Rifkin's Festival «TRENDING»

The Cinematic Afterlife of Mort Rifkin: A Reflection on "Rifkin's Festival"

Woody Allen’s 49th film, Rifkin’s Festival (2020), serves as a sun-drenched yet melancholic meditation on the twilight of both a life and a specific era of high-culture cinema. Set against the backdrop of the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, the film follows Mort Rifkin—a neurotic, retired film studies professor and failed novelist played by Wallace Shawn —as he navigates the unraveling of his marriage and the ghosts of his own intellectual pretensions. The Protagonist as a Relic Rifkin's Festival

Mort Rifkin is a quintessential "Allen-esque" archetype: a New York Jewish intellectual who feels increasingly alienated by a world that has moved on from the European masters he idolizes. He accompanies his publicist wife, Sue (Gina Gershon), to the festival, only to watch her fall for a "hotshot" French director, Philippe (Louis Garrel), whom Mort views as a pretentious lightweight. The Cinematic Afterlife of Mort Rifkin: A Reflection