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?”.
