangerine so much.

i watched about half of Tangerine this morning. it's cool. it would make a good netflix t.v. show. is what i kept thinking. it's netflix t.v. show good. i don't know if i will watch the other half though. i have a lot to watch!

also, i have had to resist the impulse today to greet everyone with "how you doin', bitch".

Tangerine is like 70 minutes long!

really? seemed longer. okay, i'll finish it. i liked it. i just want to talk like that all day now though. and tell people to fuck off.

i was just at the part where they were smoking crack in the club bathroom.

i'll watch it with maria. she'll dig it.

When the woman in line shows off her sobriety coin and Sin-Dee cuts her off, "byeeee."

lol

yeah that bathroom scene iirc is towards the end

Seeing this again :D

Baker salutes his influences

http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2017/11/29/detail/the-florida-project-and-the-little-rascals

Tangerine was incredible. this looks like Beasts of The Southern Wild. i did not like Beasts of The Southern Wild. am i wrong in wanting to avoid this?

yea the preview gave me the same thought actually

this should've been called Birth Control is a Right

Jesus

what if... the Our Gang kids were charmless shits?

lol Morbs

Our Gang of Assholes

Not far from Victor Morton's take tbh: https://letterboxd.com/vjmorton/film/the-florida-project/

If I was forced to reduce my response down to what I thought about the characters as people, the only one I had no real sympathies for on the whole was whore mom.

LOL, I already linked Vic's review upthread, I see. It seemed to be the one review that said what evidently I thought needed to be said. At the same time as being comfortingly voiced by someone who is on the record as being a reactionary.

My one totally unfair hot take of the year: the little girl doesn't have the chops to pull off the extended pre-code crying jag at her friend's door.

i agree with that but not the over-the-top judgment making the rounds, lol

Baker owes his career to the leads in Tangerine

he should be barred from future filmmaking for the last sequence in this one

Watched this a week after Happy End and thought Haneke would get the mom to go on a killing spree at the nicer hotel - I suppose that would follow Morbs' they were just a bunch of shits hot take. Me and the friend I was with thought it would be a better ending.

Heh, when I was watching Happy End I realised that Haneke is a great writer and director of young people.

my "bunch of shits" comment had nothing to do with morality, those kids were just winners of irritation pageants.

the little girl doesn't have the chops to pull off the extended pre-code crying jag at her friend's door.

She's not an actress and should be taken away from the parents who let her do this film.

Lol, the ending is great!

would you have said so pre-lobotomy, tho

I kept thinking how Haneke, in Hidden, simply packed a young Majid off. Doesn't flinch.

There isn't any point pretending the girl's life is going to be any better.

That's not at all what the film does, though

That's like saying the final reunion between the girl and her father in Pans Labyrinth seemed phony

Of course the other arg is to say we all know it's going to be awful for her so why not pretend. The film never solved the story in any satisfying way.

Xp Fred it had some good things in it. the ending didn't work.

"Of course the other arg is to say we all know it's going to be awful for her so why not pretend."

Well, bingo. Sorry for the snark earlier, then :)

I disagree!

You thought it was bad?

More whimsy than fantasy, and for the first time Franz Rogowski annoyed me as a Holy Fool.

Ha, in my case he always kind of annoys me although I usually like the films he's in so this one was no stretch.

His talent for talking as if through a hass avocado shines through.

lol

this conversation about madison and intimacy coordinators is driving me insane

what

did a bunch of posts get deleted?

conversations can happen outside of this message board.

https://www.jezebel.com/mikey-madison-confirms-there-wasnt-an-intimacy-coordinator-on-anora

what does moiHRa donegan think of all this

that article refers to multiple conversations! (none of which have been referenced in this conversation)

I watched The Florida Project the other day. Wonderful film

Anora is 139 minutes, so I'm estimating...First hour was intriguing, and I loved whatever song was playing when Anora and Ivan got married (in context, I mean--I vaguely remember hearing the song before and not taking much notice). The hour between, where everybody screamed at each other seemingly non-stop, ground me down; the audience seemed to enjoy it as broad slapstick, I found it all unbearable.

Anyway, two bits of serendipitous overlap with A Complete Unknown. Obviously, Ivan in shades looked very Dylan-like; also, Igor near the end lit two cigarettes and gave one to Anora Now, Voyager-style, just like Dylan.

Horrible take
I wish Clemenza had never heard of Sean baker

Are you on one of these jags where you're just posting stupid stuff for the sake of it? I liked his two films before this one quite a bit.

Cross-referencing threads, would "Who gives gives a f if he 'went electric'" be your idea of a not-horrible, uh, "take"?

calstars has been insufferable all day

For the sake of accuracy: I checked back in this thread and it was an exaggeration to say I liked The Florida Project a lot; what I loved was the ending, but thought the rest was somewhat similar to, but not as good as, American Honey. I never saw it a second time and should. I did like Red Rocket more than most people, I think, but posted about it in my Trump-films thread, not here.

I just started to read it: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/under-the-table/

i saw tangerine recently and i’m not sure i agree with a single characterization of it in that essay. idk

Madison’s performance is not really good or bad, but it is perfect.

i hate writers, i think

it is in fact really good, wtf

I found The Florida Project a LOT easier to watch than American Honey. Both are great movies with great performances but AH was somehow more socio-economically painful

Thus we find the contradiction at the heart of Baker’s work: the Sex Worker cannot be evil, yet the world’s evil must be encapsulated by the Sex Worker.

would suggest author has not understood baker's work

Writer seems to be ascribing a lot of their own baggage to Baker's films imo, with headscratchers like "the two genres from which he draws most of his inspiration: X-rated trash and Sundance micro-dramas." Not sure I would agree that centering films on sex workers is the same thing as "X-rated trash" being his main source of inspiration(!)

I didn't agree with much of it except the review of the film itself.

I have somehow not seen any of baker’s previous films (fixing that soon!), so I don’t have an opinion on the first half of that essay, but I didn’t find about the section on ANORA disagreeable. it’s a pretty rapturously positive review, even if the writer might not characterize it that way. beautifully shot, uproariously funny, great performances, and a jarring ending that forces the viewer to sit with unsettling feelings. that’s supposed to be bad?

i'm not complaining that it's negative

I'm in agreement when she argues that the first 80 minutes (or so) are a delight.

It's a film of three parts and the transitional tipping from one part to another was strongly felt by me. There's a strong sense of "Whoa okay now this is happening!" going on as the whole tone and mood switches from screwball romcom to crime-style thiller-comedy, into a more mature, sombre and analytical tone

That writer seems to genuinely think that Starlet is Baker's debut feature? Talks about 'Baker's first three films' and means Starlet->Florida Project. Writing 'Baker’s early work fails because the kinds of women he centers...' even though Baker's early work (Four Letter Words, Take-Out, Prince of Broadway) centered men.

And at that point, I just don't care anymore. There are so many weird claims in that essay, like that Starlet 'suggests that working in porn is incompatible with female solidarity', which seems like a completely different film than the one I remember, and I could work with that, try and figure out what she means, but why do that with a writer who has done so little work herself?

Criterion announcing a two-fer:

https://www.criterion.com/films/30085-prince-of-broadway

https://www.criterion.com/films/34891-anora

That second Anora commentary sounds choice:

Two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker, Coco, producer Samantha Quan, and cinematographer Drew Daniels, and the other featuring Baker and actors Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Mikey Madison, and Vache Tovmasyan

Sidenote: at which point do y'all listen to commentaries? I only do when I know the film too well and can let the conversation run while I cook, putter around, etc. As if it were a podcast.

Same, although in an earlier life I would throw on a film scholar commentary to fall asleep.

That writer seems to genuinely think that Starlet is Baker's debut feature

it's the first feature he directed on his own

oh wait, I guess I missed he did a film called four letter words

The scene in the NYC courtroom made me laugh the most. After all that lead-up, the stupefying realization of how screwed they are.

My favorite scene in Anora, I think.

Sidenote: at which point do y'all listen to commentaries?

Sometimes I watch them very soon after I first watch a movie -- like a day later or something. It really depends!

I enjoyed this, but agree it was a little too long for the story it was telling.

1) Maybe I missed it upthread, since I was trying to avoid spoilers, but did anyone else catch the billboard in Vegas for "hot new starlet" (or something like that) Strawberry? Sort of surprising callback to "Red Rocket."

2) For a lot of this movie I was reminded a bit of the Coen Brothers (albeit much less slick) but also, surprisingly, Tarantino. I'd just recently rewatched "Pulp Fiction," and I thought the arguing and yelling in this one had more in common with that than, say, "Uncut Gems." Almost to underscore my general feeling, there's a line toward the end of this one where Igor asks Anora what her name means, and she responds with something like "we don't care about names in America," which is similar to how Bruce Willis/Butch responds to the cab driver when she asks him what his name means. "I'm an American, honey. Our names don't mean shit."

A DVD option! Maybe I’ll go ahead and order one.

Finally saw Anora today, I liked it. Someone mentioned Uncut Gems above and this did strike me as a gentler Safdie brothers movie. It was nice to see the screwball tendencies of Tangerine given more room. I don’t think I agree with the LARB writer that Ani doesn’t have an interior life, I think you can intuit a fair amount about her from Madison’s performance. I didn’t particularly think it was too long.

saw this a couple of weeks ago and loved it. i was thinking that the second half reminded me of the film give me liberty (a personal favorite), with its freewheeling dialogue and constant motion, and today i realized that the actress who plays vanya's mother had a big role in that film.

Finally saw "Starlet." Loved it, but it's shame about all the porn stuff, because it might be one of the more thoughtful, lovely movies I've seen in some time that I can't really recommend to my mom or, like, watch with my kids. Could have easily been left out, imo, or filmed differently, but I guess it was important to our man Sean.

At this point I'm wondering who wins in a head to head, Baker or Kelly Reichardt.

Saw a comment somewhere hinting at Baker's problematic social media activity, and it turns out he once liked a tweet by Tulsi Gabbard saying that the jury that acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse "got it right." He also followed LibsOfTikTok. Maybe he still does, but his Twitter account is now private. Not sure what to make of any of that.

I think it really is about press/agents/studios digging up any dirt they can, and bloggers and hysterical people on social media amplifying it. The drama over Karla Sofia Gascon is way overblown and it has ruined the chances for Emilia Perez. Let's not go down this road with Anora

the chances for it winning best picture that is

Seems like this was dug up a couple of years ago. A few people on social media seem to really care about it, but it hasn't really made waves otherwise. I doubt it's going to affect the Oscar race in any way. I just thought it was interesting in terms of what it might say about Baker's political views.

I can imagine Baker having a lot in common with someone like Clint Eastwood, a conservative who often makes surprisingly empathetic movies.