The influences behind The Last Days of Disco

1998

The Last Days of Disco

Film by Whit Stillman

American independent cinema. United States. In English.

Whit Stillman's 1998 comedy of manners follows two young Manhattan publishing assistants, Alice and Charlotte, and the men around them at an exclusive disco in the early 1980s as the scene collapses. It completes the loose trilogy begun with Metropolitan and Barcelona and joins Austen-style social comedy to an elegy for a vanished nightlife.

Where it came from

Where to watch

Rent Amazon $3.99, Apple TV $3.99, Fandango at Home $3.99
Buy Amazon $14.99, Apple TV $14.99, Fandango at Home $14.99

In the US, as of October 18. Prices and services change.

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1990

Metropolitan

Film by Whit Stillman

American independent cinema. United States. In English.

Stillman's first film, about a group of Upper East Side debutantes and escorts during Christmas deb season, told almost entirely through talk.

What it handed down

To The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Structural model, well documented.

Last Days is the third film of Stillman's loose trilogy and reuses Metropolitan's method: a small set of articulate, privileged young people whose arguments about manners and morals carry the plot. Chris Eigeman returns as the same kind of sardonic, self-justifying talker, and characters from the earlier films reappear briefly.

Where it came from

Where to watch

Stream HBO Max
Rent Amazon $3.99, Apple TV $3.99, Fandango at Home $5.99
Buy Amazon $14.99, Apple TV $14.99, Fandango at Home $14.99

In the US, as of October 18. Prices and services change.

Find “Metropolitan” on Amazon

1969

My Night at Maud's (Ma nuit chez Maud)

Film by Éric Rohmer

French New Wave. France. In French.

Third of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales, in which a Catholic engineer spends a talk-filled night with a divorcée, arguing about Pascal and love.

What it handed down

To Metropolitan (1990)

Stylistic influence, probable.

Reviewers compared Metropolitan to Rohmer's Moral Tales, and Stillman has spoken of admiring Rohmer's talk-driven films. Like Maud's, Metropolitan builds its drama from long, witty conversations in apartments where ideas about virtue and love substitute for action.

Where it came from

Pensées, Blaise Pascal 1670

Where to watch

Stream HBO Max, The Criterion Channel

In the US, as of October 18. Prices and services change.

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1670

Pensées

Blaise Pascal

French classical age. France. Written in French.

Posthumous fragments of a defense of Christianity, including the wager argument.

What it handed down

To My Night at Maud's (Ma nuit chez Maud) (1969)

Direct source, well documented.

Pascal's wager is the film's central topic: Jean-Louis buys a copy of the Pensées, and he, Vidal and Maud argue about it at length. The film is set in Clermont-Ferrand, Pascal's birthplace, and stages the wager as a choice in love.

Where it came from

Essays (Essais), Michel de Montaigne 1580
Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Psalms), Anonymous c. 10th-2nd century BCE follow this thread
Confessions, Augustine of Hippo c. 397-400 follow this thread

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1580

Essays (Essais)

Michel de Montaigne

French Renaissance. France. Written in French.

Personal, skeptical essays examining the self, custom and knowledge.

What it handed down

To Pensées (1670)

Direct source, well documented.

Pascal read Montaigne closely and copied or answered many passages; his conversation with M. de Saci centers on Montaigne and Epictetus. The fragments on human misery and the weakness of reason argue directly against Montaigne's skepticism.

Where it came from

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Seneca c. 65 CE
Aeneid, Virgil c. 19 BCE follow this thread

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c. 65 CE

Moral Letters to Lucilius

Seneca

Neronian. Imperial Rome. Written in Latin.

Collection of philosophical letters giving Stoic counsel on living well.

What it handed down

To Essays (Essais) (1580)

Direct source, well documented.

Montaigne names Seneca, with Plutarch, as the author he returns to most, and the early essays are built on quotations from the Letters. The Letters' personal, conversational treatment of moral topics is a model for the essay form.

Where it came from

The line stops here: seneca's sources are Greek Stoic treatises that survive mostly in fragments.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Metropolitan (1990)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To My Night at Maud's (Ma nuit chez Maud) (1969)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Pensées (1670)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Essays (Essais) (1580)

Where it came from

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