Since the release of Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn’s oneiric and stylishly violent and maybe also vacuous cinematic output (Only God Forgives, The Neon Demon) has polarized critics — earning vocal disapproval at Cannes (where people notoriously like to be loud about their rapidly-made opinions) and splits down the middle on Rotten Tomatoes. The director has just teased what very well may be his next vehicle for attractive critical polarization, but this time for the small screen: he just tweeted a teaser for his upcoming Amazon series, which will reportedly start filming this Fall.
As you surely noticed above, that teaser is really nothing but the name of the series and the creator, 30 seconds of a song, and a pretty abstract background, which some would argue is about as substantial as any of Refn’s recent films (others might then argue that this would make him the perfect selection to helm a prestige TV series). The song, “The Last Supper,” hails from the British punk band, The Bollock Brothers, from their 1983 album of the same name.
According to Indiewire, what’s known beyond the style-hinting teaser is that this is a crime drama, that its first season got a 10 episode straight-to-series order, and that, as Variety wrote, “it explores various characters existential journeys from being killers to becoming samurais in the city of angels.” Oh, and Miles Teller will star in it, as a cop “entangled in the world of assassins,” according to another report from Variety in March. Sounds like a typical Los Angeles samurai crime drama.
Beyond all of this, Refn’s name has been coming up in film news today due to his continued feud with fellow provocative Danish director Lars von Trier; the latest development was von Trier saying that Refn’s talented but an “opportunist in an unpleasant way”; the two have been on apparently bad terms since von Trier made the now-infamous Nazi joke that got him banned from Cannes; Refn had responded to that, saying, von Trier’s “getting old and his comedy routine is a bit tiresome,” and von Trier had at one point said of Refn, “I’ve known him since he was a kid! Fuck him,” until ultimately Refn was accusing von Trier of having tried to sleep with his wife, and also calling von Trier “over the hill.” In my own weird Danish film feud fantasy, the title Too Old to Die Young is thus a jab about von Trier. Whatever the series is about (well, beyond samurai assassins and Miles Teller, and in my imagination, von Trier), and whatever comes of it, perhaps Refn should also consider appearing in a future season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud.