- Chilean auteur Pablo Larraín doubles down on his passion- making films about the wives of royalty (2016’s Jackie– about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassi) with 2021’s Spencer –taken from Princess Diana’s maiden name. Spencer tracks Diana through a few days during the Christmas holidays before her sort of emancipation from the British royal family.
- Spencer is also another feather in the cap for Kristen Stewart. Stewart, just over the age of thirty now, has put together a very decent resume that includes 2014’s Clouds of Sils Maria and Certain Women in 2016.
- Like Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, Larraín shoots this in 16mm- and this is an exceptionally radiant 16mm.
- Larraín marvelously eschews the trappings of the traditional biopic (just like Jackie– even more so actually). He captures (with the aid of a game Stewart and Jonny Greenwood’s sublime jazzy score) Diana’s desperation and infinite sadness. There is psychological warfare between the royals, her husband (describing her as a little baby who does not get enough attention), her mother in law, and the sort of chief pit bull of the family Major Alistar Gregory played by a slim Timothy Spall. They battle over closing the curtains, what she wears, what she eats (or does not eat) and her tardiness to traditional royal family events. One wonders how much Stewart (who walks that fine line of drama queen skillfully) pulls from her own experience with the media and limelight.
one of the strongest sequences is the back and forth between Diana (a very able Kristen Stewart) and Charles (Jack Farthing) with the red billiards table creating a gulf between them
- The costume design is from Jacqueline Durran (frequent Mike Leigh and Joe Wright period work collaborator as well as 2019’s Little Women).
One of the strongest compositions is the shot of Diana on the bathroom floor with her dress flowered out on the ground
brilliantly captured- one of the best posters in recent memory
- Larraín sometime deploys a László Nemes-like (though nowhere near the dedication to it) shallow focus as a tool to shape the eye.
- Diana is running through the halls as Larraín captures her in wide shots in a closely manicured and intimidating world.
- The end result is a film that deservers artistic and thematic comparisons to Todd Haynes’ Safe (1995).
- Highly Recommend- leaning to HR/MS border
What about Personal Shopper(2016)?
Isn’t it a feather in the cap for Stewart?
@Malith- Thank you for the help here and on the other pages
@Drake-What about Personal Shopper(2016)?
Isn’t it a feather in the cap for Stewart?
@Malith- No, it is not.
@Drake-Hmm. Surprising considering the film and her performance in the film is generally praised. Are you sure that Personal Shopper(2016) isn’t good enough to be in the archives? It is even released by the Criterion Collection.
@Drake, I am interested why you have The Gold Rush as a MP? You have never written much about it, and I will be happy to hear some arguments for it.
I have it as a MS (leaning MP), and some arguments that I can think of, are Chaplin’s truly amazing performance and great narrative.
I will also add, that I think Chaplin gives the best comedy performance of all time.
Some other would be:
Jeff Bridges- The Big Lebowski
Barbara Stanwyck- Lady Eve
Jack Lemmon- Some Like It Hot
Buster Keaton- The General, Seven Chances
Christian Bale- American Psycho
Leonardo DiCaprio- Wolf of Wall Street
Michael Stuhlbarg- A Serious Man
Bryan Cranston- Malcolm in the Middle
And probably a lot of others that I forgot.
Maybe add – Ralph Fiennes in Grand Budapest and Paul Giamatti in Sideways
@Harry, of course, how could I forgot.
Ralph Fiennes is amazing, that reminds also to add Michael Keaton in Birdman and Gene Hackman in Royal Tenenbaums.
Also:
Robert De Niro – The King of Comedy
Benedict Cumberbatch – Sherlock
Jim Carrey – Truman Show, Liar Liar
Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder, Iron Man
Every other Chaplin performance
Marcello Mastroianni – 81/2
Cary Grant- Bringing Up Baby
Katharine Hepburn- Bringing Up Baby
Robin Williams – The Fisher King
Steve Martin-The Jerk
Brendan Gleeson – In Bruges
Hugh Grant – Paddington 2
Colin Farrell- The Lobster
Brad Pitt – Fight Club
Steve Carell-The Office
Tom Cruise – Jerry Maguire
Michael Caine – Hannah and Her Sisters
Diane Keaton & Woddy Allen- Annie Hall
Bill Murray – Groundhog Day, Rushmore
Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert – It Happened One Night
Frances McDormand- Fargo
Johnny Depp- Dead Man, Ed Wood, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Peter Sellers- Dr Strangelove
Donald SUTHERLAND & Elliott Gould- MASH
Jonathan Pryce- Brazil
Kevin Kline-Fish Called Wanda
Song Kang-ho- Parasite
And probably thousands more. I will be happy of other recommendations.
This list is incomplete without a few more representations of international comedy, such as Vittorio Gassman in… anything probably more than anyone else though most importantly blowing Jean-Louis Trintignant (who is clearly not ready as an actor in 1962) miles off the screen in Il Sorpasso. Giulietta Masina also deserves note as does Fernando Rey in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie especially, Audrey Tautou in Amélie, Anouk Aimée and Marc Michel in Lola, Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye, Jean Renoir in The Rules of the Game, RWF in Fox and His Friends and Dirk Bogarde in Despair, Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, Roger Livesey in Colonel Blimp, Leo and Brad in OUaTiH, Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors, Michael Gambon in TCTTHWAHL, George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight, John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich, Dean Martin in Rio Bravo and Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in Wild at Heart.
And some Coen brothers of course such as virtually anyone in Fargo, and more Tarantino casts like those of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs just as well.
Good work, Drake! I like the HR rating, but I personally have it as a MS. The first hour I think is really great, but the 20-minute stretch from around 75 to around 95 minutes is absolutely sublime. The visuals are astonishing – painting after painting -, I love the slips into surrealism, the odd Jonny Greenwood score, the gorgeous tracking shots, and the scene of Diana crying about her past – to me, it’s the best screen acting I’ve seen so far this year. I also think there may be something there with regard to the camera movement and the film’s form. I’ve only seen Spencer once, but Larraín certainly changes from hand-held to steadicam quite a few times – just not sure exactly how it ties into the overall narrative.
Overall, really great movie in my opinion, even if the last 20 min or so were a bit disappointing. It’s top 3 of the year so far for me.
Respectfully, the greatest Kristen Stewart performance of all time is in this SNL sketch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K79n-yRmTR0
Just watched Spencer in the theater. Oh man. I was expecting a visually astonishing film and to be completely taken in Kristen Stewart’s performance. What I wasn’t expecting was that this film would be such a joy to watch – in the sense that it is a great experience. Not that the story/film itself made me happy – it actually got me emotionally speaking, to be honest. But what a joy it is to see such a great director not getting the audience (me, in this case) worned out by a visual fest with everything else being absolute a bore. What a joy it is to see such mastery being displayed in a simplistic way.
What I mean by “symplistic” is that the story and the feelings itself are very straightforward – and Larrain not always chooses to be subtle about it. But it’s delivered in such a way… it’s not perfect and this may not be a MS level to me, but it surely is, at the same time, exciting and rich cinema.
Spencer is very, very good. Hearing that Jonny Greenwood score in the theaters was insane, from the jazzy calm style to the emotional breakdown ones – the sound speakers of my theater were so loud during these ones. I’m definitely rooting for Kristen Stewart in the awards season.
Can’t wait to see it again. I’ve had such an amazing experience and I feel like so much more could be taken from it.
I will leave here my favorite quote of the film:
“How did I lose myself where I used to play?”
I’m not sure it says exactly this, but it’s pretty close to it.
Hey, Drake, isn’t there anything to the form of Spencer with the frequent appearance of the ghost of Anne Boleyn?
@Pedro- Good work here- maybe more of an ongoing theme but yeah this is a great layer to the film.
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