We continue our Camp Cinema season in our second episode covering The Love Witch (2016) and Black Swan (2010)

Special Guest: Filmmakers Emily Gallagher and Austin Elston of Fishtown FIlms

As the dust begins to settle on the 2010s, the topsy turvy decade begins to come into focus. At the start of the decade, Darren Aronofsky released Black Swan (2010) to critical acclaim. I saw it in a packed NYC theater opening weekend. The buzz was palpable. Looking back now, especially post mother! and the rise of peak tv, the trashy and overwrought elements of Black Swan overshadow the great performances and wonderful cinematography, which is why we have selected as our Naive Camp film for this episode.

The Love Witch had a much quieter release in 2016, but it clicked with a small group of film lovers. While filmmaking is mostly a communal art, Anna Biller was so involved with every aspect of The Love Witch that it could only exist because of her. Biller's retro and kitsch style can not obscure the riotous passion for filmmaking and gender theory at the heart of the film. It is so campy that one could argue it is post-camp in that it is both obsessed with artifice and serious at the same time. At the very least, The Love Witch exists mostly in deviance of the ideas presented in Sontag's Notes on Camp.

Welcome to the first episode of Season 13 of Film Trace. In this season, we will explore the notion of Camp in Film. Building off of Susan Sontag's foundational 1964 essay, Notes on Camp, we will explore two films each episode we think demonstrate Sontag's concepts of naive camp and intentional camp.

First off is the financial and critical disaster of Madame Web (2024). We argue this film is a good example of what Sontag would call naive camp: over the top, extravagant, but without much artistic merit. A spectacular failure. The open question with Madame is whether anyone involved thought it should be anything more than a lark inspired by the trashy comic book films of the 1990s.

Countering the cinematic cacophony of Madame Web is the arthouse excess of Pearl. Ti West was given a million dollars by A24 to create a prequel to his 2022 slasher X. The star of that film, Mia Goth, helped write the script and plays the titular Pearl. Boy this one is a doozy. Goth is out there in a place all her own. We think it is a great example of intentional camp: total excess that somehow succeeds in being a good film.

We felt like doing an Oscars show, so we did:

Topics of discussion

1. Intro: 2023's Film Trace movies. They stood the test of time, but were they awarded upon release?

2. Nominated film most obviously conceived specifically with little gold men in mind?

3. Nominated film conceived originally with absolutely no award hopes in mind?

4. Nominated director/writer/DP/actor most obviously groomed to one day become an Oscar winner?

5. Nominated director/writer/DOP/actor least groomed throughout their career to one day walk to the stage?

6. Conclusion: Release the hounds. What 2023 movies do we think will stand the test of time despite receiving zero nominations?