Venice Film Fest to Open with Baumbach’s White Noise

It looks like White Noise will likely be among those doing the one-two punch of Venice and Telluride. At least we know it’s hitting Venice. We’ll have our reporter on the ground there, and I can’t wait to read that review.

White Noise is a novel by Don Delillo about a mysterious cloud of toxic dust making people sick. It’s about a lot more than that, but that’s the general plot. Greta Gerwig is perfectly cast as the protagonist’s wife, Babbette. It is as though she was born to play that role. The book is so much about its language that it will be tough to adapt to the big screen.

Although back in the mid-80s our biggest fears were either nuclear war, Big Pharma, or television’s influence (we had NO CLUE what was about to hit us 20 years later), the haze and fog of fear probably work well with the times we’re living through now.

Says the fest’s director, per the Hollywood Reporter, Alberto Barbera. “Adapted from the great Don DeLillo novel, Baumbach has made an original, ambitious and compelling piece of art which plays with measure on multiple registers: dramatic, ironic, satirical. The result is a film that examines our obsessions, doubts, and fears as captured in the 1980’s, yet with very clear references to contemporary reality.”

There is only one direction I hope this movie doesn’t head in – but otherwise, I’m looking forward to it.