The Color Wheel: Difference between revisions
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Other critics were not as imprssed. Peter Keough of ''[[The Boston Phoenix]]'' gave the film 1 1/2 out of 4 stars, comparing the film unfavorably to ''[[The Puffy Chair]]'' and writing that "Alex Ross Perry's self-consciously coy indulgence reminds me of the work of [[Diablo Cody]], but slighter and more irritating."<ref name="pk">Keough, Peter. [http://thephoenix.com/Boston/movies/130512-color-wheel/ Review: The Color Wheel.] ''[[The Boston Phoenix]].''</ref> Shawn Levy of ''[[The Oregonian]]'' complained about the film's style, writing: "There’s handmade and then there’s amateurish. This, alas, is the latter."<ref name="levy">[http://blog.oregonlive.com/madaboutmovies/2012/05/the_color_wheel_review_mumblec.html 'The Color Wheel' review: mumblecore becomes fumblecore in comic road movie.] ''[[The Oregonian]]''.</ref> David Fear of ''[[Time Out New York]]'' gave the film a negative review, writing that "Some will call ''The Color Wheel'' daring. Others will remember that it takes more than desperate shocks to add substance to the sloppy diddlings of a dilettante."<ref name="df">Fear, David. [http://www.timeout.com/us/film/the-color-wheel-1 The Color Wheel.] ''[[Time Out New York]]''.</ref> |
Other critics were not as imprssed. Peter Keough of ''[[The Boston Phoenix]]'' gave the film 1 1/2 out of 4 stars, comparing the film unfavorably to ''[[The Puffy Chair]]'' and writing that "Alex Ross Perry's self-consciously coy indulgence reminds me of the work of [[Diablo Cody]], but slighter and more irritating."<ref name="pk">Keough, Peter. [http://thephoenix.com/Boston/movies/130512-color-wheel/ Review: The Color Wheel.] ''[[The Boston Phoenix]].''</ref> Shawn Levy of ''[[The Oregonian]]'' complained about the film's style, writing: "There’s handmade and then there’s amateurish. This, alas, is the latter."<ref name="levy">[http://blog.oregonlive.com/madaboutmovies/2012/05/the_color_wheel_review_mumblec.html 'The Color Wheel' review: mumblecore becomes fumblecore in comic road movie.] ''[[The Oregonian]]''.</ref> David Fear of ''[[Time Out New York]]'' gave the film a negative review, writing that "Some will call ''The Color Wheel'' daring. Others will remember that it takes more than desperate shocks to add substance to the sloppy diddlings of a dilettante."<ref name="df">Fear, David. [http://www.timeout.com/us/film/the-color-wheel-1 The Color Wheel.] ''[[Time Out New York]]''.</ref> |
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Even more negative was the review written by Ryan Brown for IonCinema.com, who stated: "The fact that the [[Brooklyn Academy of Music]] in New York could recently sanctify its movie screens with epiphanic [[Robert Bresson|Bresson]] and [[Andrzej Żuławski|Zulawski]] retros, only to smear them now with a full week’s run of this tripe only goes to demonstrate how haywire and scatterbrained 21st century film culture has become. Maybe the most appalling thing about Perry’s movie is his obnoxious swipe at a truly great American film artist, [[Julian Schnabel]], by conspicuously associating the character of a fatuous 'broadcasting' professor with a book of Schnabel’s paintings."<ref name="brown">Brown, Ryan. [http://www.ioncinema.com/reviews/the-color-wheel-review The Color Wheel.] IonCinema.com.</ref> |
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==References== |
==References== |
Revision as of 14:09, 31 May 2012
The Color Wheel | |
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Directed by | Alex Ross Perry |
Written by | Carlen Altman Alex Ross Perry |
Produced by | Bob Byington Alex Ross Perry |
Starring | Alex Ross Perry Carlen Altman Bob Byington Kate Lyn Sheil Ry Russo-Young |
Cinematography | Sean Price Williams |
Edited by | Alex Ross Perry |
Music by | John Bosch |
Distributed by | Cinema Conservancy |
Release date | May 18, 2012 (USA) |
Country | USA |
Language | English |
The Color Wheel is a 2011 American independent film directed by Alex Ross Perry and co-written by Perry and Carlen Altman, who also play the lead roles.
A screwball black comedy, the film follows adult siblings J.R. (Altman) and Colin (Perry) as they undertake a road trip to move J.R.'s belongings out of the home of her former lover and college professor (Bob Byington). Shot on black-and-white 16mm film, the film is noted for its unusual and abrasive style, rapid-fire dialogue, and dark plot,[1] which touches on taboo subjects such as incest.[2]
After premiering at festivals in 2011, the film was named the best undistributed film of the year by the Indiewire[3] and Village Voice[4] polls, and placed 12th in a similar poll conducted by Film Comment.[5]
The Color Wheel was released theatrically in the United States on May 18, 2012.
Production
Director Alex Ross Perry first met Carlen Altman at a stand-up comedy show where both were performing.[1] The two became friends, and later co-wrote the screenplay for The Color Wheel. Perry has stated that film was influenced by the novels of Philip Roth, which he was reading while working on the script.[1] Perry wrote the first draft of the script on his own before passing it along to Altman to re-write.[6]
The film was shot on black-and-white 16mm film. Production took eighteen days.[7] Unlike many contemporary independent film productions, the film features almost no improvisation[7][6][1] and was extensively rehearsed beforehand.[7]
Reception
Prior to its 2012 theatrical release, The Color Wheel was named the best undistributed film of 2011 by the Indiewire[3] and Village Voice[4] polls of film critics, and placed 12th in a similar poll conducted by Film Comment.[5] Since its release, the film has received both strongly positive and strongly negative.
A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that the film was "sly, daring, genuinely original and at times perversely brilliant" [8], while also stating that it was "a singularly unpleasant movie"[8] that had "scramble[d his] signals ... effectively, overriding deeply ingrained habits of response and judgment."[8] Eric Kohn of Indiewire praised the film, writing that it was "a sheer delight of sarcasm and uneasy wit."[9]
Writing in The Village Voice, Nick Pinkerton described The Color Wheel as "a movie that's consistently unafraid to get confrontational and plain weird, with Colin's is-it-or-isn't-it-ironic racism, abrupt smothering close-ups, and scenes pushed past the boundaries of plausible motivation until they nosedive into absurdity. Like Howard Hawks's Twentieth Century, it's a travelogue movie about a couple whose impossible, porcupine personalities leave them safe, finally, for nobody's company but each other's."[10] In his personal blog, MSN film critic Glenn Kenny stated that "there's a sense in which the unpleasantness of the characters, all of the characters, is so oppressively overwhelming that one gets a sense of an Ionesco-style absurdism put into a contemporary hyperdrive, with a bit of sneering near-Letterist technical crudity thrown in. The effect, at certain other times, is of a Which Way To The Front?-era Jerry-Lewis-written-and-starring incest comedy directed by Carnival Of Souls' Herk Harvey."[11]
David Edelstein of New York Magazine chose the film as a Critic's Pick, citing it as "the most entertaining unpleasant film I’ve seen in years."[12] For a New York Times feature on the film, Cahiers du Cinéma editor Stéphane Delorme wrote that the film "reminds us of a New York independent cinema that we loved — black and white, shot on film, spontaneous, with funny and intelligent dialogue — and that seemed to no longer exist."[1] Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe similarly praised the film, writing: "There aren’t enough of these truly independent movies anymore."[2] A notable early champion[13] of the film was critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, who was the first to write about The Color Wheel during its festival run.[13] Vishnevetsky wrote that, "despite (or maybe because of?) its detours into broad comedy, The Color Wheel manages to invest both characters with vulnerability, depth and even a perverse dignity; it's better at being a drama than most dramas."[14] Reviewing the film in Variety, Ronnie Scheib wrote: "Hard to swallow but impossible to ignore, this nihilistic comedy may emerge as a cult touchstone."[15]
Other critics were not as imprssed. Peter Keough of The Boston Phoenix gave the film 1 1/2 out of 4 stars, comparing the film unfavorably to The Puffy Chair and writing that "Alex Ross Perry's self-consciously coy indulgence reminds me of the work of Diablo Cody, but slighter and more irritating."[16] Shawn Levy of The Oregonian complained about the film's style, writing: "There’s handmade and then there’s amateurish. This, alas, is the latter."[17] David Fear of Time Out New York gave the film a negative review, writing that "Some will call The Color Wheel daring. Others will remember that it takes more than desperate shocks to add substance to the sloppy diddlings of a dilettante."[18]
Even more negative was the review written by Ryan Brown for IonCinema.com, who stated: "The fact that the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York could recently sanctify its movie screens with epiphanic Bresson and Zulawski retros, only to smear them now with a full week’s run of this tripe only goes to demonstrate how haywire and scatterbrained 21st century film culture has become. Maybe the most appalling thing about Perry’s movie is his obnoxious swipe at a truly great American film artist, Julian Schnabel, by conspicuously associating the character of a fatuous 'broadcasting' professor with a book of Schnabel’s paintings."[19]
References
- ^ a b c d e Lim, Dennis. Literary Influences, Personal Pathologies. The New York Times.
- ^ a b Morris, Wesley. The Color Wheel. The Boston Globe.
- ^ a b Kohn, Eric. "The Color Wheel" Tops Indiewire's List of Best Undistributed Films; Other Films Tie For Top Spots. Indiewire.
- ^ a b Village Voice Film Poll 2011: Best Undistributed Film. The Village Voice.
- ^ a b Film Comment's Best Unreleased Movies of 2011. Film Comment.
- ^ a b http://www.indiewire.com/article/futures_the_color_wheel_director_alex_ross_perry_got_more_out_of_working_at "The Color Wheel" Director Alex Ross Perry Says Kim's Video Was Better Than NYU.] Indiewire.
- ^ a b c Perry, Alex Ross. In His Own Words: Alex Ross Perry. Indiewire.
- ^ a b c Scott, A.O. Are We There Yet? On the Road, Sibling Rivalry That Reveals No Limits
- ^ Kohn, Eric. 5 Must-See Films at BAMcinemaFest. Indiewire.
- ^ Pinkerton, Nick. Family Ties that Break and Bind in Elena and The Color Wheel. The Village Voice.
- ^ Kenny, Glenn. "The Color Wheel."
- ^ Critics' Pick: The Color Wheel. New York Magazine.
- ^ a b Tully, Michael. A Conversation with Alex Ross Perry. Hammer to Nail.
- ^ Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy. The Lower Depths: Alex Ross Perry and "The Color Wheel." Mubi.
- ^ Scheib, Ronnie. The Color Wheel. Variety.
- ^ Keough, Peter. Review: The Color Wheel. The Boston Phoenix.
- ^ 'The Color Wheel' review: mumblecore becomes fumblecore in comic road movie. The Oregonian.
- ^ Fear, David. The Color Wheel. Time Out New York.
- ^ Brown, Ryan. The Color Wheel. IonCinema.com.