1998 was a surprisingly solid year for Studio 54, the notorious New York City nightclub known for its exclusive clientele, and for being a shining beacon of the disco era before its initial closure in 1980. Nearly two decades later, two films were produced that were intent on capturing the spirit and energy of the nightclub – the first was 54, a biographical film that looked directly into the club at its peak (and which is a deeply underrated film that has mercifully been subjected to a critical reappraisal in recent years). The second is the subject of today’s piece – Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco, which (as the title suggests) takes place in the final stage of the original disco movement. While it isn’t referred to by name in this film, Studio 54 serves as the backdrop for a funny, insightful comedy about the decline of the disco period, and how various young people came to realize it was the end of an era, which defined them and gave them their identities. Stillman, a director of incredible note but only a few films, is known for producing smaller, intimate comedies that launch themselves directly into the epicentre of the human condition, and as the final part of a loose trilogy of films, The Last Days of Disco is in many ways his masterpiece. Combining the nostalgia felt by an entire generation, with the acidic dialogue the director is known for, and a bevvy of tremendous performances, Stillman made something incredibly fascinating, a film that dives deeper into the concept of the volatility of time more than many of the most overwrought dramas. Not enough praise has been given to The Last Days of Disco, a film so poignant, yet bitingly funny at the same time, the fact that it exists without sacrificing a single iota of its passion for the subject matter is truly brilliant, and a testament not only to a great filmmaker, but the ability of cinema to capture a time and place so beautifully.

The best way to describe a Whit Stillman film would be as a tapestry – there are central characters, but his films are filled with dozens of stories, some of them existing for only a scene, others persisting throughout the entire narrative. Characters weave in and out of the film, whether appearing in the periphery or as comic relief, or as vital figures in the development of any of the several subplots that are peppered throughout the film. It’s the kind of storytelling facilitated by independent filmmaking, where ambition isn’t only encouraged, it is actively rewarded, not only by the industry that yearns for original stories to go up against the more mainstream productions, but also by audiences, who develop a strange appreciation for the unique experiences that these films provide us with, and the depth they bring. The elitist relative of 54, but just as passionate and brimming with energy, The Last Days of Disco is such a beautifully made film, in both terms of the script (which contains Stillman’s trademark caustic wit and reliance on a certain level of Ivy League arrogance that can only be made endearing by someone like him), and how Stillman films it. Each frame has a distinctly electrifying sensation that feels both intentionally superficial, and thoroughly authentic, which is one of many purposeful contradictions used throughout The Last Days of Disco to make it come across as far more interesting than other attempts to capture the essence of a particular time and place, which is something that this film does exceptionally well through some interesting methods. It all converges in a delightfully irreverent comedy with a serious streak running through it, hinting at something much deeper beneath the mindless musings of a group of bourgeois hedonists who are more obsessed with their plans for the evening than their career responsibilities the following morning – and if this doesn’t prove to be one of the most accurate representations of early adulthood, then absolutely nothing else is.

The Last Days of Disco is a time capsule of a film, but one that doesn’t feel weighed down by its intentions of capturing the spirit of the period in which it is visiting. There is very little point in trying to bottle a particular era and all its quirks, since you’re inherently going to fall short, especially in terms of the multitudes of stories that will be left out by doing so. Stillman is very smart in choosing to only capture a few lives that existed at this time, focusing solely on the upper-class, wealthy young people whose biggest concerns are that their allowances are “not that big”, and that they may have to settle for an apartment in the city that requires them to share a room or two. Had we not explicitly been told that this is set in “very early 1980”, we might not have even realized that it is technically a period piece – not because it doesn’t have the production value or feeling of being set in the past, but rather since it feels so fundamentally fresh and revolutionary. It may elide entire groups, making this far from the definitive word on representation in the disco era (the nearly-total lack of people of colour and LGBTQIA+ characters is quite worrying, especially since the closest this film gets to showing the impact of queerness on disco culture being one of the main character’s ploy to pretend to be gay as a means to break up with girls he is no longer interested in), but the moment we stop expecting The Last Days of Disco to be the final word on every issue in this wide-ranging, diverse era, the sooner we realize how effective it is in showing one side of the movement. It’s a tricky concept to pull off, and Stillman undeniably does run into some obstacles in terms of characterization – but rather than attempting to cover everything and lose the potency of what is an already fascinating story, his decision to focus on one demographic, as bland as they may be, was undeniably effective, and worked to this film’s absolute advantage.

Setting this film quite literally in the final days of the disco era was an interesting choice as well, since it brings with it an additional layer of commentary, particularly in the “Disco Sucks” movement, a brief moment in time which hasn’t been subjected to the same scrutiny as other sudden, jarring conclusions to other eras. It’s a film that looks at the concept of time – as one of the best scenes in the film demonstrates, these are characters who are still relatively young by any standards, having just graduated college, or are in the earliest stages of their careers, but who are aged considerably by virtue of living through an era and seeing it fall away. We only come to such realizations in hindsight, and the outright emphasis on the fact that these are characters who are experiencing the literal death of disco is incredibly poignant. The Last Days of Disco has a very specific kind of nostalgia, one that even those who may not have been present for the events depicted still feel a twang of reminiscence, giving the sensation that we too experienced the heyday of disco. It’s a sign of incredible filmmaking for a director to be able to evoke such vivid emotions in those who don’t have first-hand knowledge, and have always relied on relics from the past to show us what life was like in the past, even if it was only a few decades ago. It’s a very compelling portrait of the final moments of the disco era before it takes its last breaths – and through some magnificent filmmaking that feels far more refreshing than the vast majority of films that take place in this temporal moment, The Last Days of Disco manages to be such an insightful and funny glimpse into an era that persists as a very potent moment in recent history.

Stillman is the master of restraint, using dialogue as a discursive tool, rather than as a resource of an excessive amount of exposition – there are many facts we don’t know going into this film, but they become clear as it progresses, and while the dialogue is just as brilliant as anything else Stillman has written, it fades away into a blur when the music starts playing, and we’re transported back in time, into the brightly-lit nightclubs and disco halls that existed for only a brief moment in time, but are indelible in our culture, influencing fashion, music, sexuality and a wide range of socio-cultural issues that continue to draw inspiration from this period where liberation of all forms was the driving factor behind an entire generation and their actions. This is a gloriously diverting experience, a film built from the ashes of an era that had disappeared, lingering on as a distant memory that left a substantial cultural footprint. Stillman pays beautiful tribute to disco, albeit from the perspective of a very particular group of people, the privileged upper-class that could spend their evenings on the dance-floor, with their only concern being whether they would make it to work in time the next morning (if this was even a concern at all). Wonderfully written, and filled with highly quotable quips that are some of the best Stillman ever wrote, and directed with a sincerity that sometimes feels surprising considering the callousness of the material, The Last Days of Disco is a tremendous film – and as the ending shows, when everything around you seems bleak and your entire future uncertain, why not just break out in dance?