The club’s excesses will prove to be its undoing, thus becoming a metaphor for an entire subculture and way of life that reigned supreme in the druggy, heady days of the 1970s (only to come crashing down to sober reality in the following decade). Supplementing the main narrative is a subplot involving their friend Des (Chris Eigeman), a manager of the club who finds himself in trouble when his boss’s shady side dealings spell financial and legal trouble. Alice (Chloe Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) are fresh out of college and aspire to careers as book editors during the day, only so they can let their hair down at the disco club at night. Taking place in New York in the early 80’s, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO follows a small cadre of characters as they struggle to find themselves amidst the death throes of a genre of music they have come to identify themselves by.
With the 1998 release of his third feature film, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, Stillman completed the trilogy with his most absorbing and arguably most popular film to date. As a result, Stillman found himself creating an informal trilogy of films, which he has since come to call his “Doomed-Bourgeois-In-Love” trilogy, or his “Yuppie Trilogy”. His themes and characters are a world onto themselves, often crossing over from one film to another seamlessly. With his previous two films, METROPOLITAN (1990) and BARCELONA (1994), director Whit Stillman had built up a reputation for sobering depictions of the urban/East Coast bourgeoisie. The last days of the disco era seem so long ago now.Inducted into the Criterion Collection: 2009
#THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO MOVIE#
It didn’t quite make half of the budget that went into it, so it was easy to call the movie a failure. The film was considered a financial failure. The building in which the unemployment office was located was torn down in 2012 to make way for new condominiums.ġ. The unemployment office that was used is right across the street from the former club 54. There are simply times when films have to share space with one another due to scheduling conflicts or something else that’s hard to avoid.Ģ. The location of the film had to be shared during principal photography. Affleck might have been able to pull it off.ģ. Ben Affleck was initially interested in the role of Des.Īs the club manager Des was the guy that was kind of suspect in his dealings but wasn’t the worst one of the bunch. The funny thing is that the film never really says that, it only gives the month in which everything is happening and doesn’t go into the year so much.Ĥ. She manages to pull of a very convincing American accent.
This was the first time that Kate Beckinsale had to use an American accent. It has to do with a film he’d already completed detailing the disco club culture and was based on his experiences in club 54, so it was a bit more authentic and could convey the reality of such places a little more.Ħ. The film is loosely based on the director’s experiences in disco clubs. She was supposed to have the project on lock but her agent simply took too long with the details and once Chloe Sevigny read for the part the director believed that he’d found the right person for the role.ħ. Winona Ryder was supposed to be cast as Alice. But in truth 54 didn’t do all that well either and was considered kind of a flop.Ĩ. One might have thought that this would mean that the movie had some stiff competition since 54 had a much more star-studded cast. This film was released in the same year as the movie 54. It’s plenty big enough and offers a desirable atmosphere for a film.ĩ. The disco used in the film was actually an old picture theater that was being renovated.Ĭonsidering that empty buildings tend to make a great setting for many movies it’s not hard to wonder why this area was selected.
As for those around her, a wake up call is sorely needed since some people are able to delude themselves into thinking their lives are great even when things are falling apart without any redeeming values to be seen.ġ0. But as Alice finds out the path towards success isn’t easy or even particularly pleasant at times, though eventually her patience and ability to withstand what life can throw at her wins out and she ends up far better off than she was when the movie started. The Last Days of Disco shows a very strange set of relationships that unfortunately are true to life since a lot of times we tend to make friends with people that are complete opposites of us and therefore have to wonder just why we did this.
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