Olivier Assayas’s Coming of Political Age
Key takeaways
- Growing up in Paris in the seventies, I was surrounded by various brands of radicalism—a lot of “options,” to say the least, including Maoism and Trotskyism.
- Klaus Mann was Thomas Mann’s son, but he was also an illustrious writer in his own right.
- Mann saw his society fall apart, and he analyzed this dissolution in “The Turning Point,” which, to me, is just one of the most underrated books—I really think it should be compulsory reading in schools.
Sign up for the Goings On newsletter to receive their selections, and other cultural recommendations, in your inbox.Olivier Assayas’s new film, “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” is an adaptation of Giuliano da Empoli’s 2022 novel of the same name, which centers on a fictional former adviser to Vladimir Putin, and tells the story of the Russian President’s rise to power. (In Assayas’s adaptation, which opens on Friday, the associate, Vadim Baranov, is played by Paul Dano; Putin, by Jude Law.) Not long ago, he joined us to discuss some of the other books that have served to shape his work—perhaps not as directly as da Empoli’s, but just as profoundly. His remarks have been edited and condensed.
Growing up in Paris in the seventies, I was surrounded by various brands of radicalism—a lot of “options,” to say the least, including Maoism and Trotskyism. None of them really satisfied me, until I came across the Situationists. It was like discovering the Velvet Underground—suddenly, a whole new world opened up.
“The Society of the Spectacle” offers a sharp critique of consumer society, and of how media systems reinforce the dominant ruling structure. In the book—and its companion, “Comments on the Society of the Spectacle”—Debord puts his finger on the alienation that individuals experience in a consumerist society. Debord came from the art world. In a way, he was the inheritor of the project André Breton commenced with Surrealism. Reading Debord steered me in such generative directions, in terms of his aesthetics, his philosophy, his morality; and he was funny, he was smart, he was an artist. I don’t think I’ve moved one inch, in terms of how I read and understand the world, since I encountered his work. He is still providing the tools that we need right now, with what’s going on. You know what I mean when I say “what’s going on,” because it’s all so in your face. We’re living in very brutal times, confused and confusing times.