The 27th SCAD Savannah Film Festival continues with Saturday Night, Emilia Pérez, and more.
This might be the busiest SCAD Savannah Film Festival I’ve ever been to, with so much going on all at the same time. While Scott Feinberg’s Docs to Watch panel took place (I heard it exceeded two hours this year!), the red carpet bustled with Vanguard Director honoree Jason Reitman and casting director John Papsidera before they presented Saturday Night.
“We tried to go a little bit younger,” said Papsidera on casting younger actors, like 22-year-old Gabriel LaBelle as a nearing-30 Lorne Michaels. “They’re unique talents, but we tried to overemphasize that they were that young in their spirit and education. Partly what’s amazing about the story is that Lorne had the vision and wherewithal to pull it off. He’s an old soul in a young body.”
Reitman said he likes making films about unlikeable heroes but that Saturday Night offered something new for him.
“The beginning of my career, the leads were a tobacco lobbyist, a pregnant teenager, a guy who fires people for a living, and a homewrecker,” said Reitman. “These are the people I want to make movies about. For me, it’s about finding the sensitivity and vulnerability in the most unlikely places. Saturday Night is different. It’s a movie about one generation ripping the baton out of another. I think it’s the job of every young person to tell old people they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
Except some older folks are also telling older people they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, like in Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid. At a party in James Carville’s honor at The Olde Pink House, I got to meet the Ragin’ Cajun himself and toast his film.
Carville gave a rousing speech and said he felt the Democrats were going to win on Tuesday (let’s hope this post ages well) and joked that the hardest person to get to sit down for the doc was his wife Mary — not former President Bill Clinton.
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths Counterpoints His 2008 Film Happy-Go-Lucky, A Thoughtful Character Study on Mental Illness
One of my favorite films of all time is Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky starring Sally Hawkins. In it, Poppy (Hawkins) is a cheerful kindergarten teacher learning to drive for the first time and discovering how her disposition can sometimes make her vulnerable.
I couldn’t help but think of this film as I watched Leigh’s latest, Hard Truths, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy — an angry, volatile, sometimes accidentally hilarious woman who lashes out at everyone she comes in contact with. She’s the complete opposite of Poppy in almost every way.
Hard Truths is a tough watch, as Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy zaps the joy out of nearly every scene because that’s what this character does. You’ve met Pansy in real life. You know this person. This is one of the most authentic stories about depression I’ve ever seen without a single character calling it out. Jean-Baptiste is great, and I only wish Leigh would have gone further with his writing and directing in digging into what’s at the center of her irritability. However, just the way depression rears its ugly head, sometimes there doesn’t have to be a reason.
Porcelain War Filmmakers Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev Receive Standing Ovation at SCAD Museum of Art
I had the pleasure of moderating a discussion with filmmakers Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev about one of the best documentaries of the year, their film Porcelain War. When I brought them out on stage, they received a standing ovation for their documentary about artists dropping their paintbrushes and picking up guns during the War in Ukraine.
In the Q&A, Bellomo said that originally he and Leontyev were connected through another artist to work on an animation project, but that when the war broke out, they stayed in touch and decided to take a different approach. Leontyev is truly a remarkable human being who not only learned how to become a rifleman but also how to use a camera (his craft is porcelain).
Porcelain War is a living expression of art, from porcelain snails to the drone footage it uses to capture targets, but also in how it was created, with two artists teaching and learning from each other. Leontyev and Bellomo only met each other in person for the first time ever at Sundance earlier this year!
You’ve Never Experienced Something Like Emilia Pérez, An Exceptional Tragedy Anchored by SCAD Honorees Karla Sofía Gascón (Distinguished Performance Award) and Zoe Saldana (Vanguard Award)
I went into Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez knowing very little, and it’s a highly enjoyable way to experience this beautifully twisted tale. Don’t read the below if you would rather experience this without knowing the premise!
Best Actress contender Karla Sofía Gascón plays cartel kingpin Manitas who enlists an overworked and undervalued lawyer Rita, played by Zoe Saldana, to help him transition to a woman and start a new life as Emilia Pérez. And then things start to get really crazy (and this is after a musical sequence in a gender-change operating room with swiveling beds and Saldana listing off the things Manitas would like to add to her female body).
Both Gascón and Saldana dazzle the screen, with Gascón basically playing two different roles (unrecognizable as Manitas) and Saldana using her physicality and grace to make Rita pop and serve as more than the pawn moving Emilia’s pieces into place. I can’t believe we’ve been hiding Saldana under CGI for so long in movies like Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Emilia Pérez will divide audiences with its premise and cultural representations, but as a musical and film, it gets so many things right, starting with the music, with original songs by Camille and original score by Clément Ducol. While you might not be singing them as you leave the theater, you’ll definitely be looking them up on Spotify on the car ride home. Even though it shows up on Netflix later this month, Emilia Pérez should be experienced on the big screen.
