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.

Find “The Last Days of Disco” on Amazon

1925

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jazz Age. United States. Written in English.

Novel narrated by Nick Carraway about the self-made Jay Gatsby and his lavish Long Island parties.

What it handed down

To The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Critics have often called Stillman a Fitzgerald heir, and Last Days shares Gatsby's subject: a glamorous party world, seen by outsiders and observers, that is already passing as it is described. The film's closing elegy for a vanished social scene follows Fitzgerald's pattern, though Stillman's specific debt is not documented.

Where it came from

Satyricon, Petronius c. 60 CE
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad 1900 follow this thread

Find “The Great Gatsby” on Amazon

c. 60 CE

Satyricon

Petronius

Neronian. Imperial Rome. Written in Latin.

Fragmentary comic prose-and-verse novel whose centerpiece is the feast of the vulgar freedman Trimalchio.

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby (1925)

Direct source, well documented.

Fitzgerald's working title was Trimalchio in West Egg, and Nick calls Gatsby's career as host his career as Trimalchio. The Satyricon's banquet of a rich freedman parading his wealth is the model for Gatsby's parties.

Where it came from

Aeneid, Virgil c. 19 BCE
Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE

Find “Satyricon” on Amazon

c. 19 BCE

Aeneid

Virgil

Augustan. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

Epic of the Trojan Aeneas's wanderings and his founding of the Roman line.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost

Structural model, well documented.

Milton built his poem on the Virgilian model, with an opening in medias res, a council of devils, a retrospective narrative of war and a revealed future. The first edition had ten books, revised to Virgil's twelve in 1674.

To Essays (Essais)

Direct source, well documented.

Virgil is among the poets Montaigne quotes most often, and in 'On Some Verses of Virgil' he takes the love of Venus and Vulcan from Aeneid Book 8 as a starting point for an essay on sexuality.

To The Divine Comedy

Direct source, well documented.

Virgil is Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory, and Inferno's journey is modeled on Aeneas's descent in Aeneid Book 6. Dante calls Virgil 'my master and my author'.

To Confessions

Direct source, well documented.

Augustine recalls weeping over Dido's death in the Aeneid as a schoolboy while indifferent to his own spiritual death. His journey from Carthage to Rome inverts Aeneas's route.

To Satyricon (c. 60 CE)

Direct source, probable.

The poet Eumolpus recites a verse Capture of Troy that reworks the fall of Troy from Aeneid Book 2. Petronius uses Virgilian epic as a target for parody throughout.

To Metamorphoses

Direct source, well documented.

Books 13 and 14 of the Metamorphoses retell Aeneas's journey in a compressed, ironic form, answering Virgil's epic directly. Ovid also borrows Virgil's hexameter epic manner and turns it toward wit and transformation.

Where it came from

Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE
Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread

Find “Aeneid” on Amazon

c. 725 BCE

Odyssey

Homer

Archaic. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

Epic of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home from Troy.

What it handed down

To Satyricon (c. 60 CE)

Disputed link, probable.

Scholars have proposed that the novel's wandering hero Encolpius, pursued by the wrath of Priapus, parodies Odysseus pursued by Poseidon. The fragmentary text makes the overall design uncertain.

To Aeneid (c. 19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The first six books follow the Odyssey: a sea journey, a storm, a hero narrating his wanderings at a foreign court, and a descent to the underworld. Virgil fuses the Odyssey and Iliad into a single twelve-book design.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

Find “Odyssey” on Amazon

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby (1925)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost

To Essays (Essais)

To The Divine Comedy

To Confessions

To Satyricon (c. 60 CE)

To Metamorphoses

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Satyricon (c. 60 CE)

To Aeneid (c. 19 BCE)

Where it came from

Share this