Episode #56 - Calum Marsh (The Last Days of Disco)

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"The question of prose is the central question of my life, my writing, and my work."

What is the "work" of film criticism? That question takes center stage in a lively new episode of the podcast, in which Peter travels to Toronto, Canada to talk movies with critic and writer Calum Marsh. Calum traces his cinephilia to his VHS and DVD days in suburban England, eventually developing via the influence of rigorous Jonathan Rosenbaum, and then swinging to an attempt to understand how film criticism can work more similarly to the great literary critics. They talk the beauty of Blackhat and the Kim's Video generation, but most of all they discuss prose and its function in describing a visual medium. They then top it off with a look at Whit Stillman's wondrous nostalgia critique, The Last Days of Disco, using Stillman's own novelization of his work as an examination of the different worlds of cinema and literature.

0:00-1:53 Opening

2:37-9:38 Establishing Shots - Gems from UCLA's Festival of Preservation

10:23-59:27  Deep Focus - Calum Marsh

1:00:04-1:02:16 Mubi Sponsorship - Travel Plans and Broken Specs

1:03:43 -1:26:57 Double Exposure - The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman)

1:27:01-1:28:58 Close  / Outtake

Calum Marsh's writing can be found at The Guardian, Hazlitt, Maxim, The Village Voice, and Keyframe Daily. Follow him on Twitter.

The Last Days of Disco is available for streaming on YouTube and iTunes. The novelization is available on Amazon. 

Notes and Links from the Conversation
-UCLA's notes on The Milky Way and Journey Into Light. 
-The Milky Way is readily available on DVD.
-Capital Idea!, the music festival programmed by Calum.
-Writers Mentioned: Jonathan Rosenbaum, James Agee, Richard Brody, Anthony Lane.
-Martin Amis's book of 9/11 essays, The Second Plane, which includes his United 93 essay. His Goodfellas essay was in Premiere in 1999.
-Calum interviews: Martin Amis, David Cronenberg, Asghar Farhadi
-Calum on Miami Vice and Blackhat.
-D.N. Rodowick's The Virtual Life of Film
-Calum on Kim's Video Members: Alex Ross Perry, Kate Lyn Sheil, Sean Price Williams, and Robert Greene.
-Watching The Brood and unintentional laughter
-Calum and Jordan Cronk discuss Los Angeles Plays Itself (and Calum on its restoration)
-Calum on The Last Days of Disco

Theme Music: “Forward” by Northbound

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