thread for Sean Baker since he allegedly doesn't belong in "ten greatest living American filmmakers" thread

Argue about The Florida Project here.

Well, violently down the middle on Florida Project.

For awhile, yes, Alfred is right that the movie takes for granted that "these horrifying children are charming little dears" and, left-field quips aside, not remotely convincing. Eventually, it settles into truly expert "everyone has their reasons" territory -- many moments of unforced efficiency. (Am thinking of the interlude with Willem Dafoe's son, I think, saying he doesn't want to "do this anymore," and also clearly understanding why Dafoe's character feels compelled to continue. And how the sudden pattern of bathtime play interludes gently invites the audience into a new and unpleasant plot point.)

And it has a knack for portraying squalor in a way that makes it clear how adults can see their environment one way and kids another way entirely. But one of the movie's most obvious but well-realized examples -- the birthday fireworks a half-mile away from the real show -- just underscored how the abrupt ending didn't fucking work. After Tangerine, which had one of my favorite endings in recent years, this was a damp squib. Even taking into consideration how it brings "reality" crashing into a 6-year-old girl's life so violently she has nowhere to turn to but desperate fantasy. But the movie's a lot stronger when it sticks to things like the tourists' helicopter endlessly taking off: exciting to kids, a slap in the face to the destitute adults.

Still, I'll refrain from calling any filmmaker willing to devote serious career energies into depicting the American underclass condescending until we actually have anything remotely like an appropriate proportion of filmmakers devoting serious career energies into depicting the American underclass.

― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, October 23, 2017

And my review.

He transcends the notion of an 'American filmmaker' since he is still so good. Starlet is a must-see as well, btw.

A review that I suspect will be more characteristic of the response to TFP the more mainstream it pushes: https://letterboxd.com/vjmorton/film/the-florida-project/

Frederik, I admire your opinions on ci-ne-mah more than I do on American politics, but I'm having a hard time accepting how anyone can transcend anything – and why this should be a quality to which artists should aspire! – or why we should look for Metaphors For America. Surely films that make such obvious statements should make one suspicious.

The transcendation thing is a joke, don't sweat it :) I meant 'metaphor' in the way that I look for imagery that communicates. That dares to use aesthetics to say something about the world. And that's the same for me whether we are dealing with the US, Denmark, France, etc. When you and Morbs say that I don't know shit about America, my counterpoint wouldn't be that I do. It would be that i don't know shit about Paris or Portugal either, but I still write about Nocturama and The Ornithologist. And so do you. I look to art for - amongst other things - brave, strong personal views of the world. And it has value through it's aesthetic power, not because it is accurate or 'gets it right'. And I do honestly feel like American cinema suffers under a regime of literalness, where people are suspicious of aestheticification.

On a macro level, Frederik is right.

I agree broadly w/ your take Eric.

And I do honestly feel like American cinema suffers under a regime of literalness, where people are suspicious of aestheticification.

i.e. the Sundance ethos. And you're right. But in TFP the aesthetics are put to work in a film as didactic and literal as any Sundance lab project.

I hasten to add the "do you know why I like this tree?" lapses are few and far between in the movie, but they're there. (Another: "I can always tell when adults are about to cry.")

I disagree with Alfred on the conclusion. There are big and obvious metaphors and music and ending, but there's a much more subtle aesthetic, off kilter, non-narrative, scenes going on a bit too long, always seeming just slightly weird, and it's the combination of the two that I love so much. I've been writing quite a bit about Baker, and have been searching for photos that could underline my aesthetic points, but I've repeatedly found that somehow, somewhere, they become edited so they look more 'normal'. Characters are moved to the center. Unimportant stuff - which is what I love about the shot - is cut out. Of course, that could just be bad promotion, but I do find it interesting. He is weirder than he gets credit for.

A wide channel through the middle of mainstream American film is incredibly similar in tone and mood, sure. I think mistaking it as literal is a problem with both producers and audiences; it's the same metaphor and story devices used every time, and we've grown accustomed to them and mistake their use for a reproduction of reality.

I'm all for alternatives but another prevalent mode has been "indie shit that freaks out the norms by showing people living fucked up lives" which can be good at times but isn't a "brave, strong personal view of the world"

Hey, at least it's better than Escape from Tomorrow amirite?!

good intentions now make for sterling cinema

I should really just catch up and watch all the Florida tourist films in one go

xp a heartening evolution for a frivolous medium

i still need to watch Tangerine! i don't know why it has taken me so long. also, i don't think i ever saw Greg The Bunny. also, he was born in summit, new jersey. my dad grew up there. so did Ice-T. Ice-T and my dad. rollin' hard through the suburbs.

his early stuff is all good

cool, he deserves his own thread. like i said elsewhere, Tangerine is one of my favorite movies of the decade so far, and I was letdown by the meandering Florida Project:

Saw it today. In between Fred & Alfred but erring on Alfred's side - my main issue with the movie is it lacks any forward momentum, and the ending feels tacked on and forced. I was intrigued by the helicopter that kept taking off and landing by the motel, and when the cops & CPS came, I got the idea that the girl was going to run and jump into the helicopter and fly away. A beautiful, absurd fantasy of an ending that was making me cry even as it didn't play out. I thought the idea of them seeking asylum in the Magic Kingdom was nice, but again, the movie was so poorly paced & kind of boring as a mood/atmosphere piece. Some things I loved: the colors obviously, Willem Dafoe's performance (yes Alfred, perhaps not the most common landlord, but I've known a few landlords that he reminded me of. he was my favorite part of the movie by far), Baker escalating situations beyond where most directors would stop or cut (the one parent beating the shit out of the other, the pedophile, the johns coming into the room when the kid was there).

As far as it representing Florida or America or being a "See? This is real America" - well, I trust the guy that actually lives in Florida. Fred, I think the fantasy of this movie does its subject(s) a disservice. I still liked it, and it confirms Baker's status as one of America's most interesting directors, but I was let down- mostly because I loved, loved, loved Tangerine so much.

i watched about half of Tangerine this morning. it's cool. it would make a good netflix t.v. show. is what i kept thinking. it's netflix t.v. show good. i don't know if i will watch the other half though. i have a lot to watch!

also, i have had to resist the impulse today to greet everyone with "how you doin', bitch".

Tangerine is like 70 minutes long!

really? seemed longer. okay, i'll finish it. i liked it. i just want to talk like that all day now though. and tell people to fuck off.

i was just at the part where they were smoking crack in the club bathroom.

i'll watch it with maria. she'll dig it.

When the woman in line shows off her sobriety coin and Sin-Dee cuts her off, "byeeee."

lol

yeah that bathroom scene iirc is towards the end

Seeing this again :D

Baker salutes his influences

http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2017/11/29/detail/the-florida-project-and-the-little-rascals

Tangerine was incredible. this looks like Beasts of The Southern Wild. i did not like Beasts of The Southern Wild. am i wrong in wanting to avoid this?

yea the preview gave me the same thought actually

this should've been called Birth Control is a Right

Jesus

what if... the Our Gang kids were charmless shits?

lol Morbs

Our Gang of Assholes

Not far from Victor Morton's take tbh: https://letterboxd.com/vjmorton/film/the-florida-project/

If I was forced to reduce my response down to what I thought about the characters as people, the only one I had no real sympathies for on the whole was whore mom.

LOL, I already linked Vic's review upthread, I see. It seemed to be the one review that said what evidently I thought needed to be said. At the same time as being comfortingly voiced by someone who is on the record as being a reactionary.

My one totally unfair hot take of the year: the little girl doesn't have the chops to pull off the extended pre-code crying jag at her friend's door.

i agree with that but not the over-the-top judgment making the rounds, lol

Baker owes his career to the leads in Tangerine

he should be barred from future filmmaking for the last sequence in this one

Watched this a week after Happy End and thought Haneke would get the mom to go on a killing spree at the nicer hotel - I suppose that would follow Morbs' they were just a bunch of shits hot take. Me and the friend I was with thought it would be a better ending.

Heh, when I was watching Happy End I realised that Haneke is a great writer and director of young people.

my "bunch of shits" comment had nothing to do with morality, those kids were just winners of irritation pageants.

the little girl doesn't have the chops to pull off the extended pre-code crying jag at her friend's door.

She's not an actress and should be taken away from the parents who let her do this film.

Lol, the ending is great!

would you have said so pre-lobotomy, tho

I kept thinking how Haneke, in Hidden, simply packed a young Majid off. Doesn't flinch.

There isn't any point pretending the girl's life is going to be any better.

That's not at all what the film does, though

That's like saying the final reunion between the girl and her father in Pans Labyrinth seemed phony

Of course the other arg is to say we all know it's going to be awful for her so why not pretend. The film never solved the story in any satisfying way.

Xp Fred it had some good things in it. the ending didn't work.

"Of course the other arg is to say we all know it's going to be awful for her so why not pretend."

Well, bingo. Sorry for the snark earlier, then :)

saw this a couple of weeks ago and loved it. i was thinking that the second half reminded me of the film give me liberty (a personal favorite), with its freewheeling dialogue and constant motion, and today i realized that the actress who plays vanya's mother had a big role in that film.

Finally saw "Starlet." Loved it, but it's shame about all the porn stuff, because it might be one of the more thoughtful, lovely movies I've seen in some time that I can't really recommend to my mom or, like, watch with my kids. Could have easily been left out, imo, or filmed differently, but I guess it was important to our man Sean.

At this point I'm wondering who wins in a head to head, Baker or Kelly Reichardt.

Saw a comment somewhere hinting at Baker's problematic social media activity, and it turns out he once liked a tweet by Tulsi Gabbard saying that the jury that acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse "got it right." He also followed LibsOfTikTok. Maybe he still does, but his Twitter account is now private. Not sure what to make of any of that.

I think it really is about press/agents/studios digging up any dirt they can, and bloggers and hysterical people on social media amplifying it. The drama over Karla Sofia Gascon is way overblown and it has ruined the chances for Emilia Perez. Let's not go down this road with Anora

the chances for it winning best picture that is

Seems like this was dug up a couple of years ago. A few people on social media seem to really care about it, but it hasn't really made waves otherwise. I doubt it's going to affect the Oscar race in any way. I just thought it was interesting in terms of what it might say about Baker's political views.

I can imagine Baker having a lot in common with someone like Clint Eastwood, a conservative who often makes surprisingly empathetic movies.

Best Director!

https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/4a9560c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4568x3045+0+0/resize/1198x798!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F5b%2F72%2Fce2a65cf452f97bb9d7b92a8e028%2Fap25062127653388.jpg

best picture wow

I do appreciate how every one of his films has been sort of a lateral move, and he's not being rewarded for going bigger, more mainstream, more expensive, etc.

https://apnews.com/live/oscars-2025-updates#00000195-5a19-d97a-a9b7-5bf9fd260000

Sean Baker has made Oscar history. “Anora” won best picture, his fourth win of the night and tying Walt Disney for the most in a single year in Academy Award history.

yeah, kind of an amazing stat. and Baker's accomplishment seems more impressive since three of Disney's wins were for short films.

Saw a comment somewhere hinting at Baker's problematic social media activity, and it turns out he once liked a tweet by Tulsi Gabbard saying that the jury that acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse "got it right." He also followed LibsOfTikTok. Maybe he still does, but his Twitter account is now private. Not sure what to make of any of that.

Unless there's a recurring pattern surrounding whatever speculated reason he has for liking that one tweet, I don't think anyone should jump to conclusions. And following LibsOfTikTok isn't indicative of a pattern - I know plenty of left-wing associates who follow hard right accounts for various reasons that I don't understand.

I'm thrilled he won. It's not my favorite film of the year or his best work, but it would be foolish to complain about every detail when it's the Oscars. A long shot indie filmmaker just made history, that's amazing.

Only the 4th Cannes winner to win Best Picture. Pretty good year for Sean Baker! Making a really entertaining movie with a great cast and a star-making lead performance goes a long way.

we (well, mostly i, lol) have been talking about the oscars here fyi: Oscars 2025

it was weird when he finished his acceptance speech with Where We Go One We Go All

did he? I didn't watch it

No

Like the Latvian winner said, “We’re all in the same boat.”

Condolences on becoming one of the greatest living American filmmakers.

Sean Baker has made Oscar history. “Anora” won best picture, his fourth win of the night and tying Walt Disney for the most in a single year in Academy Award history.

*Pushes glasses up his nose* - well, Disney won it for four different films that year, as a producer on each - the actual competition depends on whether you consider Bong Joon-Ho to have won the Best International Film Oscar (technically awarded to the country, but they've been engraving the director's name on it since 2014)

I'd never seen this before, so maybe it has been posted, but as someone that liked but didn't love the movie I found it to be a thoughtful and mildly provocative essay about "Anora" written by a sex worker:

https://angelfoodmag.com/romance-labor

Didn't watch the Academy Awards, but watched Anora on Saturday night... I had no idea that it's almost a screwball comedy at times. Very fun film, but with depth

sean fennessey noted that baker was *also* in charge of casting ANORA, and that best casting is a category that will exist starting next year — considering how incredibly cast that movie is that might have been his fifth win for the same movie

I guess, uh, I need to finally watch “Anora”.

I didn't care for it much. Generally enjoyed the ceremony a great deal! I guess I need to watch The Brutalist huh

what didn’t you like ftgi? I thought it was so tightly done, well-acted and well-cast, and just a blast honestly. a lot of folks seem to think it hits a rut a little over halfway through, but to me if you like the safdies or like, AFTER HOURS it’s catnip

sometimes I think about movies later, but I don't think that'll happen with Anora... it was fine, and fun, but kinda crazy that it took best picture. Sometimes there's crazy campaigning behind the scenes, that might be the case here. I remember calling Marion Cotillard as best actress for La Vie en Rose in 2007, everyone said I was nuts (at the oscar party), but there you go... there was a big campaign behind her win

Where does baker go from here?

there are big campaigns behind almost every movie nominated. it's the oscars.

Heh I don’t lovvvvvve Safdies either but they’re fine. Anora presented a story involving characters I felt nothing for, conflicts I cared little about, and (even just formally) had a large portion in the middle (Anora and Russians trying to locate her husband) that felt utterly plotless and incoherent. The showdown between Anora and Russianmom was amazing tho. Not a bad movie at all and I’m glad it won awards! I just personally didn’t care for it so much

“I will become American and my parents will suck my dick!”

i am not sure this best picture win would've been possible had anora not won the palme d'or at cannes last year, which put it on everyone's radar as a serious oscar contender (and not just a fun indie comedy). neon had already acquired it at that point, so i'm sure that gave them the green light to mount a long steady campaign through the fall festivals and beyond. and since neon's only other fyc campaigns this past year were for longlegs and seed of the sacred fig, which were never going to be big players, they could easily focus most of their attention on anora.

again, a comedy won -- this doesn't happen often

Where does baker go from here?

― calstars, Monday, 3 March 2025 20:51 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

at one point he was developing a film about the vancouver downtown east side, to star willem defoe. i think it was derailed by covid, not sure if they’ll return to it or what plans are

Is that the part of the city where the sex workers hang out?

there are some sex workers, but it’s basically an open air drug market. mostly people doing heroin, crack, meth, opioids. baker executive produced a documentary about it that came out in 2022, that i haven’t seen yet, called ‘love in time of fentanyl’

cool little article about brighton beach:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/mar/04/anora-oscars-brighton-beach

I watched the Oscars at one of Vancouver's last remaining independent movie theatres, and I hadn't realized how beloved Baker was for doing events at local theatres and video stores. His wife and co-producer is also from here. The crowd really enjoyed his speech about keeping movie theatres alive.

not that anyone needs to care, but the twitter discourse on baker and anora is truly wretched. like the worst of post-tumblr spillover twitter in the mid-2010s but featuring exponentially less literate actors (zoomers)

xp- he watches stuff at tinseltown international village cinema all the time

Yeah, the Music Box in Chicago shared this tribute that Baker had given them:

Immense congratulations to the wonderful Sean Baker, who once honored the Music Box with a profile in Sight & Sound🥰🥰🥰 pic.twitter.com/GOS2stkURi

— Music Box Theatre (@musicboxtheatre) March 3, 2025

Where does baker go from here?

His subjects and style remind me of Gus Van Sant, and I could see Baker continuing with the stories he tells, doing a larger-scale film akin to Milk, or a full-on studio picture like Good Will Hunting.

I'd never seen this before, so maybe it has been posted, but as someone that liked but didn't love the movie I found it to be a thoughtful and mildly provocative essay about "Anora" written by a sex worker:

https://angelfoodmag.com/romance-labor

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, March 3, 2025 11:00 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i didn't mind this essay, but it underestimated the amount of irony and ambiguity in the film and overestimated how much class consciousness would've improved the veracity of the main character

in case you needed to know retweets dont = endorsements, he telegraphs pretty clearly in his letterbox hes not a libsoftiktok stan

ok maybe sean baker really is following those fucked up social media accounts for research lol pic.twitter.com/mo9WyPmf7h

— 𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮𝓮𝓷 (@shereeny) March 4, 2025

After premiering Anora at Cannes and getting a ten minute standing ovation and incredible reviews, Sean Baker then went to see the new restoration of Lino Brocka's 'Bona': https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/artandculture/907794/sean-baker-rave-over-restored-bona-film-in-cannes/story/ The guy is a real cinephile. He also seems like a standup guy, but on the other hand he has been open about being a former heroin addict, his former collaborators threw him off the tv project that was supposed to be his breakthrough, and his debut Four Letter Words is an awful and hateful film. I think he changed a lot after getting clean.

So this was pretty good, huh.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would

Watched it last night and I thought it would be a bit better tbh.

just got around to Anora. certainly not that category of unworthy movies to win the best picture oscar. it felt like the sexier, more audience-friendly remake of Uncut Gems.

Yeah reminded me a lot of the Safdie brothers movies but lower stakes. This one got a little repetitive sometimes, though stayed enjoyable throughout. Baker is good at endings