"The Menu" as Allegory of the Film industry

I think The Menu is an extremely meta film that works by comparing itself with this restaurant culture. The movie is indeed about archetypes but The Menu tries to say that these archetypes work the same way in both restaurants and movie culture. The chef represents the director/creator of a movie, there is the movie nerd/foodie, the critics and the people that will just repeat whatever the critics say, the old couple who are into this thing but they dont really try to engage with it as they only care about the cultured status they get from attending, the old washed up insider and the fans that are there too just for the exclusiveness (like in the big festivals). Then there is the main character: Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) who is a regular person who just wants to watch a movie/eat and is dragged there by another fan. She just wants to eat and is content with her usual choices, she does not want to be there and finds the movie/the menu stupid and pretentious but has her opinion shutdown by the movie nerd who will keep making up excuses for the film. The chef wants to know whether she's 'with them' or not, he wants to know whether she will engage with the film in the same way they all do or not. I think he's asking the audience if they will stick with the movie itself and asking them to give it a chance, he sets up a timer for when things will start to fully fall into place and wants to know if you will enjoy this movie as a quirky horror comedy or if you will accept the deeper message it's trying to convey.

At the end the main character, the average movie watcher gets fed up and asks for just a regular old fun movie without any abstract adornment, so the chef cooks her a good old fashioned burger because at the end the director's goal is to entertain her. She sails off and enjoys the end of the movie as just this funny thing, while all the people trying to dissect it all while they all collectively burn. High-class dining and those who participate in it (both on the creative side and the consumer side) serve as an allegory for how the film business has suffered a similar fate to Chefs Slowik and Hawthorn. Here's some of the most important characters and how they relate to the film industry: Starting with Tyler, a representative of the cinephile types. Tyler knows everything there is to know about food, and the processes in which the food is made. He even demystifies the starter dish, noting that it's created with a pacojet. The only thing he doesn't know about cooking is cooking itself. When Chef Slowik insists that Tyler cooks, he makes a fool of himself. He knows about all the tools and processes, yet can't execute upon something as simple as cutting up a shallot. Much like Tyler, the cinephile has the same predicament. They are cursed with the knowledge that lies behind all filmmaking, yet are unable to become filmmakers themselves. 

Bryce, Soren, and Dave are the producers. They're the ones who have financial control over the restaurant, but what they really want is creative control. To them, they don't see the value in eating at Hawthorn and being able to experience Chef Slowik's creations. If they had it their way, then Hawthorn would just be another McDonald's, and Chef Slowik would be simply someone to steer the ship. When the film shows the tax returns and how they fudged the numbers on those, it's an allegory for how studios fudge box office numbers in order to hide profits from the directors and cast and funnel money to themselves. Lillian and Ted are, of course, cuisine/film critics. I think the shot at critics is made fairly obvious by the tortilla scene. A bad review can tank a restaurant in the same way that a bad review can tank a director's career. There's also the broken emulsion - much like Tyler, it's easy to have the knowledge that the technique behind an art. Having the technique to do that art is much more difficult.

John Leguizamo's character actually doesn't even have a name and is simply referred to as Movie Star. It's actually pretty clever - he's just another movie star clinging onto whatever relevance still remains from his stardom. The Movie Star's sin is that he no longer cares about art. Even worse, he's completely detached from it. Slowik hates the Movie Star because he saw a movie that he starred in that was terrible. Not only was the film terrible, but it was also on one of Slowik's few days off. The Movie Star has no apologies for this. For him, he was just getting another paycheck. For Slowik, the apathy the Movie Star shows is worse than any terrible film he could have made.

Margot is the average movie-goer. In a way, she is uncorrupted. She's interested in the magic behind it all, but the cinephile's obsession puts her off. Her request for a simple cheeseburger doesn't show her lack of appreciation for the finer things in life but an appreciation for the simple things. Chef Slowik is jaded. His sole purpose in life, cooking, is now mostly "enjoyed" by the rich people. Even worse, those who are still capable of appreciating his skills are nitpickers and wannabes, incapable of enjoying something simply for the sake of enjoying it. Part of why Chef Slowik likes Margot is because she is capable of enjoying something simply for the sake of enjoying it. It takes Chef Slowik back to his days as a humble burger flipper, back when he knew what he was serving was not a dish meant to be picked apart by critics, analyzed by amateur foodies, and questioned by those who fund him. At the same time, the cheeseburger Margot asks is far from another mass produced cheeseburger from another franchise. Chef Slowik shows that there's room in the middle for things that aren't just another bite, but also can just be simply enjoyed. Source: medium.com

Tár/Art: Lydia Tár ascending to Godhood, struck down like Icarus

"Tár" arrogating to ascend to Godhood: Have you ever experienced an artwork that grips you viscerally, sensually, inexplicably? It’s like a painter has seen through your eyes, or a musician holds a key to your soul, and the rhythms and tones open your heart and you simply do not know why? The first time you were taken by that piece of art that gutted you, your "Starry Night" -- did you separate the artist Van Gogh from the art? You were smitten, and the experience is as much of the artist as it is a projection of your own experience, dreams, pains and desires. Do you deny that you ever saw yourself in that work? In darkness we hear Lydia Tár coaxing, “Just ignore the microphone. Sing as if it’s not there.” At the end, we hear a voiceover from the video game, “Monster Hunter”, a ship captain’s speech, “Once you step aboard this ship, there is no turning back. And those who choose may step aside. You will not be judged.” Tár makes art, caring not a whit for the opinions of the audience, because that is what drives her, beyond all else. She knows the bargain she made, summed up by the final message of the movie: If you dare to ascend to this stage, you will be judged, perhaps even attacked. You will hunt monsters, and in the process perhaps even become one for a while.

I think the Monster Hunter scene is a small triumph. It would disgust the Lydia Tár we are introduced to in the interview to see herself doing something so beneath her. However, I think there was a very important moment of self reflection in her home watching Leonard Bernstein where she sheds her ego and remembers what drove her to her career. Beneath the facade and all the power plays and pretensions there has to be a genuine love for art for someone to reach the heights she has. "You want to dance the masque, you must service the composer. You gotta sublimate yourself, your ego, and, yes, your identity. You must, in fact, stand in front of the public and god and obliterate yourself." She lost what made her great in the first place. Losing everything and going back to her roots as Linda Tarr in Asia is what redeems her. She is no longer the control freak who threatens a child at school. She throws up when she imagines herself in a transactional scenario at the massage parlor. In the end, despite performing 'lower' art, she has finally sublimated herself in service of the art, not the other way around. Source: medium.com

"Babylon": Chazelle's Schrödinger Hollywood

A dorky filmic ode to the early days of Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s sprawling “Babylon” may begin in 1926, but the movie is soon burdened with a clairvoyance that allows it to become unstuck in time. Brad Pitt’s Jack Conrad is meant to somewhat resemble pre-Code era leading men such as John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, and Clark Gable. But unable to deliver the diction that talkies demand, he equally brings to mind a character from Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood­­­­; not the stuntman Cliff Booth, but Leonardo DiCaprio’s aging Western actor Rick Dalton and his distrust of the new wave that’s leaving him behind. In an earnest monologue, Jean Smart’s columnist Elinor St. John—call her an amalgamation of Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and All About Eve’s Addison DeWitt—tells Conrad his time is up, the party is over, in the identical way it will one day be over for every A-lister that would come after him.

Chazelle's deliciously decadent Babylon has disorderly film sets owned by MGM as well the more ramshackle (and fictional) Kinoscope Studios. And one especially memorable segment when the Kinoscope crew tries to film a single scene with sound. You lose count of the unsuccessful takes, feel the studio’s overwhelming heat (they can’t run air due to sound quality) and wonder how anyone survived this transition. As fictional director Ruth Adler, Olivia Hamilton particularly leaves a strong impression through these repetitive takes, representing the era’s behind-the-camera female talent—a more common occurrence in those early days—with natural authority. But the heart and soul of Chazelle’s jazzy and freewheeling opus are Manny and Nelly, who each experience their own rise and fall through hearty plotting that the writer braids compassionately. In the end, this is Manny’s all-consuming love story: he can't give up on the self-destructive Nelly, even when she piles one poor decision after the next.

“Babylon” remixes old Hollywood with a modern flair. Then again, modernizing the golden ages has never been Chazelle’s problem, and so it hardly comes as a surprise that he only gets lost when “Babylon” starts trying to bridge the gap between yesterday and tomorrow. “Babylon” looks sensational from the start, bangs along to the year’s most brilliant score, and bubbles over with riotous setpieces that frequently capture the headrush of making movies for the big screen by restoring the thrill of watching them on one. It’s a feeling that silent film superstar Jack Conrad’s perch at the top of Mt. Hollywood allows him to see the potential for real art behind the scrim of cheap spectacle—he has too much faith in tomorrow to realize that he’s already been relegated to yesterday. “What is your greatest ambition in life?,” Jean Seberg once asked in Breathless. “To become immortal… and then die,” Jean-Pierre Melville replied. Achieving immortality was easy for Jack, it’s living with it that kills him.

Pitt’s suave John Gilbert stand-in is also the personification of the movie that Chazelle builds around him, which is likewise both ecstatic and moribund in equal measure—50 feet tall and six feet underground all at once (a big reason why “Babylon” feels so emblematic of Schrödinger’s Hollywood in the streaming age). Hosted by Kinoscope executive Don Wallach, the first bacchanal unfolds like a “Dear Penthouse” letter written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s the height of excess laced with the fall of Rome, as the end of the silent era looms over the festivities. As far as studio assistant Manny Torres is concerned, Nellie’s voice is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. 

The Mexican-American immigrant knows what it’s like to be typecast for how you talk, and he swoons for Nellie because both share the same dream for their self-invention. Jack Conrad believes in the movies’ power to bring the masses together, but he’s losing faith in an industry that often fails to recognize its own potential. Chazelle’s brilliance isn’t confined to the big setpieces, it’s also on display in the long and crushing close-up that sees Jack’s soul leaves his body as he watches Hollywood’s most powerful figures indulge in another snakebitten night of rank stupidity. Another bizarre scene forces him to perform “Singin’ in the Rain” for a scene in “The Hollywood Revue of 1929,” the actor rolling his eyes at a future that’s staring him in the face. “Babylon” is a romantic nightmare, a bat-shit crazy masterpiece. Source: www.indiewire.com