Actors have always drawn on elements of internal experience or life story, but a recent wave of films featuring iconic female stars consciously elides the space between performance & subjectivity.
Dario, this might be one of the most incisive breakdowns of Larraín's approach I've read anywhere. Your framing of meta-realism captures exactly what made Jackie and Maria so much more than standard biopics (I love them both deeply!).
This essay made me think about something we don't talk about enough: these meta-performances only "work" because we've spent decades watching these women be torn apart.
Kidman getting Botox in Babygirl hits differently than if, say, Timothée Chalamet played with his public image. When women do this, they're dredging up actual cultural violence - not just playing with persona. The Callas/Jolie connection exposes this most clearly. We've spent 20+ years watching Jolie transition from "dangerous, possibly unhinged sex symbol" to "humanitarian mother" to whatever unclassifiable space she occupies now. Casting her as Callas isn't just clever - it acknowledges that both women's bodies became sites of public ownership.
I do also feel meta-realism demands we reckon with our complicity as viewers. We're the ones who created the conditions where Moore's grotesque doubling in The Substance makes emotional sense.
What's most fucked up is how the industry packages this self-exposure as empowerment while still profiting from these women's trauma. The "brave performance" discourse feels like a sick joke - we break them down for decades, then praise them for showing us the damage.
Brilliant work unpacking such a complex cinematic shift!
I saw the latest production of The Seagull the other night, with Cate Blanchett as Arkadina. Who is the referent in the description 'a celebrated actress whose larger-than-life presence dominates both the stage and her personal relationships'?!
Having only seen The Substance, the other three films are now bumped to the top of my watchlist. You raise a number of interesting points that I'll take into consideration. Thank you.
I also have a burning desire to scream/announce 'Sunset Boulevard!' as *the* textbook example of meta-realism.
Hi Taro. Thanks for your reply. I really love to see that seagull production. I might try and get some last minute tickets.
It's funny, Blanchett is one actress that I've considered someone who keeps her public persona quite distanced from her acting, but maybe I'm wrong.
Funnily enough I watched Tar again the other day and she is just brilliant in that, I'm really does submerge into the skin of the role.
I'm certain that we are complitic as audiences, and today's culture I think definitely offers more opportunities for meta realism to be deployed in a deliberate way.
and yes there are loads of other examples that I probably should have included in the piece.
It's a slog, I have now seen the play twice, and it would take a lot for a third.
To be fair, I haven't read any particularly damning evidence against her personally. However, there were moments where I felt the audience was applauding her, rather than the performance.
A don't worry, there is always one more example someone like me will want included!
I had the same experience when seeing Sigourney Weaver in The Tempest recently. Not a great production and she really couldn’t articulate the lines. People went mental at the end though which was definitely a fanfare for her (which is fine really).
I see someone referenced Sunset Boulevard as this brilliant piece also made me think of that, alongside Whatever Happened to Babu Jane as precedents for your analysis here.
Also reminded me of the great Soderbergh quote when he said he doesn't do nude scenes because as soon as an actress is nude a film becomes a documentary.
Great piece dude, and so good to see all those astute and appraising comments. Richly deserved.
I was waiting for someone to compare these 4 films and you’ve done it so wonderfully and with surgical precision!
It’s interesting how this metatheatricality played such an important role in marketing these films. It was because these actresses from the past had these new “boundary breaking” roles that most people went to see these films — which added a sort of voyeuristic and almost sadistic pleasure, the same feeling we have when reading E! Magazine’s latest gossip, in seeing these films. This, in a way, creates a sort of disingenuousness in the way we are giving visibility to aging actresses. We are still only paying attention to the act and limits of performance, women who have been under the spotlight and still seek it; but the experience of “regular” women aging is still very much ignored, they remain secondary characters to the plot. As the films critique the beauty standards that practically end older women’s careers, they instill them even further by portraying women who in their 60s are thinner and fitter than my twenty-four year old self. It creates a visual example for women to follow and basically says, you can be old but you have to look like Nicole Kidman (who frankly can’t even produce normal facial expressions anymore) or Demi Moore.
And on another note, I believe there is also a link that can be made with Anora, which focuses on a woman who is not famous, and using Mikey Madison who did not have such a huge presence in Hollywood and collective consciousness, who nevertheless seeks a sort of recognition. However, the recognition she seeks is not grandiose fame, but sincere love and protection from a man, which in the end is shown to be much harder to obtain. I find this dichotomy between the successful films you mention in your essay and Anora very revelatory of the generational differences and incomprehension between women. Young women today are so overexposed through the culture of sexual liberation and social media, that there is almost a reversed feeling of needing to be protected from the limelight. Anora gives a bleak perspective for young women who suddenly feel alone in the true sense of lacking any connection because of their being so exposed, and unlike Pamela Anderson in the Last Showgirl, it’s not their choice.
Thanks so much for your comment and reading the piece. I love your point about these actresses not being "regular" women. It's so true that their "trauma" around beauty is in the public eye and discourse around being treated as objects is played into in a way that could be seen as hypocritical. There are women's who's success is built on beauty and now they get to a certain age, they fact younger women are preferred becomes something critique as unfair. As you say this is just the reality of most women (and in a different way most men too). Kidman and Moore particularly through those roles are criticising the lengths they have had to go through, but surely they have some agency. And they are both still huge movie stars. Interesting point about Anora, I think that film is problematic in many ways and I've never been a fan of Sean Baker's representative tendencies.
Dario, this might be one of the most incisive breakdowns of Larraín's approach I've read anywhere. Your framing of meta-realism captures exactly what made Jackie and Maria so much more than standard biopics (I love them both deeply!).
This essay made me think about something we don't talk about enough: these meta-performances only "work" because we've spent decades watching these women be torn apart.
Kidman getting Botox in Babygirl hits differently than if, say, Timothée Chalamet played with his public image. When women do this, they're dredging up actual cultural violence - not just playing with persona. The Callas/Jolie connection exposes this most clearly. We've spent 20+ years watching Jolie transition from "dangerous, possibly unhinged sex symbol" to "humanitarian mother" to whatever unclassifiable space she occupies now. Casting her as Callas isn't just clever - it acknowledges that both women's bodies became sites of public ownership.
I do also feel meta-realism demands we reckon with our complicity as viewers. We're the ones who created the conditions where Moore's grotesque doubling in The Substance makes emotional sense.
What's most fucked up is how the industry packages this self-exposure as empowerment while still profiting from these women's trauma. The "brave performance" discourse feels like a sick joke - we break them down for decades, then praise them for showing us the damage.
Brilliant work unpacking such a complex cinematic shift!
I saw the latest production of The Seagull the other night, with Cate Blanchett as Arkadina. Who is the referent in the description 'a celebrated actress whose larger-than-life presence dominates both the stage and her personal relationships'?!
Having only seen The Substance, the other three films are now bumped to the top of my watchlist. You raise a number of interesting points that I'll take into consideration. Thank you.
I also have a burning desire to scream/announce 'Sunset Boulevard!' as *the* textbook example of meta-realism.
Hi Taro. Thanks for your reply. I really love to see that seagull production. I might try and get some last minute tickets.
It's funny, Blanchett is one actress that I've considered someone who keeps her public persona quite distanced from her acting, but maybe I'm wrong.
Funnily enough I watched Tar again the other day and she is just brilliant in that, I'm really does submerge into the skin of the role.
I'm certain that we are complitic as audiences, and today's culture I think definitely offers more opportunities for meta realism to be deployed in a deliberate way.
and yes there are loads of other examples that I probably should have included in the piece.
D.
It's a slog, I have now seen the play twice, and it would take a lot for a third.
To be fair, I haven't read any particularly damning evidence against her personally. However, there were moments where I felt the audience was applauding her, rather than the performance.
A don't worry, there is always one more example someone like me will want included!
I had the same experience when seeing Sigourney Weaver in The Tempest recently. Not a great production and she really couldn’t articulate the lines. People went mental at the end though which was definitely a fanfare for her (which is fine really).
I see someone referenced Sunset Boulevard as this brilliant piece also made me think of that, alongside Whatever Happened to Babu Jane as precedents for your analysis here.
Also reminded me of the great Soderbergh quote when he said he doesn't do nude scenes because as soon as an actress is nude a film becomes a documentary.
Great piece dude, and so good to see all those astute and appraising comments. Richly deserved.
Thanks man. Looking forward to chatting in person about this stuff soon.
I was waiting for someone to compare these 4 films and you’ve done it so wonderfully and with surgical precision!
It’s interesting how this metatheatricality played such an important role in marketing these films. It was because these actresses from the past had these new “boundary breaking” roles that most people went to see these films — which added a sort of voyeuristic and almost sadistic pleasure, the same feeling we have when reading E! Magazine’s latest gossip, in seeing these films. This, in a way, creates a sort of disingenuousness in the way we are giving visibility to aging actresses. We are still only paying attention to the act and limits of performance, women who have been under the spotlight and still seek it; but the experience of “regular” women aging is still very much ignored, they remain secondary characters to the plot. As the films critique the beauty standards that practically end older women’s careers, they instill them even further by portraying women who in their 60s are thinner and fitter than my twenty-four year old self. It creates a visual example for women to follow and basically says, you can be old but you have to look like Nicole Kidman (who frankly can’t even produce normal facial expressions anymore) or Demi Moore.
And on another note, I believe there is also a link that can be made with Anora, which focuses on a woman who is not famous, and using Mikey Madison who did not have such a huge presence in Hollywood and collective consciousness, who nevertheless seeks a sort of recognition. However, the recognition she seeks is not grandiose fame, but sincere love and protection from a man, which in the end is shown to be much harder to obtain. I find this dichotomy between the successful films you mention in your essay and Anora very revelatory of the generational differences and incomprehension between women. Young women today are so overexposed through the culture of sexual liberation and social media, that there is almost a reversed feeling of needing to be protected from the limelight. Anora gives a bleak perspective for young women who suddenly feel alone in the true sense of lacking any connection because of their being so exposed, and unlike Pamela Anderson in the Last Showgirl, it’s not their choice.
Hi Sara.
Thanks so much for your comment and reading the piece. I love your point about these actresses not being "regular" women. It's so true that their "trauma" around beauty is in the public eye and discourse around being treated as objects is played into in a way that could be seen as hypocritical. There are women's who's success is built on beauty and now they get to a certain age, they fact younger women are preferred becomes something critique as unfair. As you say this is just the reality of most women (and in a different way most men too). Kidman and Moore particularly through those roles are criticising the lengths they have had to go through, but surely they have some agency. And they are both still huge movie stars. Interesting point about Anora, I think that film is problematic in many ways and I've never been a fan of Sean Baker's representative tendencies.
D.