Synopsis:
Critics have praised the films of writer-director Whit Stillman for their exceptionally intelligent portrayal of the lives and loves of the urban haute bourgeoisie. His three comedies of manners -- Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco -- sparkle with urbane and ironic wit. In Doomed Bourgeois in Love, the cultural critic Mark C. Henrie brings together a collection of political theorists, literary critics, and classicists to explore the meaning of Stillman's films.
From the Back Cover:
Doomed. Bourgeois. In Love. With those words, used in advertising copy to promote his first film, Academy Award-nominated writer-director Whit Stillman debuted his peculiar comic genius. At once class-conscious, theory-laden, nostalgically romantic, and deflatingly ironic, Stillman has charmed thousands (though he doubtless hoped for millions) of viewers. His three comedies of manners--Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco--sparkle with urbane and ironic wit. But they also betray the presence of a profound social commentary. Themselves charmed, and therefore intrigued, by Stillman's art, the writers gath-ered here by Mark C. Henrie have each applied their consid-erable critical intelligences in an effort to uncover the political, social, and religious purposes so cleverly hidden in the comedy. These essays contend that Stillman's art is an effort to "ironize" our ironic age; as such, they constitute a major achievement of Christian humanism in our time. "Anyone who enjoys Whit Stillman's movies--which really ought to be everyone, East Side, West Side, Uptown, Downtown--will be grateful for this thoughtful and highly readable collection of essays on his art and inner meanings."--Christopher Buckley, author of Wry Martinis and Thank You for Smoking "One often hears literate people sigh, 'Why are movies today so awful? What happened to dialogue, to manners, to moral depth?' Then along came Whit Stillman, whose movie Metropolitan instantly demonstrated that, against all odds, it was still possible to make movies that were both serious and fun, mannerly and full of life. Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco confirmed the triumph. Whit Stillman is already a national treasure. This fine collection of essays, as wide-ranging as they are well written, does what the best criticism always does: whets one's appetite for Whit. This is a book to be read in daylight hours; in the evening, you will want to watch and rewatch the films of a young American master."--Roger Kimball, The New Criterion "Stillman is the Balzac of the ironic class, the Dickens of people with too much inner life."--Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post "If F. Scott Fitzgerald were to return to life, he would feel at home in a Whit Stillman movie. Stillman listens to how people talk, and knows what it reveals about them. His characters have been supplied by their Ivy League schools with the techniques but not the subjects of intelligent conversation, and so they discuss "The Lady and the Tramp" with the kind of self-congratulatory earnestness that French students would reserve for Marx and Freud."--Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
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