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“Saltburn”, the most recent film by director, screenwriter, producer and actress Emerald Fennell, starring Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi, with very daring scenes, is the trendy project and the sensation of the film industry’s awards season, despite its debut in mid-December streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Go far…
In the few days after its debut on December 22nd in streaming on Amazon Prime Video, “Saltburn”, from the British Emerald Fennell (“A Girl with Potential”), became the hottest and most surprising film of the season. It is in fact an unexpected success that no one expected so much buzz and impact to the point of becoming a generational audience and fashion phenomenon that goes beyond cinema.
The film has already been properly released here analyzed at MHDan unbalanced combination of black comedy, psychological thriller and at the same time portrait of customs, seems to have captured the imagination of viewers, especially young people of university age, even in relation to the exquisitely ‘casual chic’ wardrobe of its protagonists , which has been featured in several fashion magazines and lifestyle. Furthermore, the film also resurrected the beautiful and forgotten musical theme from 2001, titled “Murder on the Dance Floor” from the singer Sophie Ellis-Bextorwhich is the music for an extraordinary final scene starring the young Irish actor Barry Keoghan.
His amazing performance has already earned him a nomination for Best Actor at the 2024 Golden Globes and it won’t stop there. On the other hand, “Saltburn”it is a remarkably amoral story, without positive characters, which makes fun of the upper and privileged classes, and with a middle-class protagonist who is not exactly a good example to follow.
In fact, the film shows us that for the rich and famous, real life is not exactly a fairy tale. In fact, fairies do not exist and rather we see them as grotesque and costumed characters, such as angels, demons or deer, at a strange birthday party, transformed into a sinister Shakespearean masquerade ball, with music after hours. In fact, it is also one of the best scenes in the film in terms of artistic direction. And then, one of the references of “Saltburn” It is without a doubt the piece.”Othello, the Moor of Venice”in Shakespearewhere Kheoghan, the film’s protagonist, becomes a kind of Iago.
WATCH THE ‘SALTBURN’ TRAILER
THE RETURN OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE
The imagination of the 21st century seems to have recovered, with a certain energy and boldness, this archetype of the rich, beautiful and famous, seen as despicable, ridiculous and perverse people, which comes from classic dramas, but now they undergo psychoanalysis sessions, trying to resolve their problems of idleness and boredom. And all of this is also reflected in a world where the current democratic ideal is based on a minority, the elite and a vast middle class (formerly petit-bourgeoisie), which is clearly experiencing an economic and moral collapse; It really seems that the class struggle has returned to avant-garde films, novels and television series and, curiously, these are the most successful. Examples are many!
This idea has also become a recurring model for constructing a compensatory fiction, anchored in a certain reality, which rewards and values popular culture and vulgarity, to the detriment of intellectuality. However, what makes the film Emerald Fennell Especially daring and different from many others is that the “poor”, the proletarians of today, are not really nice and look good in photographs, as they really also have their quirks and perversions.
THE SACANA ARCHETYPE
Immersed like many other characters in literature, cinema and popular culture, obsessed with wealth and ambition, Oliver Quick (Keoghan), the protagonist of “Saltburn”, is a big bastard, who hides under his “proletarian lamb” skin — be careful, there is a bit of a spoiler here, but in the film and from the beginning, the boy’s strangeness is immediately evident, largely thanks to Keoghan’s remarkable performance, who before becoming an actor had a difficult life — an aggressive, sadistic, manipulative, liar, mythomaniac and sociopathic monster. It reminds me in fact Patrick Batemanthe character of “American Psycho”by the writer Bret Easton Ellisadapted into a film and directed by Mary Harron (2000). However, Fennell also seems to deal with a certain ease with many other works from the Anglo-Saxon literary and cinematic tradition, in a range between satire and Gothic romance, with multiple references, in addition to Shakespeare or Ellis.
These references range from “Relive the Past in Brideshead” in Evelyn Waughwhich gave rise to the famous 1981 ITV television series, starring Jeremy Irons It is anthony andrewsto the classic “Dracula” in Bram Stoker, which has given a lot to cinema; the romance “Talented Mr. Ripley”in Patricia Highsmithadapted at least twice to screens: “In the Light of the Sun” (1960), from René Clementwith Alan Delon and the film as the same title as the literary work, made in 1999, by Anthony Minghella.
Apparently “Saltburn” It is also influenced by two novels by the English writer LP Hartleyadapted to the cinema by the great Joseph Losey [“O Mensageiro” (1971) e “O Criado” (1963)]; and lastly for the classic “The Eight Victims”, (1949), by Robert Hamerwith Dennis Pricefrom the original novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal” (1907), by Roy Horniman. In the latter, the main character is a despised Jew who, out of revenge, becomes a murderer, to reach the top of his family’s inheritance and recover his title of nobility.
In “Saltburn”, Olivier, the middle-class young man, despised by his colleagues at the University of Oxford, where he is on a scholarship and who has not yet had the courage to “come out of the closet”, neither sexually nor from a class point of view. Olivier has a bit of all these bad references and characters, but at the same time very charismatic.
WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP FOR ‘MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR’
THE FASCINATION WITH THE DUBIOUS
In an extraordinary dialogue in the film with Venetia (Alison Olivier), the sister of the charismatic and handsome Felix (Jacob Elordi), tells Olivier Quick (Keoghan), that he is a kind of moth, who little by little makes holes in the lives of the people he meets, until he achieves his goals. Oliver appears to us as a dubious and at the same time fascinating figure, representing a desire for social ascension, which can be described, in a phrase of Sir Robert Chilterncharacter from the play “An Ideal Husband”, in Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), a dialogue that was used in the 19th century at the time, but which fits perfectly with today: “Every ambitious man must conquer his century with the weapons of the century. This century loves wealth. The god of this century is wealth.”
However, the references do not end there, if we remember what I also said Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), the author of “The big Gatsby”a novel about the rich and a bitter portrait of the American dream: “the rich are different from us, but not only do they cry, but they can also die, for our consolation and amusement”, in fact as in the second version of the film directed by Baz Luhrmann in 2013, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulliganwith a brief appearance in “Saltburn”.
The first film version of “The big Gatsby”was carried out by Jack Clayton — interestingly with an argument adapted by Francis Ford Coppola — in 1973, with Robert Redford, Mia Farrow It is Bruce Dern. Ultimately, all these cult references will be the reason for the surprising success of a British film produced by Amazon Studios/MGM to the platform Prime Video and which took place — as far as I know — in the classroom only in Telluride Festivals (USA) and BFILondon? Yes and no, since despite some inconsistencies “Saltburn”is a young, provocative film, full of energy, color, aesthetics, humor, eroticism, an excellent soundtrack and above all an extraordinary young cast already mentioned above, which is joined by Archie Madekwe (the pilot of “Gran Turismo”), and the magnificent veterans Rosemund Pike It is Richard E. Grantin addition to extremely attractive costumes and artistic direction, which awaken in us a dubious feeling and an almost insane envy of so much youth and beauty.
JVM
