"Once a humble app feature, Letterboxd's Four Favourites has mutated into our era's cinematic confession booth. Users choose (and can endlessly reshuffle) their top four films on their profile, while clips of celebrities and civilians alike performing the same ritual play out to Letterboxd's 2.4 million Instagram followers. It's now a social-media genre of its own: the red carpet backdrop, the jaunty music, the snappy edits, the cheerful pings as posters slide into place."
"Picks performances are usually preceded by flustered professions of unpreparedness that give them an aura of authenticity (Oh shit, exclaims Michelle Williams; Jenna Ortega wails that she should've read the email). Writer, director and museum curator Zoe DeLeon (should you ask: Memoir of a Snail, Mulholland Drive, Amelie, Me and You and Everyone We Know) tells me that her unrehearsed response was genuine, as she was not informed in advance before being grilled on camera."
Letterboxd's Four Favourites evolved from a simple app feature into a social-media genre featuring red carpet backdrops, jaunty music, snappy edits and animated poster pings. Users and celebrities select and reshuffle their top four films, sharing performative clips to Letterboxd's 2.4 million Instagram followers. Clips emphasize feigned unpreparedness, the ritualized 'Just four?' reaction, self-promotion of films and personalities, and carefully choreographed spontaneity. Unwritten rules govern the performances, creating a camera-ready etiquette for festival-goers and actors. Quick ambush-style questioning sometimes leaves participants genuinely unrehearsed, producing an aura of authenticity that fuels the genre's appeal.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]