When a movie ends, Jim Jarmusch almost always gets sick. Which illness varies it could be a cold, the flu, or worse. The phenomenon has taken place for years. In his filmography, the director tends to post more questions than answers. In contrast, when it comes to his health, he has arrived at a clear conclusion: It's fucking hard to make a movie. And that's equally true if it's good or bad. It requires a lot of resistance and concentration.
By the middle of the 1990s, two Westerns had won Best Picture in three years. That was a big deal, because the genre had been more or less dormant since Heaven's Gate cratered at the box office in 1980. The successes of Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves and Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven came a few years after Costner starred in Silverado and Eastwood tested the waters by directing and starring in Pale Rider, two 1985 films that set the stage for the leading men to dazzle audiences and Academy voters with much grander follow-ups.
Nobody, not even Jim Jarmusch himself, seemed to think his latest, Father Mother Sister Brother, had a shot at winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. Not because the film wasn't terrific - it was - but because it was so modest, minimalist, and odd, a true curiosity amid an awards-season-friendly lineup of big titles defined by their ambition and/or their hard-hitting urgency.
The palazzo, an eighteenth-century landmark on the Grand Canal, became the canvas for the maison's vision. Its Baroque architecture, sharpened by Tadao Ando's minimalist interventions, offered a stage that was both historic and modern. Guests arrived by boat to the private dock, ascending marble steps into a hall reimagined for the night. Crystal chandeliers glowed above round tables dressed in rich red silks, polished silver, and white porcelain.
As ever, the New York Film Festival, which begins on September 26 at Lincoln Center, marks the start of our city's cinematic season. There are, admittedly, far more films than you've likely got time to see. But that's what we're here for. So unless you have limitless funds and nothing else to do-in which case, let us introduce you to the $17,500 Gold Pass-consider starting with one of the high-buzz titles below.
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