Vox Lux (Brady Corbet, 2018)

[therewillbeblus]

After finishing Mann's book, a new reading comes to mind that builds off the old

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in that Adrian's 'deal with the devil' admission is an attempt at meaning, and to share responsibility as an agent, to describe horrors of the world. As he descends into madness from the syphilis, and loses control on his bearings from dementia, he holds onto some semblance of control by admitting a role in the chaos of his life that he cannot explain. Or, if there was a deal with the devil, it was partly as a way to relinquish the responsibility of agency, while taking full control of one's destiny with that crutch. Adrian yells to the crowd at the end that he was destined to turn to the devil from birth, another way to diffuse responsibility while simultaneously taking on all the shame, a double-edged sword. Celeste does something similar - whether she imagined it, or actually did it - the idea of making a deal with the devil only serves as a crutch. It's a support for if life doesn't work out well it's a psychological safeguard to share the burden and not internalize it alone. In the absence of God, or hope, one will seek it where they can, and after that traumatic event it seems sensible to turn to the tangible that is sin to find solace. Adrian's advisement to the crowd to live life sober and admitting to being inebriated through his own, also discounts that initial declaration that he was destined for this fate from birth, but hits on the idea that he (and Celeste, and all of us to some degree) chose to spend his life out of the sobering awareness of the world's disorder and uncontrollable cosmic forces. It's a lot easier to give that advice when you're at the end of your rope than when you're young and scared and need to turn to something tangible to alleviate that unbearable dysphoria!

[therewillbeblus]

Corbet's first short Protect You + Me is up for free on Vimeo. It's similar in tone to his features, with a wonderful culmination of nebulous pressure from socialization (family and strangers), stirred identity from digging into personal history, etc. weighing on an isolationist in a social world. Pretty indicative of what would come, and worth ten minutes of your time, if only for the penultimate tracking shot of Daniel London unleashing himself.

[Matt]

I’m coming to this film very late, but wow, I did not get out of it what any of you did, even those who disliked it. Thin gruel to me overall, particularly with Her Smell and Tár having come out since this and, in my opinion, having done a much better job with the egotistical, unbalanced female star theme and with much better central performances and more fully developed characters all around. This was somewhat interesting, and the girl playing young Celeste was quite good, but there was really nothing in it for me to grab onto, narratively or stylistically. I feel like I missed a whole act of the film and couldn’t make the leap the film asks me to make with how Ellie goes from being a strong, supportive elder sibling to this cowed, meek wisp of a woman raising Celeste’s daughter for her. In Act II, I thought she was just a friend of the daughter until I realized scenes later it was Celeste's sister.

The idea of Celeste as a kind of dime-store Lady Gaga is totally believable to me (and not particularly notable) in 2024. There are so many of them now, pulled seemingly out of thin air (Tate McRae? Gracie Abrams? Ava Max?) They are so unremarkable and interchangeable from year to year, and their fans are all idiotic and rabid. I don’t see what statement is being made about (or via) the audience because they didn’t register to me at all. I can’t take the “deal with the devil” idea seriously at all because, like, she sold her soul for THAT? A small-time pop career playing 1500-capacity shows? The devil must have learned a hard lesson in making Robert Johnson a music legend and honed his negotiating skills before making his piddling offer to Celeste. Seems more like just a cute idea to throw in at the end as an ironic comment on Celeste’s own high and serious opinion of herself, like the scenes of Lydia Tár intensely preparing to wave her baton around to a video game soundtrack.

The inserts of New York architecture with Scott Walker’s score laid over them were very cool. I could have enjoyed a 20-minute short film of that alone, you can keep the rest.

[mfunk9786]

The idea of Celeste as a kind of dime-store Lady Gaga is totally believable to me (and not particularly notable) in 2024. There are so many of them now, pulled seemingly out of thin air (Tate McRae? Gracie Abrams? Ava Max?) They are so unremarkable and interchangeable from year to year, and their fans are all idiotic and rabid.

I would say this is a feather in the film's cap, because looking back there are a few elements of this that feel predictive of where we are today. But of course, those things were happening on a smaller scale then, but if two things have grown in their ubiquity and general cultural acceptance it's

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school shootings and shitty music

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

The idea of Celeste as a kind of dime-store Lady Gaga is totally believable to me (and not particularly notable) in 2024. There are so many of them now, pulled seemingly out of thin air (Tate McRae? Gracie Abrams? Ava Max?) They are so unremarkable and interchangeable from year to year, and their fans are all idiotic and rabid.

I would say this is a feather in the film's cap, because looking back there are a few elements of this that feel predictive of where we are today. But of course, those things were happening on a smaller scale then, but if two things have grown in their ubiquity and general cultural acceptance it's

SpoilerShow

school shootings and shitty music

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Speaking of the two things, it always amused me that the school shooter made up like Marilyn Manson (god knows what deal with the devil he made) ended up being a reference to Celeste's later career. Whereas I'd just thought Corbet threw that guy's specific look in there just as a reference for fellow Millennials.

[mfunk9786]

The one thing that is most complicated to defend about this film is that "the devil" could be anything, and that's more interesting than if it were handled more literally. It's almost as though Celeste had been baptized in the first act, agreeing to all sorts of uncomfortable truths about the way the world is in an effort to accelerate her possibilities for having a future. As though what occurs early on is so traumatic and insane for anyone to go through that they'd be willing to do anything to turn that negative into as much of a positive as they can, almost as a survival mechanism.

By going along to get along, Celeste becomes part of the checked-out cultural machine that she was so badly harmed by and like with so many who choose a path like that, manages to enrich herself while pushing everyone else away. But crucially, she would've never had this opportunity had something that should never happen to any child anywhere not occurred.

[flyonthewall2983]

I don’t mean for this to sound glib, but looking back a better remit of these themes would be a gender-swapped take on Pink Floyd's The Wall. Doubtful if it gathers interest outside of what I am typing right now but you can certainly track the story of someone like Britney within the same lines, and with creative license update as much to recent pop music trends something compelling could be created.