"Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
After listening to Ed Driscoll's interview with the movie's screenwriter and director, Whit Stillman, I took the missus out to see Damsels in Distress this evening. The film is a low-budget indie, and it shows--sometimes the sound isn't quite right, and there are scenes that could have been better lit. But the movie, about a group of girls attempting to do good in college--they spend time running a suicide prevention center, where, they have found, tap-dancing represents wonderful therapy--is charming and funny. And in the lead character, Violet, played by Greta Gerwig, it presents one of the sweetest, most effective, and intelligent--Gerwig always underplays just underplays her lines--portrayals I've seen in months.
Since Rob and I have been kicking around the idea of member reviews--of films, books, television programs, and even (why not?) museum exhibitions--here's a Sunday evening experiment. Below, an email from my friend Joe Malchow, who enjoyed Damsels in Distress as much as did my wife and I. If you haven't seen the movie, Joe's comments might mean nothing at all to you. But if you have--well, why not read what Joe says, then add a comment of your own? A movie as skillful, evocative and enjoyable as Damsels in Distress represents a lovely topic for a Ricochet discussion, don't you suppose?
Dear Peter,
Wasn't Damsels in Distress clever? Strange but clever.
I do not know what your theory of the film was, but the two or three hours after viewing rewarded some thought.
I think the entire film is -- and its bright, waxy colors suggest as much -- the world as viewed by Violet. At first blush the film is about the beauty of a forceful personality. Violet's cohort are all flowers; they follow her; when she changes dress, they do. When Violet disappears for Motel 4, it is literally the entire college that goes searching for her. The rest of the girls hardly exist: one is picked up at the bar with a conversation of "hey," "hey," "hey." Another has been inventing her voice -- she isn't English, she is a blank slate which has attracted stronger content from the environment. Of course, the strongest is Violet -- always Violet. Her constant brightness, her deeply held theories which can change at a moment (when Lilly threatens to peel off from the group, and accuses Violet of being harsh, Violet accepts the charge immediately and vows to change) but which, whatever they are, are decisively and convincingly lived. But the story isn't really about the force of personality, as lovely as Violet's is. It is about whypersonalities like Violet's are infectious and good. It's about grace. Violet has grace. The soap is the manifestation of grace. Violet finds the soap at a dingy hotel. She loves that the hotel thought so much to provide good soap. But it isn't really great soap: just soap. But it's grace. She refers to the soap as a gift. It is freely given: the only gift in the film. Everyone, even the crusty construction workers, react to the soap. The suicide prevention house reorients its operation: now it's about packaging the soap and dispensing it to the school. At first the soap makes no difference, because it is wrapped up -- they toss it around. But eventually it has an effect. Violent sees a graceful world, and it is because she is graceful herself that she has such an effect upon the rest of the students.Best,Joe
Damsels in Distress, a movie about grace. That's what Joe Malchow makes of it.You?
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Apr '11
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
Damsels in Distress: How to Dance the Sambola
http://vimeo.com/39214972
Oct '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
Wonderful review. I can't wait to see it. Whit Stillman's first two movies (Metropolitan and Barcelona) are two of my favorite movies ever. Also of note, Metropolitan, was on NR's best conservative movies of the last 25 years list.
Dec '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
Good review. I would love to see a community movie/book/art review section. Something tells me that Ricochet will have some clever reviews--that will most likely be great conversation starters. I can see some great threads coming from this.
Perhaps make it member only as another way to entice people to join!
Sep '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
If James Bowman liked it, http://www.jamesbowman.net/reviewDetail.asp?pubID=2160 it must be good.
I'd like to have dinner with James Bowman and Victor Hanson...
Edited on April 30, 2012 at 2:41pmMay '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
James Bowman is my favorite reviewer too. I'm looking forward to this film.
Apr '11
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
Things are looking up!
(the) "central story is based in fact, inspired by “a very precise group of young woman at Harvard, who I met them when I went back to visit. I’d been there in very political, radical, grim, grungy times, around 1969-70. These girls changed everything, they wore French perfume, dressed beautifully – and there were lots of them. But they’d have been unimaginable in my day.”
Do Stillman and his damsels, each named after a flower, carry the scent of a change in the cultural wind?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXrjIrmek88
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/9228759/Whit-Stillman-on-Damsels-in-Distress.html
http://www.mmisi.org/ir/35_02/bowman.pdf
Mar '11
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
I haven't seen and won't be seeing Damsels in Distress, just as I haven't seen and won't be seeing October Baby. Now matter how worthy and worthwhile this kind of film might be in some better and more normal time, I can't abide such films now. What I desperately want and need is a film that speaks to this moment: the moment of turning our faces to the chill wind of yanking America back out of this Twilight Zone nightmare, just as Casablanca was the film for turning faces to the chill wind of the shooting war against the Axis. For all the reasons we know, we can't have such a film now. But anything else I would find to be like, on a trek through the desert, trying to quench my thirst with sand.
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
You lost me with "theory of the film." Reminded me of Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word -- "art isn't art unless it has a theory." Who was the German notable whose comment on the music of the day was, "Give us someding ve can hum"? Give me entertainment, a diversion, not something that forces me to elucidate a "theory." Especially not a theory about soap.
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
For you, Steve, there's always "Mission Impossible: III." (Which, by the way, I also watched over the weekend with the two teenaged Robinson boys who are still at home. Flawless, in the way that a roller coaster ride can be flawless.)
Sep '11
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
For Stillman fans, you would surely enjoy this book, Doomed Bourgeios in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman. I use Metropolitan to help me explain Tocqueville's idea of "forms" in Democracy in America.
Sep '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
Last Days of Disco is my idea of a grossly underrated classic, so I can't wait to see Damsels in Distress. Well, in truth, I can and will wait to see it because I rarely actually go to a theater and my wife is not a Stillman fan, despite my noodging. But see it I will, soon as it's out on DVD.
Aug '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
I looked forward to this movie for quite some time. Whitstillman.org, a site maintained by a fan, alerted me a couple years ago that the auteur was once more going into production, and kept me up-to-date with tidbits about the casting and filming through the fall of 2010. I rarely see movies in theatres these days, but I insisted on seeing Damsels during the opening weekend.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the characters and the bounty of Stillmanesque bon-mots. Still, for me, the movie did not quite measure up to Metropolitan, Barcelona and Disco. The worlds those movies created were so precise and sharply observed. The world of Seven Oaks was a collection of notions that never quite cohered. I view "Damsels" as a sort of "clearing of the pipes", Stillman's opportunity to realize the various random ideas he's been jotting in his notebooks for the past decades. (But don't get me wrong--those random ideas are still worth the price of admission!)
To put it more succinctly, for those who get the references: "Damsels" is to Stillman's oevre what "Weird Science" is to the oevre of John Hughes.
Aug '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
I really hope it doesn't take another 15 years for Stillman to make another movie.
Aug '10
Re: "Damsels in Distress." Lovely. Just Lovely.
Peter Robinson
For you, Steve, there's always "Mission Impossible: III." (Which, by the way, I also watched over the weekend with the two teenaged Robinson boys who are still at home. Flawless, in the way that a roller coaster ride can be flawless.) · Apr 30 at 9:23am
The Avengers is getting very good reviews as well. Many of the reviewers write about how surprised they were at the quality of the flick.