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| Edvard Munch / The Rehearsal |
I think Nathan Fielder’s
The Rehearsal is one of the best television shows to come out in a very long time. It’s funny, weird, interesting and a genuine attempt at trying to do something unique (especially for HBO). Everything that’s good that needs to be said about it has already been said over these last few years. We don’t need another review gushing over how great Nathan Fielder is. This isn’t a review or a critique of the show. This is just a random observation/coincidental connection I noticed after rewatching the last two seasons.
Much like my Joe Pera/Chantal Akerman post, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Fielder’s work and the films of Peter Watkins. Specifically, his Edvard Munch biopic.
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| Edvard Munch / The Rehearsal |
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Peter Watkins is hardly the first director to utilize cinema-verite/mocu-mentary style zoom-ins or shots of characters looking directly in to the camera. But the fact that
Edvard Munch and
The Rehearsal both fall under that fake documentary style of filmmaking that we’re all so familiar with today (The Office, Parks and Rec etc), makes the coincidental connection slightly more stronger in my eyes.
If you’re a fan of recent stuff like The Rehearsal, How To with John Wilson or even Nathan For You, you might want to delve in to the cinema of Peter Watkins. I haven’t found any evidence that Nathan Fielder is familiar with the work of Watkins. He probably doesn’t even know who he is. I just think it’s kind of cool how similar some of the shots are and how Fielder could be a potential gateway to other lesser-known filmmakers…
