REEL | Willem Dafoe Waxes on 'Late Fame' in Life x SIFF 2026

"You must have been beautiful when you were young."

Magnolia Pictures / Vortex Media

Late Fame, based on late Austrian dramatist Arthur Schnitzler's posthumous 1895 novella (translated and published in 2014) of the same name, is directed by New York film critic and programmer turned independent filmmaker Kent Jones and stars Willem Dafoe as a largely unknown, long lost poet, Ed Saxberger, who, as the title suggests, experiences a bit of late-in-life interest and newfound resurgence in his previously published works within a privileged but affluent circle of wealthy, post-graduate literary admirers in present day Manhattan.

Adapted by screenwriter Samy Burch, the specificity of the characters and their experiences reflecting on artistic achievement hits the right notes, however small in moments. In particular, Greta Lee's embodiment of a sort of Warhol-type muse figure, while Edmund Donovan, as the Bohemian rediscoverer of Saxberger's work, clearly relishes being in the proximity of talent.

There's an amiably nostalgic tone to Willem's faded artist character reminiscing and evoking a past glory we never really see. Schnitzler frames Late Fame as an underappreciated reflection of a lost sense of New York as a once-hub for artists. It's a perceptive urban drama that tells of the fleeting hollowness of literary notoriety as it revisits aspects of those unknown 1970-80s punks and artists' collectives lost to obscurity.

Late Fame screened at the 2026 Seattle International Film Festival as part of the New American Cinema program. It also screens at the VIFF Centre starting August 21st.


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