Thanks for this bit of excellent criticism on White Lotus. I think you nailed it. It was good to look at all three seasons at once as Abra mentioned. I will be curious what characters recur in season 4, because that was another element of the show I found intriguing. I wonder what happened to Tanya's assistant, Portia, for example. Is she someone Gary/Greg will have to worry about? Or did he really have the last morally bankrupt laugh with the final shot of him in season 3, as he winked and raised his glass of whisky...
There are interesting parallels between this show and recent movies as well. I'm thinking here of Infinity Pool from Brandon Cronenberg, and Blink Twice from Zoe Kravitz. (Interesting that both directors here come from entertainment royalty.) Something in the current zeitgeist that needs to explore rich people on exclusive / private islands and there behavior, I guess! Though I sure wouldn't know why people are interested in that...
Yes. All plots now I find revolve around money. See: Emilia Perez and Anora AND The Brutalist, for instance. Without getting political (unless that's your wheelhouse): why this infatuation with money in entertainment in our moment, when, economically, it's a disaster we're zone we're viewing these characters from?
Interesting. Your examination of performativity here makes me think you might enjoy Katie Kitamura’s new book, AUDITION.
This third season was much weaker in its characterization and structure than the others. But taking them together like this to look at the whole project as a trilogy casts it in a slightly more meaningful light.
Hmm . . . I'm noticing this prominence of performativity as theme and style in the early chapters of Audition. Performativity may emerge from controversial theory, but I find it conceptually, on its own, quite powerful as a preoccupation in the collective consciousness—an interesting branching off from existentialism.
Yes, these series do have the density of ideas in novels at their very best.
I agree completely. This most recent series was by far the least interesting. Some of the freshness of the first seasons felt sapped for much of the latest. I do feel that S3 took some creative risks that paid off. The pacing does make more sense in retrospect, though the writing team simply must focus on gaining back the "snappy" momentum of the first ones. The concept of the series will fail if pacing (I thought this season had a brilliant second half and a weak first half) . . . Fans tend to turn pretty quickly when corners are cut (see: "Game of Thrones"), so I hope to see a bounce back. But this tone, this genre . . . They're so hard to produce, and Mike White has no co-writers, which is a risk.
I actually have Audition on my Kindle already 😉 Good shout! Thank you, Abra!
Hadn't thought of this connection! Really thoughtful. Will have to chew on it 💭
Oh, I see. The modern TV series v. the novel! Yes!
Thanks for this bit of excellent criticism on White Lotus. I think you nailed it. It was good to look at all three seasons at once as Abra mentioned. I will be curious what characters recur in season 4, because that was another element of the show I found intriguing. I wonder what happened to Tanya's assistant, Portia, for example. Is she someone Gary/Greg will have to worry about? Or did he really have the last morally bankrupt laugh with the final shot of him in season 3, as he winked and raised his glass of whisky...
There are interesting parallels between this show and recent movies as well. I'm thinking here of Infinity Pool from Brandon Cronenberg, and Blink Twice from Zoe Kravitz. (Interesting that both directors here come from entertainment royalty.) Something in the current zeitgeist that needs to explore rich people on exclusive / private islands and there behavior, I guess! Though I sure wouldn't know why people are interested in that...
Yes. All plots now I find revolve around money. See: Emilia Perez and Anora AND The Brutalist, for instance. Without getting political (unless that's your wheelhouse): why this infatuation with money in entertainment in our moment, when, economically, it's a disaster we're zone we're viewing these characters from?
Interesting. Your examination of performativity here makes me think you might enjoy Katie Kitamura’s new book, AUDITION.
This third season was much weaker in its characterization and structure than the others. But taking them together like this to look at the whole project as a trilogy casts it in a slightly more meaningful light.
Hmm . . . I'm noticing this prominence of performativity as theme and style in the early chapters of Audition. Performativity may emerge from controversial theory, but I find it conceptually, on its own, quite powerful as a preoccupation in the collective consciousness—an interesting branching off from existentialism.
Yes, these series do have the density of ideas in novels at their very best.
I agree completely. This most recent series was by far the least interesting. Some of the freshness of the first seasons felt sapped for much of the latest. I do feel that S3 took some creative risks that paid off. The pacing does make more sense in retrospect, though the writing team simply must focus on gaining back the "snappy" momentum of the first ones. The concept of the series will fail if pacing (I thought this season had a brilliant second half and a weak first half) . . . Fans tend to turn pretty quickly when corners are cut (see: "Game of Thrones"), so I hope to see a bounce back. But this tone, this genre . . . They're so hard to produce, and Mike White has no co-writers, which is a risk.