Visions of the Future from 1995: The World Is Screwed
“‘Waterworld,’ ’12 Monkeys’ and ‘Tank Girl’ posit that when a civilization collapses, many of its customs will be upheld through authoritarian means…”
“‘Waterworld,’ ’12 Monkeys’ and ‘Tank Girl’ posit that when a civilization collapses, many of its customs will be upheld through authoritarian means…”
“9/11 was a psychic wound that fostered a new relation to the world, and those who grew up in its aftermath struggled to digest its lessons; some fell back onto intransigence, while others internalized the damage.”
“Few artists have dreamt more boldly and defiantly in their exile than Ferrara; he has faced up to the dark towers of commerce and coercion, the systemic violence that is rationalized and sanctioned to peak efficiency by the prevailing conditions.”
“The year 2012 was the first in which cinema could adequately assess the material and psychological toll of the crash. The box office tells its own story: audiences were looking for saviors…”
D.M. Palmer on the career women of ‘9 to 5’ (1980), ‘Baby Boom’ (1987), ‘Big Business’ (1988), ‘Working Girl’ (1988) and ‘Disclosure’ (1994).
“What is so strange about the New Hollywood renaissance of the 70s is that it took place at a time of acute crisis for the business. It was a signal of the industry’s weakness that these cracks in the veneer were not only permitted but encouraged…”
“The generation that had fought the war was confronting the generation that had overseen it, staging a sub-rosa assault on entrenched power.” – D.M. Palmer on ‘Patterns,’ ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ and ‘The Apartment’
There Is No Try: Documenting the Silicon Valley Mindset | D.M. Palmer on ‘The Inventor, ‘Fyre,’ ‘Fyre Fraud’ and ‘WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn’
“Dennis Potter left us with one of the most ambitious and meaningful pieces of British television, bridging commercial and public broadcasting to address the state of the nation and the fate of the artist with his customary irreverence and accessibility.”
“The 70s were a tumultuous and often bleak decade for the British film industry, and this pessimism bled into its output.”
“Drug culture and social upheaval became inextricable on the screen in the 60s; it was a belated recognition on the part of the industry’s tastemakers that American cinema’s scrupulously maintained state of grace was no longer sustainable…”
“In all her dramatic iterations, Patty Hearst stands for an American purity that was always illusory but remains hallowed, that successive generations have set out to wrest back from the forces of complication.”
“In my hatred for the Bond franchise, I feel I may have done a disservice to its star. I have always had a tendency to discount Sean Connery as an exquisitely sculpted statue, capable of filling out a tuxedo very nicely but little else.”
“Quatermass is an eccentric antihero who presages Doctor Who in his singular disregard for established mores and the niceties of procedure…”
“‘The Magic Christian’ cries out to be re-visited. For all the cultural specificity of the novel and film, Grand remains a strikingly modern figure.”
“In Fassbinder’s conception of West Germany following its chaotic autumn, terror takes on the tenor of performance art; like addicts lusting after a fix, the groupuscule seeks ennobling sensation; they must be satiated by “Something symbolic…”
“The demise of the conspiracy thriller pointed to a broader shift; it signalled the rise of a new credulity, a willingness to re-engage with the idea of America in spite of its reality.”
“There is a danger and dynamism to 20s cinema which was gradually eradicated by the standardisation of production processes.”
“The Hancock persona tapped into a uniquely British strain of malaise, which manifests itself in a fractious fatalism, a dread of impotence which finds its expression in outlandish displays of petulance, pettiness and pomposity.”
Vague Visages Short Stories #15: Only the Names Have Been Changed by D.M. Palmer (Sheffield, UK)