| Permanent Green Light | |
|---|---|
 Poster | |
| Directed by |
|
| Produced by | Nicolas Brevière |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Michaël Salerno |
| Edited by |
|
Production company | Local Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 91 minutes [1] |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | $160,000 [2] |
Permanent Green Light is a 2018 French film directed by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley.
Roman, a young man from a small French suburb, becomes fixated on the idea of blowing himself up for seemingly no reason other than pure spectacle. The film follows the development of this obsession as well as his friends' different reactions to it. The film uses language in a very deliberate way, intended to add to the ambiance of the film rather than serving a purely utilitarian function. [3]
Cooper and Farley had previously collaborated on Like Cattle Towards Glow, an anthology of abstract pornographic short films released in 2015.
The plot was inspired by the actions of Australian teenage suicide bomber Jake Bilardi. Cooper and Farley were intrigued by the seemingly inexplicable nature of his death, as unlike most suicide bombers, Bilardi did not seem to have been politically or ideologically motivated. [2] [4]
Sulpice, an acting student, and Cholbi, who had previously appeared in Larry Clark's 2014 The Smell of Us , were the only two cast members with prior acting experience. This was a deliberate choice on the part of the directors, as they believed non-actors would bring more authenticity to the characters. [4]
The filming took place in Cherbourg, a coastal town in Manche. [5]
Permanent Green Light premiered at the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam. [1] It was included in their "Bright Future" program, which highlights "[e]merging talent with original subject matter and an individual style". [6] [7]
The film was screened by Film at Lincoln Center as part of a series titled "Dennis Cooper Carte Blanche" on September 5-6, 2018. [8] [3]
Permanent Green Light received largely positive critical reception. In an article for The White Review, Shama Khanna praised the film and compared its themes to Robert Bresson's 1977 The Devil, Probably , noting: "The Devil Probably is much less nihilistic than Permanent Green Light, which surrenders to our renewed nuclear threat rather than becoming any sort of martyr to it. Cooper and Farley’s film is an echo-filled love song for a headphone-wearing, screen-dependent generation. Where Bresson’s Charles stubbornly protests that it’s ‘our strength’ which unites us in resistance, Roman obsesses out loud about wanting to become ‘the particularity of the explosion’, which he hopes people will applaud him for." [9]
Daniel Felsenthal also wrote about it positively for the Los Angeles Review of Books, stating that "[Permanent Green Light is] an extraordinarily quiet and thoughtful movie, steeped in the culture and feeling of childhood and adolescence, as well as a highly successful collaboration.[...]The film painstakingly avoids condescending to its adolescent characters: the audience is as incapable of understanding them as they are of understanding themselves." [10]
Jeff Jackson, in a review for Literary Hub, called the film one of the best of the year. He complimented the ambiance and tone set by the film, the dialogue, and actors' ability to convey emotion. [11]
Permanent Green Light was listed as one of John Waters's favorite films of 2018. [12]
Robert Bresson was a French film director. Known for his ascetic approach, Bresson made a notable contribution to the art of cinema; his non-professional actors, ellipses, and sparse use of scoring have led his works to be regarded as preeminent examples of minimalist film. Much of his work is known for being tragic in story and nature.
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor and comedian. Primarily a comedic leading actor in films, his accolades include nominations for three Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2023, Sandler was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Christopher Crosby Farley was an American comedian and actor. He was known for his loud, energetic comedic style, and was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and later a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live for five seasons from 1990 to 1995. He went on to pursue a film career, appearing in films such as Airheads, Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, Beverly Hills Ninja, and Almost Heroes.
David Trinidad is an American poet.
Dennis Cooper is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the George Miles Cycle, a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and described by Tony O'Neill "as intense a dissection of human relationships and obsession that modern literature has ever attempted." Cooper is the founder and editor of Little Caesar Magazine, a punk zine, that ran between 1976 and 1982.
Larry C. "Bumper" Robinson II is an American film, television and voice actor. He is known for his roles as Bumblebee and Blitzwing on Transformers: Animated, Falcon on Avengers Assemble, Footi, Glurt and Wizwuz from Mixels, Rook Blonko from Ben 10: Omniverse and Cyborg in Justice League: Doom.
Rutebeuf was a French trouvère.
Diary of a Country Priest is a 1951 French drama film written and directed by Robert Bresson, and starring Claude Laydu in his debut film performance. A faithful adaptation of Georges Bernanos' novel of the same name, which had won the Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1936, it tells the story of a sickly young Catholic priest who has been assigned a small village in northern France as his first parish. The film was lauded for Laydu's performance, which has been called one of the greatest in the history of cinema, and won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and the Prix Louis Delluc.
The Church of Saint-Sulpice is a Catholic church in Paris, France, on the east side of Place Saint-Sulpice, in the Latin Quarter of the 6th arrondissement. Only slightly smaller than Notre-Dame and Saint-Eustache, it is the third largest church in the city. It is dedicated to Sulpitius the Pious. Construction of the present building, the second on the site, began in 1646. During the 18th century, an elaborate gnomon, the Gnomon of Saint-Sulpice, was constructed in the church.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) is an art museum located in downtown Santa Barbara, California.
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably, the Artforum logo is a bold and condensed iteration of the Akzidenz-Grotesk font, a feat for an American publication to have considering how challenging it was to obtain fonts favored by the Swiss school via local European foundries in the 1960s. Artforum is published by Artforum Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Media Corporation.
Shine a Light is a 2008 concert film directed by Martin Scorsese documenting the Rolling Stones' 2006 Beacon Theatre performances during their A Bigger Bang Tour. The film also includes archive footage from the band's career and makes use of digital cinematography for backstage sequences, the first time Scorsese used the technology in a film. The film takes its title from the song of the same name, featured on the band's 1972 album Exile on Main St. A soundtrack album was released in April 2008 on the Universal label. This is also the last movie by Paramount Classics, as the company merged into its sister company Paramount Vantage after the movie was released.
Guillaume Dustan was an openly gay French writer. Dustan's 1998 novel, In My Room, brought the author instant notoriety for his masterful use of autofiction and depiction of gay glamour and romance in mid-1990s Paris.
Shanmugha Raja, known professionally as Mysskin, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, actor, singer, producer and composer.
Andreas Horvath is an Austrian photographer and filmmaker.
Ben Russell is an American artist and experimental filmmaker. Russell developed his reputation over the numerous shorts he made throughout the 2000s, many as part of his "Trypps" series, and as the curator of the Magic Lantern Cinema in Providence, Rhode Island. In 2009, he made his acclaimed feature debut, Let Each One Go Where He May, shot in Suriname in a series of 13 long takes accomplished with a Steadicam. Both a Guggenheim Fellow and participating artist in documenta 14, Russell's work has been described as drawing on elements of ethnography, psychedelia and Surrealism.
First Reformed is a 2017 American psychological drama film written and directed by Paul Schrader. It stars Ethan Hawke as a minister of a small congregation in upstate New York who grapples with mounting despair brought on by tragedy, worldly concerns, and a tormented past. Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles, Victoria Hill, and Philip Ettinger appear in supporting roles.
Peter Johnston Galassi is an American writer, curator, and art historian working in the field of photography. His principal fields are photography and nineteenth-century French art.
On the Job: The Missing 8 is a 2021 Philippine crime thriller film directed by Erik Matti and written by Michiko Yamamoto. The sequel to the 2013 film On the Job, it tells the story of a journalist who investigates the mysterious disappearance of his colleagues, and a prisoner who is temporarily freed to carry out assassinations. The film stars an ensemble cast that consists of John Arcilla, Dennis Trillo, Dante Rivero, Lotlot de Leon, Christopher de Leon, Leo Martinez, Joey Marquez, Eric Fructuoso, Vandolph Quizon, Agot Isidro, Sol Cruz, Wendell Ramos, Lao Rodriguez, Andrea Brillantes, Isabelle de Leon, Ina Feleo, Megan Young, Levi Ignacio, and Carlos Siguion-Rivera.