Greta Lee hurts so good in ‘Late Fame’

Written by May December scribe Samy Burch, and directed with self-assured simplicity by critic Kent Jones, Late Fame follows long-retired poet Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe) as he’s rediscovered by an enthusiastic young fan, the wannabe bard Wilson Meyers (Edmund Donavon). Upon being welcomed into a society of burgeoning artists, the lonely Saxberger is faced with the prospect of writing once more. However, Jones’s tale isn’t one of straightforward inspiration, or a feel good comeback saga. Rather, it’s a measured reflection on time gone by, in which Lee’s character—an older interloper who goes by the name Gloria Gardener, as she teases and chats up the younger group members—fits perfectly, as a performer approaching the end of her prime.

The result is a moody artistic triptych that, despite running only 97 minutes, feels like it traverses an entire era of lived experience. This is thanks, in part, to Jones’s framing of New York itself. The movie begins with footage of old film and video experiments shot in the city, set to the harsh sounds of no wave New York band Mars. Much of the story unfolds in SoHo and Tribeca, now lavish gentrified shopping districts that were once low-income artistic communes in the 1970s—the kind Saxberger would have frequented in his heyday. Now, he’s an unassuming nobody who frequents a local dive bar and works as a sorter at the post office. He’s a custodian of other people’s words, but he doesn’t have access to them.

"Late Fame" follows a retired poet (Willem Dafoe) who is rediscovered by a group of young fans.

Magnolia Pictures

Apart from the family voicemails he ignores, we know very little about Saxberger by design. That is, until the aged author is approached by a young admirer in a comfy, expensive sweater, who claims to love Saxberger’s nearly 60-year-old collection of poems titled Way Past Go—itself a cipher of missed connections and opportunities gone by. A few chance encounters later, and Meyers convinces Saxberger to join his collective for a drink. Here, the poet is introduced to young intellectuals (perhaps faux intellectuals) out of time, who’ve modeled their attire, their gusto, and their rejection of the mainstream on beat poets like Allen Ginsberg. They have an idea of what writers, poets and critics should look and sound like—Meyers, for instance, speaks in a flowery cadence—but it’s obvious from minute one that these recent college grads are searching for a form of identity.

Saxberger seems to realize this, but after warming up to them, he’s all too happy to be recognized and accepted. So, he eventually agrees to partake in a poetry reading the young men decide to stage. However, the more we learn about each of them, the more it becomes clear that Jones’s introductory nostalgia, for a New York that once was, is being deftly contrasted with a lament for what it has become: a place of rich trust fund kids to cosplay the perceived grandeur of the past, even if they mean well, or think the outward appearance of intellect will help them find something deep within.

Greta Lee (left) and Willem Dafoe form a friendship in "Late Fame."

Magnolia Pictures

This is where Lee plays a vital part, as a woman who has similarly modeled herself off a collective cultural memory. Her nom de plume feels like that of a silent or golden age Hollywood starlet—someone like Greta Garbo or Marilyn Monroe, born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson and Norma Jean Baker, respectively—while her bobbed wig, barely visible eyebrows, and burlesque routine evoke flappers from the Roaring Twenties. However, from the moment we first meet her, there’s a deep sadness in her eyes, barely concealed by her vivid, theatrical enunciations. She’s Betty Boop by way of Sunset Boulevard. Performance runs in her veins, but her career might just be in her revenues. Whatever reason she demands the attention of these ambitious vicenarians—to feel younger, perhaps?—she seems to be fighting against an inevitable obsolescence.

The movie’s melancholy is situated in Saxberger’s sudden (if momentary) reemergence from the discard pile of great artistry destined to be forgotten. Perhaps this will eventually be Meyers’ fate as well—that is, if he doesn’t reveal himself to be a complete phony—but it’s a fear that ends up consuming Gardener too, the more time she spends with the boys’ more mature idol. Lee and Dafoe's characters may be decades apart in age, but having lived lives of struggle and heartbreak (compared to their devotees), they end up kindred spirits in a way. They represent the last vestiges of something real, in a city increasingly consumed more by the appearance of genius than with honest creativity. What is, however, most heart rendering is that they seem to know this deep down, which imbues the few flirtatious scenes they share with a quiet desperation, as they wade against tides which may have already consumed them. 

“Rage against the dying of the light,” and all that.