Yes No Maybe So: "Empire of Light"
Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 6:34PM by Nathaniel R
Olivia Colman standing in front of the titular character, a movie theater named "Empire"
You know it's August when the Oscarrific trailers start hitting. Today's newbie is something we're very curious about. The film is Sam Mendes' Empire of Light starring Olivia Colman and A Movie Theater (from the looks of it). What a perfect combo that is... though the last time Colman tried to watch a movie onscreen things did NOT go well (remember that great but ferociously frustrating scene in The Lost Daughter?). In addition to being a movie about movies, Empire of Light also has racial and romantic elements in the drama.
The gorgeous trailer and a Yes No Maybe So breakdown after the jump...
YES
This lovely narration
Film. It's just static frames with darkness inbetween. But there's a little flaw in your optic nerve. So if I run the film at 24 frames per second, it creates an llusion of motion, an illusion of life. So you don't see the darkness. Out there, they just see a beam of light and nothing happens without light.
... yeah, we're as much a sucker for movies speaking directly to the magic of the movies as Oscar voters are so we felt like tearing up from the first frames and from the speech that Toby Jones is giving as he threads a projector.
Speaking of movies, this is how you know it's set in 1981 -- the marquee here reads:
Tonight Chariots of Fire Gala Premiere
Very presumptuous of Sam Mendes to include a Best Picture winner in the narrative. Maybe he's feeling really confident after 1917. And come to think of it, why shouldn't he?
Olivia Colman can do no wrong and now we'll be seeing her in a romantic drama, which looks to be quite different than the last handful of years of celebrated role like a solitary professor on a fraught vacation (Oscar nom), a daughter losing her father to alzheimers (Oscar nom), two very different queens of England in different centuries (Oscar win & Emmy win), or a pretentious judgmental artist (Emmy nom)
NO
n/a
MAYBE SO
There are so many questions that won't be answered until we're seeing the movie. This is a good thing as original material is always more exciting to wonder about than franchises and IP because you honestly don't know what you're going to get! What is the story? This is the first film Sam Mendes has written solo and only the second he's written at all (after 1917). From a writing perspective this appears to be much more ambitious than the one-mission focused linearity of 1917. How well will he braid all these presumed elements we're seeing: racism, an interracial and intergenerational romance (Small Axe's Micheal Ward is 23 years younger than Olivia Colman), and the magic of cinema? Were the 80s this racially fraught in England (we honestly don't know as Americans)? Will the contemplative hypnotic tone of the trailer be the tone of the entire film and if it is will it be too indulgent or earnest? Or slip into self-regard?
In short, a lot of how effective this is will come down to execution of course and we can't know that until we're watching the picture. All that said the team here is extremely promising and we are a big ol' yes.
Oscar winner Sam Mendes directing, Oscar winner Olivia Colman headlining, Oscar winner Roger Deakins behind the camera, Oscar winner Lee Smith editing, 15 time Oscar nominated Thomas Newman on score, Oscar winner Alexandra Byrne on costumes, and Emmy winner Mark Tildesley on production design. That's a lot of prestige!
What'cha think? Are you a yes no or maybe so at this point in time?
Reader Comments (16)
Judging from the trailer it doesn't seem like the type of film I was expecting from the synopsis,very excited and Colman is turning into a British Meryl.
oh yeah, i am a 100% yes on this. can't wait!
The trailer says Reznor & Ross are doing the music, but Newman is not mentioned
Speaking of movies, this is how you know it's set in 1981 -- the marquee here reads:
Tonight Chariots of Fire Gala Premiere
Very presumptuous of Sam Mendes to include a Best Picture winner in the narrative. Maybe he's feeling really confident after 1917. And come to think of it, why shouldn't he?
Trivia no one asked for! If this wins Best Picture, I believe it'd be the 4th time one Best Picture directly referenced another.
1. In The Apartment, Jack Lemmon tries to watch Grand Hotel on TV but gets annoyed by all the commercials.
2. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen passes some thugs on the street and says they look like they belong in The Godfather.
3. In Birdman, Michael Keaton and Zach Galifianakis discuss Jeremy Renner and mention his nomination for The Hurt Locker.
Also, this movie looks good! Will there be Olivia Colman fatigue at some point? Or is that still further ahead of us?
I'm not high on Sam Mendes as a filmmaker but... Nine Inch Nails doing the music score. SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! NIN baby!!!!!
actually it's Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross making the score (at least that's what the trailer says)
No merit in being 100% on board with this one.
@eduardo-Trent and Atticus is NIN officially. It was Trent since its formation until 2016 when Trent made Atticus an official member with Robin Finck, Ilan Rubin, and Alessandro Cortini as the live band/collaborators as they're sort of official members.
@eduardo-Trent and Atticus is NIN officially. It was Trent since its formation until 2016 when Trent made Atticus an official member with Robin Finck, Ilan Rubin, and Alessandro Cortini as the live band/collaborators as they're sort of official members.
Absolutely gorgeous trailer. I didn't even really hear about this movie until like a few weeks ago and then it was like... OOH a new Olivia Colman film! But this trailer gets me SUPER excited. I'm so, so happy for her. And we're all so lucky.
The nostalgia for the projection booth gives me Cinema Paradiso vibes.
oliv- YES!
eduardo ramirez -- interesting. IMDB says Thomas Newman with Atticus Ross.
It looks fantastic and also like something that could win Best Picture.
Yes yes yes yes yes
As a Brit, yes things were pretty racially charged in the UK in the 80s. It was a time of skinheads and neo-Nazi-ism which was also dramatised in THIS IS ENGLAND.