In Late Fame, we meet Ed Saxberger (played by Willem Dafoe), a man raised by working-class parents who dropped out of high school in western Pennsylvania in the late 1970s and moved to New York City. Living in the then-seedy and affordable Greenwich Village, he met poets and artists and wrote a small volume of poetry himself. His poems briefly earned him a measure of recognition.
He has now been working in the Post Office for nearly 40 years. We see him sorting mail, and then walking home to his walk-up apartment. On some nights, he goes out to shoot pool with friends in a local dive bar where everyone knows him, but the other men have no idea about his background.
A young man appears at his doorstep one day with a copy of that volume of poetry, declares his deep admiration for Saxberger's "genius", and invites him to join "our group" which he describes as a collective of "poets, artists, and intellectuals".
Saxberger first declines the invitation, but eventually goes to the cafe where this group of young men (and one older Asian woman) gather. The group describes their collective mission to him as “standing against negativity, vulgarization, the monetization of everything, the coarsening of culture.”
Saxberger enjoys their questions about the famous poets he'd met, the culture of the neighborhood "before you could get a taxi down here", the events he attended in artists' lofts. They tell him about their intellectual takes on art and culture and their disdain for the influencers seated nearby in the cafe. He's both amused by and appreciative of their admiration. They seek his advice on their collective goals and his feedback on their individual work (though they never seem to actually give him any work). They invite him to dinner in loud, downscale restaurants.
Eventually, they all decide to plan a "reading" together to introduce their work to the neighborhood.
Saxberger gradually realizes that for most of these young men, parents have purchased a very comfortable replica of the starving artist life that he himself lived as a young man. Families have purchased nice apartments for them so that they can live in the now gentrified Village. They've studied art and criticism at private colleges.
Those parents now apparently ensure that their offspring have ample leisure time to perform being an artistic collective in a Greenwich Village cafe as they reassure one another that the broader culture needs them. None of them mention doing any other work.
Like The Marching Band that I wrote about a few weeks ago, Late Fame is a tale of unexpected cross-class encounters among men whose paths would rarely otherwise cross. It's a quiet and lovely film that stops well short of stereotypes, romanticization, or judgment.
And it's fascinating to watch Saxberger begin to recognize the differences between him and these young men who have little reason to notice what Saxberger sees.
Some questions I might ask if I were viewing this film with students as part of exploring social class in daily life:
- Why didn't Saxberger tell his pool hall buddies that he'd published poetry in all the years they've known each other? Consider how and when he decided to tell them. Why then? Why in that manner?
- Consider how his buddies collectively react to learning about Saxberger's poetry. What are we to understand about their class identities from these reactions? Consider: Did or didn't Saxberger expect these very reactions?
- Across various scenes in the first part of the film, we're only gradually shown different parts of Saxberger's apartment as we learn more about him. Why did the director introduce Saxberger's apartment in the room in which we first see him and only slowly show us the rest of the space across several scenes? What about the apartment is surprising to you, given what we learn about him?
- For the most part, the young men treat Saxberger with respect and admiration. When do they invoke their relative privilege with him? Why then?
- The young men know little about Gloria and they attribute this to her mysteriousness. Saxberger seems to recognize something more complex. What do the filmmakers want us to understand about Gloria as a member of this group of young men? As a woman artist?
- The film nudges us to think about how we come to understand our potential for making contributions to the broader world. How does social class background matter in one's sense of one's own importance? (a softball question for this film, I think, and it's interesting to watch the detail in how the film addresses this question across characters).
- Who in the film does and does not have the power to bestow worth on the lives of others? (another softball question)
In the end, Willem Dafoe is excellent in this film and I'd watch it again just for his facial expressions as he learns about these young men and their many reasons for inviting him into their group.
It's a lovely piece of art.
