White Noise with Christian Lorentzen
I consider White Noise the book and White Noise the movie with critic (and fellow substacker) Christian Lorentzen
Dear Last Thing I Saw Fans,
I have noticed that fall is here. One telltale sign is that I end up seeing a movie or two at the New York Film Festival. I’ve already done podcasts on most of the movies showing, but I’ll do some more as I catch up with certain titles and chew over others anew.
For starters, I sat down with Christian Lorentzen and asked him to Tell Me Everything about White Noise, the Don DeLillo classic as adapted by Noah Baumbach. You can listen to our alfresco chat below. Micro and macro.
Tune in soon for more, including perhaps a chat with a filmmaker.
I conclude by thanking all of the invaluable supporters who make the production of The Last Thing I Saw possible.
Your faithful host,
Nic
THE PODCAST
White Noise with Christian Lorentzen
This episode is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud, and other podcast places.
Christian Lorentzen’s writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, Bookforum, Artforum, n+1, the Times Literary Supplement, the New Republic, the Paris Review, the Baffler, The New York Times, Slate, the Literary Review, and the New Leader. From 2015 to 2018, he was the book critic for New York Magazine.
New writing can be found at his substack, Christian Lorentzen’s Diary.
For more information on the podcast’s opening and closing music by The Minarets (gratefully used with permission), follow the band on Instagram:
@theminaretsmusic
RECENT WRITING
Since Triangle of Sadness opens this weekend, here’s my interview with the director, Ruben Östlund, after its world premiere in Cannes, where it went on to win the Palme d’Or.
For The New York Times, I reviewed Vesper, a beautifully crafted science fiction film which bears the influence of illustrators just as much as cinema.
Continuing the genre trend this month, I interviewed the star of the horror film Smile, Sosie Bacon.
For Sight & Sound, I wrote up Don’t Worry Darling. Actually, I reviewed it at Venice, where it premiered, but then it went and got released in theaters.
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Delectable selections for home viewing.
The Vanishing (Criterion)
Pulse (MUBI) – When it came out in the U.S. in the go-go 2000s, I apparently wrote this in my L Magazine review: “Drifting along like a derelict ship, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film accumulates a potent spiritual claustrophobia far out of proportion to any events that occur.”
Down Terrace (HBO MAX)
still/here (Criterion)
Forty Guns (Criterion)
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold.
Besides hosting a podcast, I’m a writer and an editor. My features, interviews, festival dispatches, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Sight & Sound, Artforum, Filmmaker, and W Magazine (and appeared in dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine).
I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment, where I was for 15 years. I assigned and edited both web and print editorial, hosted its podcast and talks and screenings, learned from brilliant writers, curated Film Comment Selects, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment was subsequently awarded the Film Heritage Award by the National Society of Film Critics (an honor historically awarded to the Museum of Modern Art and other institutions).
Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc.
nicolas.rapold@gmail.com