Monday, October 7, 2019

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019 [10 of 13] VELVET BUZZSAW (2019)


13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
[10 of 13]


VELVET BUZZSAW
(January 2019)


"Look, I came to the museum because I wanted to change the world through art. But the wealthy vacuum up everything, except crumbs. The best work is only enjoyed by a tiny few. And they buy what they’re told. So, why not join the party?”

Dan Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw takes place in the dangerous waters of the art world, where most everyone is only too eager to deploy a scathing remark or a catty side-eye while they’re busy co-opting an artist’s true passion to make a quick buck.
It’s a world populated not just by artists, but by all the other personalities that tend to accrete around them, like critics or gallery owners.
The former is represented by Jake Gyllenhaal’s Morf Vandewalt, an inveterate critic who’s apparently unable to switch off his being “selective,” even for funerals, while Rene Russo’s Rhodora Haze is one of the latter. Once a self-described anarchist, from her days as a member of the punk band Velvet Buzzsaw, Rhodora is now a “purveyor of good taste,” as the owner of Haze Gallery.
They’re only two of the noteworthy collective of characters (and performers: Toni Collette! John Malkovich!) in this tale of art taking its overdue revenge on the industry that’s savagely exploited it, oh so cruelly and elegantly.

“Let me fill you in.
“All this… it’s just a safari to hunt the next New Thing and eat it.”

As an artist, as someone who creates, that dizzyingly high target you’re always aiming for is to create art that speaks to the audience, that can touch them in ways they never expected.
There’s a moment in the film that encapsulates that feeling masterfully, where Malkovich and Daveed Diggs--who play an established artist who’s seen better days and a new up-and-comer, the old school and the new--stare enraptured (or “ensorcelled,” as Morf would have it) at a piece of art in a gallery.
Velvet Buzzsaw takes that idea, and tosses it headfirst into horror movie territory as the art of one Vetril Dease proves to be art that can touch you hard enough to kill you.
It’s art that--to use Rhodora’s words--charges and mauls and devours.
It’s art that eats its audience.
Or, more to the point, it’s art that eats anyone who tries to profit off it in ethically questionable ways.

“We don’t sell durable goods, we peddle perception. Thin as a bubble.”

As much as Velvet Buzzsaw is a horror movie, complete with gruesome, gory deaths, what I feel is more noteworthy is that it’s also a savagely funny satire of the art world and its denizens.
Gilroy’s script impishly skewers an industry that constantly co-opts new voices and visions into its maw, all in the name of the Almighty Dollar, turning them into Brands and using them until they’re no longer of any worth, then tossing them out for some other bright new shiny talent.
Wash, rinse, repeat.

It’s a world at once terrible and ludicrous, where a bunch of plastic garbage bags or a dead body in pools of blood can be mistaken for contemporary art.
A world where the Critic is God (the one and only Voice that can apparently determine a piece’s beauty and worth, but also a Voice only too ready to spew cruel and merciless invective), a world where true, passionate creativity and artistic integrity are forever haunted by the “money question.”

“So much easier to talk about money than art.”

As Rhodora points out to a Morf who’s already left the room (and as the one sheet’s tagline says), all art is dangerous.
Or at least, art is meant to be dangerous.
Art should provoke and challenge, inspire and elevate.
Instead, it’s become mired in an industry that’s far more interested in “tax issues,” the promise of “significant appreciation,” and “cutting-edge analytics to maximize deal flow and global demand.”
The industry has filed down the teeth of art, all the better to sacrifice it at the altar of commerce.
Velvet Buzzsaw imagines all those teeth grown back, turned into razor sharp fangs.

“Well, I’m going to meet with your board tomorrow and suggest a reduction in the Emerging Artist Exhibit.
“They don’t sell any tickets anyway.”

Parting Shot: Pat Healy (familiar to these parts from past ¡Q horror! titles Cheap Thrills and Tales of Halloween) appears briefly as the “Man From Perlack.”

(Velvet Buzzsaw OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

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