A Return To Cool: Anton Corbijn’s THE AMERICAN

Watching my business partner’s production of Anton Corbijn’s THE AMERICAN the other night, I was struck by how few truly cool American films there are.  The American is certainly one, but cool is an aesthetic that few truly dare to tread.  The cool that I refer to, is not something that is just neat or novel.  My cool differs from the way my son uses the word.

Cool is a committed style.  Cool is a discipline.  Cool embraces both content and all the elements of execution.  In a cool movie, everything other than cool is truly secondary, and ideally non-existent.  Cool movies thrive on an existential protagonist.  Cool is about the sustain and not the flash.

What are the cool American films of relatively recent vintage?

• The American
• The Limey
• Stranger Than Paradise
• Out Of Sight
• Jackie Brown

This list is far from complete.  What have I forgotten?  Yet, the real question is “why are there so few truly cool films?”.