The Best Acted show since Chernobyl. Writing does the job, then stops.
If you look under the hood of most acting performances, in spite of how emotionally well-rendered they may be, they are ultimately a single-point expression of a broader sense of humanity with very few specifying factors. A great example of this phenomenon is the TV show Severance, superior to The White Lotus in every aspect of filmmaking, save the acting.
The performances in Severance, or The Morning Show, or Watchmen, are of types of human beings: a four-word summative description of the characters can be generated which then applies to every single scene they shall be a part of. The specifics of their behavior can be predicted because of an emotional simplicity and a narrowness in behavioral variation. Even when they change over time, it's only the externalities prescribed by the world around them that define these changes.
For example, Adam Scott's character in Severance is never not a solemn wallflower, John Turturro's character is never not a purehearted nerd; it's not a deficiency in writing or acting, but a failure in merging both into a cohesive whole. The depth these characters posses is not in layers of emotion, but in multiplicity of screenplay adjectives; it's not that actable.
None of these issues plague the characters of The White Lotus, who always feel at least four separate ways about any of the situations they find themselves in; the character work was focused inside-out. The actors perform the behavior of their characters based on an intimate and unambiguous knowledge of their complexly layered emotion, and not simple cues of what they need to "look" like externally.
The writing itself in terms of scene construction and dialog is above functional. It keeps you unwaveringly engaged.
The cinematography is "good" if you're not very visually conscious, but I found the compositions to be lacking. Images are pretty sunsets and orange-hued firelights, but there's not a specific sense of order of elements in relation to camera.
A remarkable aspect of the technical filmmaking is the editing of the final episode, which uses interruption of narrative momentum and rhythmic matches in behavior (head down to head up etc) to seamlessly weave and tighten the knots of suspense to a morbidly sharp climax.
The second season ranks even superior. The behavioral rendering and characterization is deep enough to warrant exploration by shoddily-constructed submarine. Loved the central couples.
Soundtrack is unique and immersive.
Speaking of immersion, the underwater shots of both seasons feel not like cinematographic showboating, but interments into the private psychic coffins these characters walk socially entombed within.
Show would be a perfect 10 - weren't the characters so vapid; as people, not as characters.
As that they're incomparably infinite.
8/10.
The performances in Severance, or The Morning Show, or Watchmen, are of types of human beings: a four-word summative description of the characters can be generated which then applies to every single scene they shall be a part of. The specifics of their behavior can be predicted because of an emotional simplicity and a narrowness in behavioral variation. Even when they change over time, it's only the externalities prescribed by the world around them that define these changes.
For example, Adam Scott's character in Severance is never not a solemn wallflower, John Turturro's character is never not a purehearted nerd; it's not a deficiency in writing or acting, but a failure in merging both into a cohesive whole. The depth these characters posses is not in layers of emotion, but in multiplicity of screenplay adjectives; it's not that actable.
None of these issues plague the characters of The White Lotus, who always feel at least four separate ways about any of the situations they find themselves in; the character work was focused inside-out. The actors perform the behavior of their characters based on an intimate and unambiguous knowledge of their complexly layered emotion, and not simple cues of what they need to "look" like externally.
The writing itself in terms of scene construction and dialog is above functional. It keeps you unwaveringly engaged.
The cinematography is "good" if you're not very visually conscious, but I found the compositions to be lacking. Images are pretty sunsets and orange-hued firelights, but there's not a specific sense of order of elements in relation to camera.
A remarkable aspect of the technical filmmaking is the editing of the final episode, which uses interruption of narrative momentum and rhythmic matches in behavior (head down to head up etc) to seamlessly weave and tighten the knots of suspense to a morbidly sharp climax.
The second season ranks even superior. The behavioral rendering and characterization is deep enough to warrant exploration by shoddily-constructed submarine. Loved the central couples.
Soundtrack is unique and immersive.
Speaking of immersion, the underwater shots of both seasons feel not like cinematographic showboating, but interments into the private psychic coffins these characters walk socially entombed within.
Show would be a perfect 10 - weren't the characters so vapid; as people, not as characters.
As that they're incomparably infinite.
8/10.
- aserdcerebral
- Aug 28, 2022