It is one of the most anticipated series of 2023 and will be released in Italy on Monday: however, many criticisms come from those who saw the first episode in Cannes
Its first episode will be broadcast in the United States on the night of June 4 to 5. Sculpture, a highly anticipated new HBO series that was presented last week at the Cannes International Film Festival and will be distributed in Italy by Sky and NowTV from 5 June. According to the promotional poster, Sculpture Tells “the strangest love story in Hollywood history”: the fictional one between pop star Jocelyn, played by actor Johnny Depp’s daughter Lily-Rose Depp, and old and creepy nightclub owner Tedros, played by Abel Tesfaye , songwriter and record producer better known as The Weeknd. The series was created by Tesfaye in collaboration with writer and producer Reza Faheem and Sam Levinson, directors and producers known for creating highly successful series. Excitement, In addition to the two protagonists, there are other fairly well-known names in the cast, including K-pop band singer Troye Sivan and Jenny Ruby Jane. black pink, Her first experience as an actress.
Given the fame of Levinson and the two protagonists Sculpture One of the most anticipated series of 2023. According to the premise, it should have been an even darker, crazier and more risky version of Excitement, which was a great success with both the public and critics, as a drama about a group of teenagers in the American province. However, many commentators spoke generally badly of the first episode presented in the preview at Cannes, describing Sculpture as an uninspired series and too focused on a desire to shock the audience, particularly through the extreme sexualization of Jocelyn’s character.
Part of the problem raised by some critics appears to be rooted in the series’ bumpy production history. filming of Sculpture Beginning in November 2021: The creators and screenwriters were immediately Tesfaye, Faheem and Levinson, but the lead director was initially Amy Seimetz, known for making independent films capable of deeply exploring the human psyche. According to a very detailed report published on Rolling stone In March, Seimetz envisioned the series as “the story of a troubled child star who becomes the victim of a predator within her industry and struggles to regain control of her life.”
Rolling stone says that Seimetz immediately found himself working under very difficult conditions, especially with a low budget compared to the type of work he was expected to do and had to work almost entirely independently, given that that Levinson was busy with the second season. Excitement and Tesfaye had little time to devote to sets between concerts. In April 2021, with only a few scenes left to shoot, HBO announced that filming had been halted and the series would be almost completely revamped, with the cast and crew being changed and Tesfaye and Levinson’s vision being reworked. More space will be created.
According to undisclosed sources of the trade magazine time limitOne of the problems Tesfaye felt was that the series was adopting “too much of a feminine approach”. Too Rolling stone wrote that Singer was the main reason for the changes made to the story, as he wanted to “abandon the ‘feminist lens’ through which it was told”.
After the hiatus, Levinson rewrote and extensively re-shot all scenes. Sculpture. According to a production team member who spoke on condition of anonymity Rolling stone, the new version of the series “resembles the kind of perverse fantasy any toxic guy might create thinking about this story”. A large amount of previously absent nudity and sexual content would be added to the series.
the story of Sculpture Forever Now tells the story of Jocelyn, a young pop star trying to get her career back on track after suffering an emotional breakdown following the death of her mother, who was with her at the beginning of her career and relatively more Was in the dark about the problematic aspects. Celebrity’s. Inspired by characters such as Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, but also Madonna as a young woman, Jocelyn has major problems related to drug abuse and her relationship with the media: in the first episode, for example, her covered face A picture of Sperm begins to circulate online. In this moment of fragility Jocelyn approaches Tedros, to whom she feels sexually and romantically attracted, despite the fact that he is clearly a conflicted individual with manipulative qualities.
HBO has defended the series from criticism, saying that it is “one of its most exciting and stimulating original programs” and that the team was “committed to a safe, collaborative and respectful work environment, and made creative changes that We believed in the best interests of both the production and the cast and crew.”
Lily-Rose Depp defended the series’ creators and the many audacious scenes she played, saying that “she wasn’t interested in participating in something purist” or that “it didn’t test me and the audience”. Commenting on the series at Cannes, Levinson said he knew he was “making a provocative series”. Tesfay instead said that he and Levinson loved the idea of being able to make “a dark and twisted fairy tale about the music industry”, but above all to make a series “that pissed people off”. “.
The first two episodes shown at Cannes have actually been highly criticized by various critics: the most common criticism is that it’s a series full of sex scenes that are incessant and unnecessary, to the point of being more lazy than reprehensible, and that the whole misses the opportunity to reveal something interesting, innovative or genuinely provocative about the world of celebrities that deserves to be talked about.
Casper Salmon Sul daily animal wrote that it is a “cowardly” and “terrifyingly bad” show that deliberately makes its female characters express the most controversial positions on gender relations in the world of entertainment. Salmon writes, “Levinson demonstrated the very squalor the show was supposed to be about.” In the most scandalous scene of the series, Tesfaye’s character, called Tedros Tedros, asks Jocelyn if she trusts him. She replies, “No,” which Tedros Tedros interprets as the perfect moment to strangle her with a cloth, cutting the breathing hole just at mouth level with a knife. At the same time, it seems that Tesfaye is not given the treatment reserved for Depp, and that the camera very rarely stays on his body, even in moments of sexual intimacy in which it makes sense to show it.
“There is a world where Sculpture Would Have Been A Hit: The story of a star who has just lost the person closest to her, being used by everyone around her as a cash cow for predators eager to take advantage of her vulnerability aims at. there’s a world where that predictable but funny story can come into its own, but that version Sculpture It is not written by Sam Levinson, nor is it directed by him. Levinson’s version Sculpture That sex is superficial and often painful, at least from the first two episodes,” wrote Therese Laxon instead. collider.
As reviewed by Peter Dubruge Diversity “The script seems calculated to fool viewers into thinking they’re seeing how Hollywood works, while much of the show is made up of cheap clichés and soft porn.” The result, in his opinion, is little more than “a sordid male fantasy”.
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