The Furniture: A Plaster Haze in The Beguiled

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is no sprawling epic of the Civil War. The Farnsworth Seminary for Girls, where Miss Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) presides, is no Tara. There are no ballgowns or battlefields. There is only a big lonely house, the seat of a plantation that has decayed into an isolated finishing school for an especially isolated handful of girls.

Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) is thrust into this setting, his leg wounded and his uniform bloodied. The resulting tension simmers for days, weeks even, before exploding in nocturnal chaos and violence. All the while the house stands silent, forcing these emotions up and down the stairs and into small, dimly-lit corners. There is a forever haze about this place, though never quite hot enough to break into a sweat.

This tightly-knotted mood owes a great deal to production designer Anne Ross, a frequent collaborator of Coppola’s, as well as art director Jennifer Dehghan and set decorator Amy Beth Silver...

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Race in Lady Macbeth and The Beguiled: Not so black or white?

by Lynn Lee

Florence Pugh in Lady Macbeth / Nicole Kidman in The Beguiled

In a summer filled with movies by or starring women of exceptional talent, The Beguiled and Lady Macbeth make an especially fascinating cinematic pairing.  Both films center on mid-19th century women who appear trapped by their societies’ constricting gender norms.  In both, the women are confined to an isolated, often claustrophobic space, yet nature is a constantly beckoning presence that at once shapes and reflects their desires.  (Both even have plots that turn on poisonous wild mushrooms!)  And in both, the women up-end the patriarchal structure of their circumscribed universe without liberating themselves.  If anything, they reinforce that power structure even as they seize momentary control of it, leaving not a feeling of triumph but a somber queasiness.

For all these thematic similarities, the differences between the two films are even more striking...

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150 Words on The Beguiled, The Big Sick, and Planet of the Apes

Three movies I didn't review when they were brand spanking new but opinions don't have expiration dates so why not share 'em, anyway? 150 words on each because you're busy and I'm busy, too. 

War for the Planet of the Apes
The freshest character in War for... is named  “Bad Ape.”  But really, who’s good? The final installment of the Apes reboot is, in essence, a war picture which means everyone is compromised. Yes, even noble Caesar (Andy Serkis) is tempted to do the wrong thing repeatedly. Bad Ape (Steve Zahn) gives the movie its only moments of levity but even those are pitiable, like the abused creature himself. The new film isn’t “fun” at all but proves a fitting capper to a surprisingly meaty trilogy. It’s a danger to interpret all current cinema in light of the apocalyptic choices of the US electorate of late but boy is this thing a compelling downer; you can argue that the final film is all about racism, evil lying fascists (Woody Harrelson), and the willful self-destructiveness of the human race. Let’s hope the series (if not our planet) wraps up right here. B

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C O N S I D E R - Actresses of 2017, 2nd Qtr

With the year's second quarter over, here's a listicle of noteworthy performances we'll eventually compare to what's to come. These are my personal favorites from screenings and releases from April 1st through June 30th (if the film hasn't opened in theaters yet, it's marked with an asterisk). Herewith the 17 best from the year's second quarter, divvied up into three categories. (If you'd like to group them with the women from the first quarter, that list is here). Did these actresses speak to you with their turns?

Disclaimer: Key actress-focused films I missed that I'll have to catch up with later were Beatriz at Dinner, Manifesto, A Quiet Passion and Rough Night. If you've seen them give their MVPs a shout-out.

6 LEADING ACTRESSES

 

Gal Gadot as "Diana" in Wonder Woman

Nicole Kidman as "Miss Martha" in The Beguiled...

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"Werk Werk" The Beguiled does Hamilton

You may think you didn't need to see Colin Farrell doing his best hair flip to "The Schuyler Sisters" from Hamilton, but you'd be wrong.

Our hearts are bursting. It turns out the little girls of The Beguiled made a Hamilton lipsync video while goofing around on set to accompany a donation to Lin-Manuel Miranda's "immigrants get the job done" coalition (we mentioned the contest the other day)... May this challenge others to donate, too! Oona Lawrence leads us as Aaron Burr, with Emma Howard as Angelica, Angourie Rice as Eliza, and little Addison Riecke as Peggy.

You may think you're loving the video in the first minute but wait til the rest of the stars start popping up. Everyone is in this! Heaven.