Thursday, August 12, 2010

Director Profile: Edgar Wright

Edgar Wright is one of the most exciting young filmmakers working today. His caffeinated, but literate visual style could take on Quentin Tarantino himself in a film reference contest. Yet Wright is not QT. Tarantino reveres his predecessors, speaks their language. Wright turns everything upside down, fast forwards over the dull bits, puts a punk soundtrack in the background, and manages to make a joke of the whole thing. No other filmmaker's visual language is as full of humor as Wright's. Half the jokes he makes are so intricate or bizarrely self-referential (or British) that they are lost upon audiences (or at least me).


Guess who's having the most fun in this picture?
Given Wright's fresh, funny visual style, I would watch a movie about a lifting bridge operator if it were only under Edgar's auspices, but visual style is only half the story, so to speak. The other half is the story.  His first major work, the television show Spaced only gives us a small, delicious taste of what Wright can do with a narrative (I'll admit that I've only wet my feet when it comes to this show, but in this case Hulu is my best friend, and I feel myself rapidly slipping toward the deep end of Spaced fandom). With his two major features Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Wright proves his genius, not only as a storyteller, but also as a satirist. Both movies star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (both from Spaced). A rumored third film, The World's End, will complete the trilogy. Both movies also feature Wright's characteristic use of genre-bending. This tendency most likely got him the job of directing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, an adaptation of an incredibly quirky series of graphic novels featuring everything from music to video games.


(Abridged) Filmography:
1999-2001 - Spaced (television series)
2004 - Shaun of the Dead
2007 - Hot Fuzz
2010 - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
2011 - Them
2012 - Ant-Man
TBA - The World's End
For more on Edgar Wright: Wikipedia, IMDB, and his personal website.
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4 comments:

  1. Peter SchipperOctober 2, 2010 at 11:44 PM

    It's a trilogy of films that Wright-Pegg-Frost will do, consisting of Shaun, Hot Fuzz, and THe World's End, is called the "Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy" (or The Three Flavors of Cornetto). Each different film will feature a different flavor of ice cream: red strawberry in Shaun, blue Classico flavor in Hot Fuzz, and The World's End will feature green mint-chocolate chip.
    Also, if you have seen Shaun and Hot Fuzz, both films reference each other heavily (along with other films), and I expect The World's End to as well.

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  2. Jacob DekkerOctober 2, 2010 at 11:44 PM

    Can you explains why The World's End would be the third movie in the trilogy? I thought they (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) were separate entities...unless you mean it's just the third movie with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost starring.

    On a side note, I LOVE Edgar Wright.

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  3. CslauerOctober 2, 2010 at 11:45 PM

    Hot Fuzz was about cops while Shaun of the Dead was about zombies. Any idea as to what the World's End will be tackling? Judging from the title an apocalypse movie perhaps?

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  4. Jacob DekkerOctober 2, 2010 at 11:45 PM

    I have learned something today, and it's that those movies now seem much more delicious to me, and my mouth waters now when I think about them.

    And yes, that's kinda what I figured, it terms of them being related to each other in ways OTHER than direct plotline (e.g. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or any other series by someone who ISN'T Edgar Wright).

    I will now go lord this newfound knowledge over my friends. Thanks for the info though, that's really interesting :p

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