I’m not sure I hear people saying, “Where is Willem Dafoe’s Oscar?” enough at all. He is such a sublime actor, and capable of such range in characters that we’re wasting a lot of time in not driving toward that goal.
Such is the case with Kent Jones’s beautifully realized very small independent movie called “Late Fame.” Released by Magnolia, “Late Fame” is playing in two theaters and has made $41,000 so far. It’s not “Spider Man” or “The Odyssey.” It’s a wrenching personal work based on a novel published in 1895 by the very cutting edge Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler.
Schnitzler was best known for his erotic and modern take on sex. But in “Late Fame,” which Samy Burch brilliantly found and reimagined, Schnitzler could already see maybe his own celebrity slipping away. (He didn’t die until 1931.) Perhaps he was already feeling like his best days were behind him when he wrote “Late Fame.”
Believe it or not, this not Burch’s only current movie. She also wrote the animated film, “Coyote v. Acme,” which is getting rave reviews. (I’m watching it next.) She also wrote Todd Haynes’ much loved “May and December.” What’s going on here? I don’t think we’re getting it yet.
Burch and Jones have reset the main character, Dafoe’s Ed Saxburger, as a Greenwich Village poet who published one work of genius in the late 70s and then went to work for the Post Office. He lives alone in a rent controlled walk up and has long disappeared from the literary scene. He has no money or fame, and lives quietly.
All of a sudden, a bunch of young, wealthy NYU kids find him and start ginning him up. They’re in awe of Saxberger, who’s been so isolated for decades that he begrudgingly joins their group of earnest young men who seem like they could be related to the ones in Whit Stillman’s classic, “Metropolitan.”
No one flies, there are no battles at sea, there is just the artful unfolding of this unexpected chapter in Saxberger’s life. The young people capture him like he’s a rare sea turtle. They are so psyched to have found their “re-discovery.” The result is a real contemplation Edmund Donovan as Meyers and Greta Lee as Gloria anchor Saxberger’s new world, with a Greek chorus of Saxberger’s adult friends — David Oreskes, Clark Johnson, and Tony Torn — giving perfect balance.
Does anyone care about a movie about ideas anymore? I guess Magnolia Releasing does. The ideas aren’t even that deep, and a cynic like me could see a lot of it coming. But then again, not so much. Jones and Burch avoid a lot of cliches, and imbue Saxberger with an unsentimental gallantry. Dafoe is so watchable that you wouldn’t mind staying for the sequel.
The screenplay really needs applause. That Burch and Jones discover this tug of war between pretentious modern kids with dough who are denouncing smart phones and technology while they live in lofts bought by their parents vs. Saxberger’s organic and unapologetic life of an artist — the whole thing just sings.
I can only hope the Gotham and Spirit Awards find this movie, and embrace it like another Dafoe mini masterpiece, “The Florida Project.” I really thought I’d never see a character study of such intimacy and humor again.
