The Moderns Review
Its plot may concern intrigue, greed, and heartache in the world of painting, but the screenplay for this stylish paean to the Lost Generation leans more toward literature than the visual arts. Full of subtle parallels, gentle ironies, and tons of literary and artistic in-jokes, The Moderns unfolds like a highbrow novel, its involved plot merely a framework on which to hang its many additional concerns. The three-way relationship between life, art, and money emerges as the film's primary theme, but the other raison d'être of The Moderns is its re-creation of the Paris of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Alice B. Toklas. These and other modernist luminaries appear as bit players, spouting variations of their most famous epigrams, while the fictional lead characters enact a story line that poses questions about the ultimate impact of modernism on our conception of Art. A coy, very young Linda Fiorentino and a sexy, world-weary Keith Carradine lead a cast that also includes John Lone at his imperious best and Genevieve Bujold in an effortlessly captivating cameo that marks her third collaboration with director and co-screenwriter Alan Rudolph. Rudolph never follows a very conventional path, but here he foregrounds the artifice of his picture by mixing real characters with imaginary ones; historical footage with sound-stage re-creations; and sepia-toned black-and-white footage with color. Pretentious and proud of it, The Moderns is a feel-good movie for intellectuals, one whose unapologetic nostalgia for an era of acknowledged artistic greatness is tempered by its recognition of modernism's consumerist legacy. Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
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