The Last Days of Disco Multiplied: How Whit Stillman Reimagined His Own Work
The Last Days of Disco Multiplied: How Whit Stillman Reimagined His Own Work
Try to imagine a film, which then has a novelization. It is not a hard scenario to conjure; however, now imagine if that novelization was written by one of the characters in the film that then, in turn, had seen the film and could make comments on it. That is a much headier concept than most, as thought of by Whit Stillman when he created The Last Days of Disco and, subsequently, The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards. It is in this space that Stillman is able to play with and reshape his own creation, thus entering a new area of text that is as original as it is familiar. By entering into this new area, Whit Stillman created the Reimagined Version; a version that he uses to not just recreate his text, but further and better his original vision of the text by commenting on it and reshaping it into a new, reimagined text, and also incidentally creating a tool that many other writers could find useful.
The original film, The Last Days of Disco, tells the tale of young people in their 20s — as is almost always the case with Stillman — while they fall in and out of love with one another, all connected through past experiences in college life and their constant gatherings at an untitled nightclub in the early 1980s. The film largely focuses on two central characters, Alice and Charlotte, along with its fair share of supporting characters, before seeming to settle on Alice. However, Stillman chooses to write the novelization, or Reimagined Version, from the point-of-view of Jimmy Steinway, once a supporting character, who dates Charlotte for most of the film and novel.
By taking the point-of-view away from the third-person objective, and placing it into a first-person account of events, the new focalization allows the Reimagined Version to reach deeper depths in terms of its world and characters because of a new form of palimpsest. So while Stillman does not completely erase the original text, he certainly rewrites over it. Which, to give a small example, Jimmy, in the film, holds romantic feelings for Alice, but it seems as if to a degree which is almost inconsequential to the plot; however, with the Reimagined Version, the reader is given much more access to just how much these feelings drive Jimmy’s actions in the story, namely later on with a sense of tension between Jimmy and his best friend, Des. Because of this, the reader is not forced to read the emotions from only an actor’s performance; a performance that might have been hindered by the editing process for pacing, or for other reasons. Now the reader is receiving a personal account of emotions, directly from the source.
With that said, it is not just the shift in point-of-view that further assists Whit Stillman with the diegesis, but also the addition of metatextuality. This allows for an even greater reimagining of events by breaking the fourth wall and letting the speaker write directly to the reader. Thus, it is not enough to say the text is simply a retelling of events, as a majority of novelizations of films are. This is because the Reimagined Version takes place in a world in which the film already exists. With the film already existing, Jimmy Steinway, from his personal experiences and fictitious interviews with characters in the story, is able to make small, and even sometimes large, comments about the plot, characters, and even going so far as to make note of the reception of the film in his — ultimately meaning the reader’s — world. The latter is evident early in the novel as Jimmy discusses the so-called “brilliant” acoustical design of the nightclub and ends his slight tangent with, “That’s what struck me as so off about the ‘Oh, you couldn’t talk in discos’ criticism the movie sometimes faced” (Stillman 34).
Furthermore, the metatextuality gives Stillman a more focused control over the reading of the material. A prime example of this is the character of Alice having a much different aesthetical look in the film than as described in the novel. Stillman writes that “she did not greatly resemble the attractive blond actress Chloë Sevigny, who played,” Alice in the film. Stillman goes on further to write Alice was actually, “more petite, her hair darker, [and] her figure less sensational” (Stillman 10). So because of the Reimagined Version, and subsequently through the use of metatextuality, Stillman is able to make a course correction and laser focus the reader’s attention. Furthering that, there are two moments late in the story when Stillman introduces characters from his earlier films, Metropolitan and Barcelona, as cameos. This cameo from a Metropolitan character in the film is very much a blink-and-miss-it affair, so Stillman uses the Reimagined Version to elaborate on the current state of the character, devoting a few paragraphs to what is ultimately a minor moment, but helps to direct the reader’s attention so the scope of the story is broadened.
This ability to refocus the reader’s attention to specific details stems from the change in medium from film to literature. This shift gave Stillman different tools to use. With film, he had certain rules he had to live by, such as keeping a relatively short runtime. Most films, particularly in the late 1990s, did not have exceptionally long runtimes (i.e. anything over two hours). However, because of the nature of writing, with the pace precisely however the writer wishes it to be, Stillman never had to sacrifice any of his vision in the Reimagined Version. Also, Stillman no longer had to worry about only being able to focus the viewer’s attention to certain locations in each frame of the film. Thus, a viewer would be completely able to correctly pick up on specific details Stillman might use to further the story.
However, through the change into the Reimagined Version, he was able to better enrich the experience. This is evident when entire chapters of the novel are composed of new material, only some of which is mentioned in the film. This mentioned material being that which happens before the core story even begins. Thus, the reader is given more opportunity to learn about the relations of a few characters, namely of those between Alice, Tom, and Jimmy, which allows for a better understanding of why certain characters make the decisions they do. Now the viewer is no longer forced to read, and possibly misunderstand Stillman’s intentions, from story material that is only mentioned and never elaborated on in the film.
Going even further, the shift in medium allows for Stillman to expand the universe the story takes place in. This is evident shortly into the novel when Stillman uses the new medium to take a moment and give a better sense of what is happening around the characters. Music — as one might think is the case with a film about a nightclub — plays a large role in setting the tone of a scene. But of course Stillman cannot play a song while someone is reading the novel, so he lists the title and artist of a song during moments of intertextuality. However, there is a specific moment in which Stillman stops the main tale momentarily to explain the backstory of the song “Le Freak” as performed by Chic (Stillman 44). This does not just manage to show off Jimmy’s knowledge and love of disco, it also goes to show the importance of music to the nightclub and story itself. Because of this, a greater sense of verisimilitude is given to the text.
And perhaps it is in here, with the verisimilitude, that the Reimagined Version is such a rousing success. From little details, such as the explanation of the Club being located near a web of “strange alleys and tunnels,” to details much larger, such as an entirely new character in Alice’s Aunt Janet that reveals a deeper complexity to the character (Stillman 30). This also gives Stillman a chance to make the story about something larger, as is the case when he begins a chapter discussing Jimmy’s views on the 1980s, which he aptly titled the “Decade of Envy” (Stillman 175). No longer is this just a tale about young adults in and out of love; Stillman is able to make comments on the time setting and furthermore on society. Also, the Reimagined Version makes better use of its New York City setting, because outside of a few shots of iconic locations, the film might as well take place any major metro area.
For example, midway through the film, Alice decides to go on a morning run. In the film, there is very little evidence that the setting is even New York City; however, in the Reimagined Version, Stillman is allowed to go into detail about the locations Alice is running through. So during her run, Stillman writes that she “passed the austere limestone walls of the Heavenly Rest Episcopal Church before starting across Fifth Avenue” (165). And really, that is just the beginning, for an entire chapter in the novel manages to expand New York City into a lived in space. This is achieved by including a few characters heading to the San Gennaro Festival, which manages to work on two fronts: verisimilitude and character relations. This addition of the festival allows Stillman to help flesh out the relationship between Des and Alice. This relationship, in the film, is not without its logical sense, but with the Reimagined Version, Stillman is able to make the connection not feel as rushed as it does in the original text. Thus, the characters feel more real, creating a deeper emotional connection between the reader and the text. But also, by including a real life New York City event, the New York City being sold to us is an even richer, more alive setting than before.
With everything said, there are some people who believe Stillman receiving a second chance to get his point across through the text means nothing. Of course, this is referring to W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, as evidenced in their concept of the Intentional Fallacy. The two argue that it does not matter what Stillman was trying to imply with his text; all that matters is the text itself. However, if this were the case, the Reimagined Version would be rendered pointless, for the novelization truly is what the original author wanted. But, seemingly to incidentally further spite Wimsatt and Beardsley, Stillman created something that bettered the original text. When looking at The Last Days of Disco and its Reimagined Version together, it is impossible to ignore Stillman’s intentions, for it is the entire reason both texts exist.
Therefore, by no longer being limited by the limitations that film can present, Stillman was able to close the gaps between the expressive, mimetic, and pragmatic relationships, specifically the expressive and pragmatic areas. Because, while there is no doubt The Last Days of Disco is a Whit Stillman film — he is very much an auteur — the Reimagined Version goes even further to establish his complete vision, unhindered by limitations of the original medium. The author is given an even greater creative freedom, and the reader is treated with a more thorough tale. So it is as if the film should have skipped originally being a film and always been a novel.
What Stillman did by creating the Reimagined Version is open up an entirely new way of exploring texts; created a new tool for authors to not just reshape their original text, but to also allow a search for new truths in creating art. It is a culturally important concept that needs to be further explored. If one were to try to find anything similar to what Stillman created with his novelization in the world of literature, almost nothing, if anything, would appear. There is no real shortage of writers and directors that would be wonderfully able to use such a tool. The Reimagined Version’s worth has yet to truly be tapped, but it is thanks to Whit Stillman it even exists at all.
Works Cited
the Last Days of Disco. Dir. Stillman, Whit. Prod. Whit Stillman, et al. Perf. Chloë Sevigny, et al. Gramercy Pictures, 1998.
-. the Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards. First ed. New York City, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Print.
Originally published at http://www.tumblr.com on December 5, 2014.
