5AM StoryTalk Coffee Reading: Issue 13

A compilation of new and older arts-related articles that you might've missed

On the first Friday of every month, I share a list of arts-related articles (and occasionally podcasts) I’ve recently read that I think you might find illuminating/challenging/inspiring, too. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in each article/episode, but I don’t need to entirely agree with something to think it’s worthy of my time - and, when it comes to art, I encourage you to embrace the same philosophy.

Today’s links come to you in two different sections: a rather bulky Screen & Screen Industry and Page, Music & Other Arts-Related Concerns. I typically offer up a more diverse slate, but this month film/TV sucked up my focus, I think. These lists are capped off with some recommendations about arts newsletters to read here on Substack.

Thanks for being part of this conversation!

Cole

SCREEN & FILM/TV INDUSTRY

David Fincher talks us through the off-screen torture of making ‘Seven’

By Joshua Rothkopf; Los Angeles Times

If you love Seven, this is very much worth your time.

The Terrible Loneliness of The Talented Mr. Ripley

By Brogan Morris; Paste

Encyclopedia Brown: A Story for My Brother, Philip Seymour Hoffman

By Emily Barr; The Paris Review

‘He was always voraciously watching’: Scorsese’s secret life as an obsessive VHS archivist

By Jake Malooley; The Guardian

I Found Frank Herbert’s Dune Script. Dune: Part Two Is Better

By Max Evry; IndieWire

It’s hard to imagine a weirder film version of Dune than the one David Lynch released in 1984, but Frank Herbert found a way.

‘He craved an Oscar’: James Baldwin’s long campaign to crack Hollywood

By Lanre Bakare; The Guardian

The Life and Death of Hollywood

By Daniel Bessner; Harper’s Magazine

Film and television writers face an existential threat.

This is an extraordinary, heartbreaking read sure to make you despair.

Monopoly: the Movie? Pop culture has become a series of lukewarm adverts – and it’s all so very dull

By Dan Hancox; The Guardian

“I’m Scared”: Why It’s a Brutal Time to Be a TV Writer

By Lesley Goldberg; The Hollywood Reporter

The end of Peak TV has ushered in an era of contraction, with fewer buyers (farewell, The CW) and fierce competition for the few shows that are staffing: "People are in total survival mode."

Hollywood writers went on strike to protect their livelihoods from generative AI. Their remarkable victory matters for all workers.

By Molly Kinder; Brookings

Participant Shutting Down Operations After 20 Years: Film Studio Was Behind Oscar Winners ‘Spotlight,’ ‘Green Book’

By Matt Donnelly; Variety

This is gutting news for me and I suspect anyone who loves character dramas and socially conscious cinema.

‘An Inconvenient Truth’ Director Davis Guggenheim Asks Who Will Replace The Social Impact Made By Participant’s Movies

By Davis Guggenheim; Deadline

Hollywood Forfeits Up to $30B Every Year Because of Racial Inequity

By Rebecca Sun; The Hollywood Reporter

Over three reports, McKinsey has tallied up the entertainment industry’s opportunity cost of continuing to diminish Black, Latino and Asian Pacific Islander colleagues and audiences.

Why States Have Spent Billions Subsidizing Hollywood

By Matt Stevens; The New York Times

Inside the costly competition to attract TV and film shoots.

Why It’s Never Been Easier to Land in Director’s Jail

By Mia Galuppo; The Hollywood Reporter

Filmmakers who work on the (ever smaller) slate of major studio movies are dealing with risk-averse execs and a still wobbly distribution environment, with their films sitting in the larger ecosystem of publicly traded parent companies. And if a movie flops with critics or at the box office, they’re the first to get sentenced to movie jail. 

The dumbing down of Hollywood and how and what films are made continues.

PAGE, MUSIC & OTHER ART-RELATED CONCERNS

John Barth, novelist who orchestrated literary fantasies, dies at 93

By Harrison Smith; The Washington Post

His comic novels and metafictional stories made him a giant of postmodernism.

30 Years Ago, Billy Joel Had a Meltdown in Moscow

By Dan Ozzi; Vice

In 1987, the piano man tried to bridge the gap between the US and the Soviet Union, and threw an onstage tantrum in the process.

This is from 2017, but I had never read the story before. Nor did I know the whole crazy story.

I Hate Taylor Swift Discourse

By

Sam Colt

;

This Is a Newsletter!

And why this says a lot about what music criticism has turned into.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this article. I’m not sure I agree with even half. But goddamn if there aren’t a lot of really interesting questions about our culture being posed and discussed here.

Have the Liberal Arts Gone Conservative?

By Emma Green; The New Yorker

The classical-education movement seeks to fundamentally reorient schooling in America. Its emphasis on morality and civics has also primed it for partisan takeover.

People have rights that machines don't. Let's keep it that way

By Neal McDougall; Toronto Star

Although AI-produced work likely can't be copyrighted, artificial intelligence in combination with some human effort opens up dangerous possibilities.

AI really is smoke and mirrors

By

Brian Merchant

;

Blood in the Machine

Just not in *exactly* the way you might think.

SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATIONS

I enjoy reading the following Substack newsletters about art. Maybe you will, too. I try to change these up every “reading list”, so there is always something new here.

Unmapped Storylands by

Elif Shafak

Hope for Film by

Ted Hope

Thin Ice by

Christopher Derrick

Songs That Saved Your Life by

Jami Smith

Colleen Doran’s Funny Business by

Colleen Doran

The Honest Broker by

Ted Gioia

So Here’s a Thing by

Michael Marshall Smith

This Itch of Writing by

Emma Darwin

Inneresting by

John August

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