LWLies 65: The Neon Demon

For our lat­est print edi­tion we decid­ed to check in with our old pal Nico­las Wind­ing Refn, whose new film The Neon Demon places the LA fash­ion scene under a blood- and glit­ter-flecked micro­scope. Or, at least, the film takes the world of fash­ion in the glossy con­tex­tu­al back­drop for some­thing deep­er, seami­er, stranger and more potent – a film about the indus­tri­al-scale com­modi­ti­sa­tion of phys­i­cal beauty.

The way Refn has described it to us in a typ­i­cal­ly out­ra­geous inter­view is that it’s a per­son­al search for his ​“inner 16-year-old girl”, so expect fire­works. The film’s star, Elle Fan­ning, graces the cov­er, cap­tured in an atmos­pher­ic, trans­fix­ing por­trait illus­tra­tion by the bril­liant Boris Pel­cer.

Inside the issue…

Playpen – An inter­view with Nico­las Wind­ing Refn
The Neon Demon direc­tor reveals his less­er-seen fem­i­nine side. Inter­view by Adam Woodward.

A His­to­ry of Vio­lence
The films of Nico­las Wind­ing Refn gauged by lev­el of brutality.

Nic’s Picks #1: On Kraftwerks’s ​‘The Mod­el’
We go deep on a sem­i­nal track by one of Nico­las Wind­ing Refn’s favourite bands. By Mathilde Dumazet.

Dressed to Kill
Elle Fan­ning talks The Neon Demon and her recent embrace of the dark side. Inter­view by David Jenkins.

Nic’s Picks #2: On Hubert Sel­by Jr’s ​‘Last Exit to Brook­lyn’
We delve into the soiled pages of this ran­cid lit­er­ary clas­sic. By Adam Lee Davies.

Mod­el Behav­iour
Does cin­e­ma have any­thing inter­est­ing to say about the world of mod­el­ling? We ask twin models/​cinephiles Ele­na and Manuela Laz­ic for the answer.

Nic’s Picks #3: On the world of Ale­jan­dro Jodor­wosky
A searche for the end­less poet­ry of this mad Chilean mae­stro. By Anton Bitel.

In the back section…

In con­ver­sa­tion

Jeff Gold­blum pon­ders ques­tions of life in the out­er cos­mos ahead of Inde­pen­dence Day: Resur­gence; Chris­t­ian Bale talks LA, music and Knight of Cups; Natal­ie Port­man opens up about her debut fea­ture and work­ing with Ter­rence Mal­ick; Apichat­pong Weerasethakul reveals his love of Steven Spiel­berg; Richard Lin­klater talks base­ball ahead of his phe­nom­e­nal Every­body Wants Some!!; Whit Still­man dis­cuss­es about run-ins with the Jane Austen Soci­ety ahead of his Love & Friend­ship; Hiro­masa Yonebayashi on being the direc­tor of Stu­dio Ghibli’s final movie offer­ing; Jere­my Saulnier lets us enter his Green Room; Deniz Gamze Ergüven chal­lenges Turkey’s patri­ar­chal soci­ety in Mustang.

In review

Mat­teo Gar­rone spins his Tale of Tales; Lau­rie Ander­son has the Heart of a Dog; an impres­sive Ibsen adap­ta­tion from Aus­tralia arrives in the form of The Daugh­ter; we take a stroll around Apichat­pong Weerasethakul’s Ceme­tery of Splen­dour; Michael Moore tells us Where to Invade Next; John Car­ney accom­pa­nies us down his Sing Street; Gian­fran­co Rossi offers up a Berlin Gold­en Bear-win­ner in Fire at Sea; Gre­ta Ger­wig reveals Maggie’s Plan; we suc­cumb to the Embrace of the Ser­pent; Ewan McGre­gor is Our Kind of Trai­tor; Lucile Hadz­i­halilovic takes us on a strange jour­ney in Evo­lu­tion; and Chan­tal Aker­man leaves us with a stun­ning swan­song in No Home Movie.

Plus…

A Home Ents spe­cial look­ing at a new box set cel­e­brat­ing the work of Brit mav­er­ick Alan Clarke, and Ex-Rent Hell takes a gan­der at tawdry ​’80s flat­pack moviemak­ing in the form of Michael Gottlieb’s Mannequin.

LWLies 65 hits news­stands Fri­day 13 May and is avail­able to pre-order now from our online shop. Sub­scribers will start receiv­ing their copies fromWednes­day 11 March. The Neon Demon is released in UK cin­e­mas 6 July.