‘White Noise’ Review: Noah Baumbach Crafts An Callow, But Clever & Satirical Museum Of Pre-Millennial Neurosis [Venice]

There’s always been a haunted mood in Joanna Hogg’s films, felt both in the deceptively mundane domestic rhythms of the likes of “Exhibition” and “Archipelago,” and in the exquisite memory pieces, “The Souvenir” and “The Souvenir Part II.” Like the best and most personal of storytellers—Chantal Akerman comes to mind as a creator with akin sensibilities—Hogg is a filmmaker possessed by the slivers of her recollections.

Ethan Shanfeld Barack Obama is officially three-fourths of the way to an EGOT, as the former president of the United States nabbed his first Emmy for outstanding narrator. Obama lent his voice to the Netflix docuseries “Our Great National Parks,” narrating its five episodes that span from Patagonia, Chile, to Tsavo, Kenya. Netflix submitted the first episode, “A World of Wonder,” for Emmy consideration. In 2020, both Barack and Michelle Obama took home Oscars for the documentary “American Factory,” which they produced under their banner, Higher Ground. The doc tells the story of what happens when a Chinese company opens an automotive glass plant at a former General Motors location in Ohio, facing intense community skepticism and cultural differences.

There’s no shortage of star power on the Lido this year. The 79th Venice Film Festival boasts such boldface names as Timothée Chalamet — along with his fellow the Bones And All castmates and filmmaker Luca Guadagnino — Cate Blanchett, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Adam Driver and dozens more.

Manori Ravindran International Editor High-profile espionage cases in the post-war period often invoke the grisly fate of the Rosenbergs, the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed by electric chair for sharing atomic secrets with the Soviet Union in peace time. But in the new documentary “A Compassionate Spy,” filmmaker Steve James tells the incredible story of Manhattan Project scientist Ted Hall, who shared classified nuclear secrets with Russia — and got away with it. The Participant and Kartemquin Films-produced documentary, which has its world premiere in Venice on Sept. 2, is one of a number of films at this year’s festival that tackle the topic of nuclear disaster: Projects from Noah Baumbach’s feature adaptation of Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” through to Oliver Stone’s on-the-nose documentary “Nuclear” all contemplate some aspect of our nuclear past and future.

The 49th Telluride Film Festival opens Friday in a much-awaited edition that is set to feature world premieres of Searchlight’s Oscar hopeful Empire of Light from director Sam Mendes, starring Olivia Coleman and Colin Firth; Women Talking from director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara and Frances McDormand in the ensemble; Sebastian Lelio’s The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh; and Sony/Netflix’s sizzling new version of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover with Emma Corrin and Jack O’Connell; among other films.

The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its full list of titles, with the program comprised of 164 features and 23 world premieres across film and TV.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Don DeLillo’s debut novel, “Americana,” is set to be adapted 51 years after it was first published. “White Noise” producer Uri Singer (“Tesla,” “The King of Oil”) has bought the rights to the 1971 novel, continuing his streak of adapting a string of DeLillo works that have been deemed “unadaptable.” “Americana” tells the story of David Bell, an out-of-touch television executive who sets off on a road trip with his female colleague, Sullivan, to make an avant-garde film. The book explores the intricacies of corporate culture and examines how we create realities, whether they are true or not.

Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.  The model, 41, made sure to show off her endless pins in the hot pink number with very daring thigh-high splits and a chiffon cape.  She wowed the crowds as she walked the red carpet at the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi.

has started to look unsustainable, and it was widely reported in June that the days of blank cheques had come to an end. Do the streamer’s offerings at Venice this year represent that era’s last, loopy hurrah? White Noise, which opened the 78th edition of the festival this evening, certainly has a “last days of Rome” feel about it.

Hillary Clinton made a rare red carpet appearance at the 79th annual Venice Film Festival on Wednesday for Noah Baumbach's "White Noise" premiere. The 74-year-old former secretary of state sported a powder blue kaftan with a turquoise collar at the opening ceremony in Italy. Just the day before, her husband, former president Bill Clinton, was spotted enjoying watching tennis matches at the U.S.

Venice Film Festival got off to a quieter start on Wednesday night with the premiere of “White Noise.” Noah Baumbach’s Netflix-backed adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig was met with a tepid 150-second standing ovation, a short smattering of applause on the Lido.“White Noise,” which is set in the ‘80s, features an array of Easter Eggs for movies of the era from “Back to the Future” to “E.T.” Some of these references might have gone over the head of the Venice crowd. The film, which was met with mixed reviews, is a twisty, talky family drama about the despair of a married couple (played by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig) facing their own mortality.

Venice Film Festival, but Alessandra Ambrosio's appearance in the city was no less welcome on Wednesday afternoon.    The Victoria's Secret model, 41, commanded attention in a bright orange mini dress as she posed for photographs by the famous canals.  The glamorous garment boasted a V-neckline and stylish flared sleeves and showed off the star's model legs.

and knockabout laughs — are the trickiest to make breathe onscreen.But it moves with purpose from the get-go as composer Danny Elfman’s Coplandesque strains herald a new school year coming to life for Jack, a protective husband/father in a bustling family with kind, attentive fitness instructor Babette (a crispy-permed Greta Gerwig) and their hyperaware brood: contrarian know-it-all adolescent Heinrich (Sam Nivola); observant tweener and eating-health monitor Denise (Raffey Cassidy); and littler ones Steffie (May Nivola) and Wilder (Jodie Turner-Smith). At his college, Jack’s popular Hitler Studies class has a rock-worship tinge, and at the orderly supermarket gleaming with candy-colored name brands, shopping is the family’s regenerative power source (while news footage of calamities are their favorite home entertainment). In private, though, Jack and Babette can barely manage their palpable everyday dread — Lol Crawley’s textured suburbia cinematography turning one imaginatively directed bedroom nightmare of Jack’s into something out of an existentialist “Poltergeist.” And Babette’s private popping of a mysterious white pill hasn’t gone unnoticed by Jack or Denise.But when a semi crashes into a train carrying toxic chemicals, creating a black cloud and a mass evacuation to a crowded highway and a cramped scout camp, mortality comes front and center, bonding everyone in fear, conspiracies, and speculation.

Don DeLillo’s post modernist 1985 novel, White Noise has been long desired by filmmakers trying to crack the nut of how to bring the complex dark comedy to the screen. Barry Levinson made an attempt that didn’t come to fruition in 2004. Director Michael Almereyda was announced in 2016, also going nowhere. James L. Brooks’ Gracie Films had it optioned at one point. But it seems entirely appropriate that it should finally land into the hands of Noah Baumbach, a self-professed mega fan of the book he read first in college in the late 80’s  and saw it as a very satiric yet accurate account of the sad state of affairs of the world at that time. However by 2021 when he got around to adapting and directing the first of his own films he didn’t write as an original screenplay, the multiple themes running though the book not only were still relevant, they seem more of this time then the 37 years since the book’s publication.

Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig are stepping out to support their new movie.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic As a filmmaker, Noah Baumbach has always been a dyed-in-the-wool dramatic realist, talky coastal neurotic division. He hasn’t always been as good at it as he is today; “The Squid and The Whale” (2005), the divorce drama that established his reputation and is held in supremely high regard by many cinephiles, isn’t half the movie that “Marriage Story” is. The latter film was Baumbach’s culminating achievement after 25 years as a writer-director, and it brought his strengths to a new pitch of mastery: his ability to nail the dynamics of troubled relationships in all their frayed layers, his extraordinary skill with actors, and the nimble levity of his dialogue, which emerges from the human comedy as surely it did in the great films of Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky.

, and for the next week, celebs will be seen wearing their festival best. Given the casual, fun boat element, celebs go pretty bold at Venice, and Turner-Smith is no exception.

Noah Baumbach passed through the Lido Wednesday afternoon where he broke down the origins of his Venice Film Festival opener White Noise, starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Noah Baumbach’s black comedy “White Noise,” Alejandro Iñárritu’s “Bardo (Or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths)” and Lindsay Lohan’s romantic comedy “Falling for Christmas” will debut on Netflix this fall. On Tuesday, the streamer announced the release dates for those films — and plenty more — including “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical,” “The Swimmers” and “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.” Some of those titles, like “Bardo” and “White Noise,” will have limited theatrical runs before debuting on Netflix, while others, such as “Falling for Christmas,” will land directly on the streaming service. “Bardo” will debut on Dec. 16 following its world premiere at Venice Film Festival. Prior to landing on the streamer, it’ll play in movie theaters in Mexico starting on Oct. 27, as well as select North American theaters on Nov. 4. Described as a “nostalgic comedy,” the film stars Daniel Giménez Cacho follows a renowned Mexican journalist and a documentary filmmaker who returns to his native country at an existential crossroads.