Whit Stillman loves powerful women
Interview: Whit Stillman on Love & Friendship
The American filmmaker creates a fine comic weave using Jane Austen's material, Kate Beckinsale's sharp talents and his unique sense and sensibility for social satire
By Katherine Monk
“I really enjoy dominant, manipulative women. I find them very entertaining,” says Whit Stillman, his tone so matter-of-fact, it almost makes you laugh. Then again, that’s his charm. The director of Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco built a reputation as a cunning social satirist in the ‘90s for plucking the veil off human vanity to show us the pimples of truth. He also showed a preference for using powerful, insightful and somewhat self-absorbed females as the dainty hand behind his narrative tatting. It’s the reason why his latest endeavor, Love & Friendship, feels like such a natural stitch in Stillman’s oeuvre: It’s based on the work of Jane Austen, the godmother of social satire, a pioneer of female ...
Nadia Litz and Jai West dig deep in The People Garden
People: Interview - Nadia Litz and Jai West on The People Garden
The former actor and first-time feature director says she wanted to create a female character in her 20s who could ride a wave of emotional ambiguity to escape the warm, fuzzy, vulnerable and typically banal female box
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER, BC – Ambiguity isn’t a topic that generally lends itself to passion, yet a recent sit-down with director-writer Nadia Litz and actor Jai West reveals a mental desire to resist closure that’s near obsessive. “Oh man. Ambiguity is the whole thing…” says Litz. “It’s everything. It’s the theme of the film: that there is no black and white conclusion to anything. It’s what relationships are. It’s what life is. It’s what death is.” When Litz talks about “the whole thing,” she’s talking about The People Garden, her debut feature starring West, Pamela Anderson and Dree Hemingway (daughter of Mariel Hemingway, niece of the late Margaux). ...
