Written Interview: Whit Stillman (“Damsels in Distress”)

It’s great to see Whit Stillman back, so here’s today written interview with the writer-director in IndieWire. Some background:

After a 14-year absence from feature filmmaking, Whit Stillman — the beloved chronicler of preppy, privileged and highly literate youth — makes his comeback this Friday with the release of “Damsels in Distress.”

Despite his time away from the big screen, Stillman hasn’t been resting on his laurels. He tried (and failed) to get a number projects off the ground, including an adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s political satire “Little Green Men” and “Dancing Mood,” a period piece about the Kingston, Jamaica church music scene (he told Indiewire he still hopes to get that last one made). In addition, he also penned the novel “The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian,” based on his last film to hit theaters, “The Last Days of Disco.”

An interview excerpt:

Even though 14 years have gone by since your last film, your latest is still about folks in their early 20’s. What is it about youth that keeps you coming back?

A lot of it is happenstance. I just had the idea of doing “Metropolitan” because I was in my thirties and I was looking back and I find it easier to write about a past period when I have hazy memories of the time and can reinvent it in fiction. Then I went to the next phase of life and I got “Barcelona,” and then I wanted to do something about girls in disco techs.

We were kind of criticized for “Disco” and “Barcelona” because the characters were kind of young, callow and philosophizing. It’s okay when they’re [the age of the characters in] “Metropolitan,” but as the characters got older, it’s different.

[With “Damsels”] I had an idea about these girls, and I’d heard some stories about groups on college campuses who are able to change the atmosphere. So I was getting back on home turf of that crossroads period of identity formation, and I was very depressed during part of my university experience, but then I overcame that, and I felt that my personality and talents came out of that crucible.

I do have two other films I hope to do that don’t have much to do with that age group. I think 16–30 is a very interesting period. If you’re doing more dramatic films, it makes sense, but generally at college age, you’re making your pre-life choices. Theoretically, in the old days, people used to get engaged and married right out of college. That doesn’t happen much anymore. But I still meet people who meet at that age and stay together.

Damsels in Distress opens 6 April 2012 in the U.S.

For more of the interview, go here.