"Late Fame": Willem Dafoe brings Arthur Schnitzler to New York

Willem Dafoe stars as Ed Saxberger, a former poet and counterculture figure from the 1970s, in Kent Jones's new film "Late Fame." The movie, currently showing at Vienna's Gartenbaukino, adapts Schnitzler's 1894 novella, which was never published during the author's lifetime.

Dafoe, 70, portrays Saxberger as a gentle, melancholic postal worker whose artistic dreams were never realized. The story is set in contemporary New York, shifting from Schnitzler's fin-de-siècle Vienna. Saxberger's quiet life is disrupted when a young admirer, Meyers (Edmund Donovan), discovers his past work and seeks to introduce him to his circle of self-proclaimed radical aesthetes.

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New discoveries are all well and good, but they can't compete with rediscoveries.

The film functions as a satire of aspiring bohemians and a reflection on aging, vanity, and ephemerality in the art world. Director Jones, drawing from his own experiences, captures the familiar dynamics of male-dominated enthusiast circles, including false modesty, fierce ambition, and pseudo-intellectual jargon.

However, the movie is criticized for its tendency to present these characters as mere posers and caricatures, with their only humanizing trait being their sadness. The narrative leans into clichés and caricatures, potentially overshadowing a deeper exploration of the themes.

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He shows himself here from his gentle, melancholic side, not manic-eccentric.