In the character-driven gem Late Fame, Willem Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, a Greenwich Village poet of the late 1970s, whose work is rediscovered by a band of twenty-something would-be literati. His moment of modest fame long-vanished, Ed has been working as a postal clerk for 37 years, and his fellow dive bar patrons don’t even know about his published work.
Ed is tracked down and accosted by the determined young man Wilson Myers (Edmund Donovan), who has learned that Ed, whose work Myers worships, is still extant. Myers invites Ed to meet his circle of friends, who see themselves as a new wave of artists – and, crucially – one that will be written about in the future like the Algonquin Roundtable or the Beat Poets. They even brand themselves as the Enthusiasm Society. In fact, although they insist that they are poets, playwrights, essayists and the like, they are posers, sheltered from the real world by their rich parents.
Ed, baffled and initially made uncomfortable by the adulation, finds that being exalted isn’t so bad. It’s been long time since he’s been around people who like poetry, and he enjoys encouraging the youngsters. Of course, Ed comes from a time and place before it was even imaginable that loft living would become fashionable, so he is a fish out of water with the youngsters.
It doesn’t take long for Ed to be introduced to the Enthusiasm Society’s muse and sexy den mother, the fortyish actress Gloria (Greta Lee). Gloria has a need to control her environment, so she has utterly enchanted “her boys”, who are under her spell as was Odysseus with Calypso’s. It’s inevitable that she will turn her charms on Ed.
The Enthusiasm Society rails against influencers and clickbait, but, of course, they are also all about bringing attention to themselves. What Ed doesn’t figure out initially is the source of their ambition. When Ed was their age, he was driven to create art; in contrast, they are driven to be recognized as artistes (whether or not they create any art). They even introduce Ed to an agent who can make him money – but not for his poetry.
Late Fame is a portrait of a man who is comfortable in his own skin. If Ed was ever disappointed that he didn’t become rich and famous, he has long left any bitterness behind him. But Ed may never have been ambitious. He once created art, and he’s proud of it, but he’s content to be who he is. He has his integrity. Will Gloria and his new admirers tempt him away from his equanimity and fulfillment?
Willem Dafoe, one of our greatest screen actors, delivers another tour de force. Dafoe takes Ed through his suspicion, confusion, amusement, re-awakened ego, yearning and basic decency.
Greta Lee gets to play a complex character who masks her own insecurity with flamboyance. Gloria is one of those many very talented actors who is not likely to ever star, or even earn a living from her acting. Unlike Ed, who doesn’t need acclaim or approval, Gloria fills an emotional need with her own pose and with her domination of the “boys”. Lee, who can sing, also pulls off a cabaret performance.
Donovan is very good as the intensely earnest Myers, a seemingly ridiculous fanboy with a much darker side.
Writer Samy Burch, Oscar-nominated for her May December original screenplay. based this script on on the century-old novel by Arthur Schnitzel. Both Late Fame and May December reveal Burch to be a master of vivid character portraits.
Director Kent Jones (Hitchcock/Truffaut) delivers verisimilitude with the various Manhattan settings – the bohemian, the gritty and the opulent.
Late Fame opens August 21 in Bay Area theaters, including the Smith Rafael Film Center.