Culture

Why No One’s Talking About ‘Velvet Buzzsaw’, Netflix’s Fun-As-Hell Art World Horror

'Velvet Buzzsaw' is a Netflix film that secretly hates Netflix, and accidentally argues against the algorithm it's stuck under.

by Jared Richards  7 February 2019
Velvet Buzzsaw

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Much like the characters in Netflix’s murderous new film Velvet Buzzsaw, attention seems to have dropped off after it debuted at Sundance last week and arrived on Netflix February 1.

It’s not because of excessive gore or poor taste: despite its name or its ‘adult’ tag, Dan Gilroy’s film isn’t particularly bloody. It’s not because it’s bad or boring, either: it’s not (!!), though reviews are mixed. Beside, ‘bad’ horrors catch on all the time. The main issue is that Velvet Buzzsaw is a hard sell.

On paper, it sounds diabolical. A supernatural thriller set within Los Angeles’ contemporary art world, Velvet Buzzsaw follows a series of unlikeable, ambitious art curators, critics and culture vultures who are hunted down by the vengeful spirit of a deceased artist who never wanted his work to be sold to the public.

Add in a cast which includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Toni Collette, John Malkovich, Rene Russo and Stranger Things‘ Natalia Dyer, and you’ve got another Netflix winner, right?

But Velvet Buzzsaw isn’t the sexy social satire that the premise or prestige cast promise. Nor is it complete trash. Instead, it says Something Serious About Art, but uses a schlocky tone; it has an all-star cast, but is purposefully B-grade. Hell, Gyllenhaal has a nude scene; but he’s somehow incredibly unsexy, slouched over a laptop. It constantly shifts between seriousness and self-parody: and we’re thinking most audiences might wish it stuck to one or the other.

In short, it’s essentially Final Destination with an A24 cast.

Perhaps these contradictions explain why so far, it’s landed so-so reviews, or even why it ended up being distributed by Netflix in the first place, given a theatrical marketing campaign might’ve proved difficult. But the Netflix release brings its own problem: the ease of becoming a drop in an ocean.

If people are watching Velvet Buzzsaw, it’s impossible to tell. Given that Netflix very rarely releases streaming numbers, we can only go off the aftershock, the ripples of virality. And besides a stray Tweet and funny interview with the cast, nothing’s breaking the surface. As the saying goes: if original content drops and no one makes memes about it, did it even happen?

While it’s true that some Netflix content catches clout in time, if it doesn’t, Velvet Buzzsaw has a somewhat ironic fate for a film concerned with the unethical ways which art is commodified and packaged, sold or ignored.

As Netflix begins to commission more original series and films than it’s possible to keep up with, it’s worth pausing the binge to examine what it means when television and film — whether it’s the prestigious Roma or the purposefully trashy The Princess Switch —  is not only made as content first, art second (as it ultimately long-has been), but actively marketed to the masses as something to be consumed as a ‘cultural moment’.

If anything, Velvet Buzzsaw‘s cultural ephemerality has added weight to the somewhat frivolous film; it accidentally critiques the machine it’s part of.

‘All Art Is Dangerous’

Velvet Buzzsaw‘s star artist is Vetril Dease, the disturbed and deceased neighbour of art agent Josephina (Zawe Ashton), who ventures into his apartment and discovers mountains of artworks.

As per his will, it’s to be destroyed: instead, Josephina sees the potential for a hit, and, with the help of her boss Rhodora Haze (Russo), spins a PR tale where she saves it from a dumpster. “His name is the tinsel on the tree!,” says Rhodora.

With a bit of PR magic and a stirring article by Josephina’s boyfriend, über powerful art critic Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal), Dease becomes an overnight sensation — and the subject of deception. Rhodora drives the price up by hiding half of the paintings from the public (to be ‘discovered’ at a later date) and private art agent Gretchen (Toni Colette) bullies the LACMA into holding an exhibit, blowing up the worth of the pieces her client owns.

The supernatural deaths don’t start until shy of an hour in, but lines about curators and buyers killing for works establish a menacing undercurrent to a world built on social capital and lecherously created clout. Take the film’s opening scene at Miami’s annual Art Basel festival, where we see Morf stalk through to judge pieces upon first gaze.

He decides what is, and what is not; he kills careers with barely-refrained glee, though maintains it’s always out of respect for art itself. Elsewhere, agents poach artists and build their portfolio. We soon learn the film is named after Rhodora’s punk band from the ’80s — she still has a tattoo of the band’s logo on her neck, but it’s faded. She’s now cutting, cold, and commercially minded.

It’s clear all these characters have long lost the love that first bought them to the art world. But, as each first see Dease’s works — these rich and disturbing portraits — the spark returns. Morf, in particular, is revitalised: he prepares to write a book about Dease, suddenly given a purpose beyond his perhaps too-cruel tear downs. There is something ‘real’ about Dease’s dark, earth-coloured paintings; they stand out from the art being sold elsewhere in Velvet Buzzsaw, mostly thesis- and tech-driven works.

Authenticity, as we know by now, is sellable, hard-to-define but easy to advertise. And so, Dease sells — and as the murders begin, Morf wonders if the darkness in his works is behind it.

Thankfully, things speed up in the film’s second half, and it finds its feet as characters die off in unpredictable, decadent and random ways, reminiscent of the more inventive kills of Final Destination. It’s schlocky fun, even if character’s motivations are confusing, some plots go nowhere and the deaths seem to be all style, no substance. Then again, maybe we just don’t get it. Art is hard, man.

And what do critics do when they’re confused? Like Morf, they research.

‘The Admiration I Had For Your Work Has Completely Evaporated!’

Gilroy’s been a screenwriter for decades, but Velvet Buzzsaw is his third film he’s written and directed, following 2014’s Nightcrawler and last year’s Roman J. Israel, Esq. In an interview with Polygon, Gilroy said he wrote Velvet… out of frustration at the film industry.

In the mid ’90s, Gilroy wrote the screenplay for the ill-fated Superman Lives, a Tim Burton reboot which was cancelled just weeks before filming began. He was “crushed” that it’d never be seen because high-up executives determined it couldn’t be a hit: Velvet… was a way to work through those lingering frustrations.

It makes sense, then, that everyone in Velvet… is so unlikeable. The film and fine art worlds aren’t so different; the latter may hide its aspirations for sales behind veils of ‘affecting, important work’, but ultimately both industries, to be industries, must view artfulness second, profit first. The streaming game isn’t an exception either, though without the metrics of box-office numbers or record sales, success is measured (externally, at least) purely through clout, the way in which a piece of content ‘breaks the internet’ or takes cultural precedence.

This wasn’t always the case. When Netflix first moved into original content, it sold itself as a place for prestige and big-name TV, like Arrested Development, House Of Cards and BoJack Horseman.

But as it expands, it’s clear that Netflix has established its clout, and is now focused first-most generating revenue. Last year, they cancelled a spate of less-successful but acclaimed shows, such as Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Lady Dynamite and American Vandal, in favour of throwing new content against the wall.

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There Are So Many 'Bird Box' Memes That People Think It's A Netflix Conspiracy

Sometimes, as with Fyre, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo or Russian Doll (which dropped on the same day as Velvet…), it doesn’t just stick — it spreads, to the point where people question whether the proliferation of Bird Box memes are part of a marketing conspiracy.

It’s easy to be cynical. Occasionally, shows almost appear to be written with the splash of headlines and hot takes in mind. Take The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, which had three more seasons green-lit soon after the first debuted last October.

It ticks so many target-market boxes (witches! gritty ’90s reboot! LGTBIQ themes! feminism!) that it can feel as if it was written by an algorithm — especially when characters spout out clunky lines about their ‘daughters of the Black Panthers’ school club being vetoed. Sure, it hits the zeitgeist, but it comes off as calculated and surface-level, motivated by an impulse to reflect a moment and ‘be part of a conversation’ rather than a need to say something about it.

Meanwhile, us viewers are like Velvet Buzzsaw‘s Coco (Natalia Dyer). When her bosses keep dying, she screams, then shrugs and moves onto the next thing, ready for the next kill or thrill. Even the film’s plot is equally ephemeral, jumping between plots and characters with little purpose beyond entertainment. And now, Velvet Buzzsaw‘s lost its buzz. How meta, how post-modern, how revolutionary!