John Whitney "Whit" Stillman (born January 25, 1952 in Washington, D.C.) is an American screenwriter and director who lives in Spain. He's very fond of WASPs, Yuppies and the like, and often makes films based on his own experiences. His work has frequently been compared with that of both Woody Allen and Jane Austen.
The son of Democratic politician John Sterling Stillman (who was classmates with John F. Kennedy at Harvard and later served in Kennedy's commerce department), Stillman originally worked as a literary editor and illustrator in New York City and also got involved in importing films from Spain to America. After years of writing screenplays while working his day job, he finally secured the financing to film one of them: Metropolitan. It became a hit on the budding indie circuit, and led Stillman to become a full-time filmmaker, although you certainly couldn't call his working pace "hectic"; he's directed just five feature films over the course of three decades. Many of his scripts have languished in Development Hell.
His protégé is Noah Baumbach.
Filmography:
- Metropolitan (1990) — A sullen, middle-class young socialist from Princeton falls in with a group of wealthy socialites over Christmas break in "1970s" Manhattan.
- Barcelona (1994) — A naval officer crashes at his troubled cousin's Barcelona apartment in The '80s. Together they meet women and get into lots of arguments about the Cold War. This is Stillman's best-known film.
- The Last Days of Disco (1998) — A group of unlikely friends hang out at a trendy, Studio 54-type Manhattan discotheque in 1980–81. The club is under investigation, and the prosecutor might be insane. This film was an obscure flop and remained so until its release on DVD by the Criterion Collection 11 years later, renewing interest in Stillman's work and encouraging him to make...
- Damsels in Distress (2011) — Three girls try to class up their trashy university, leading them to take an interest in questionable male students. An Affectionate Parody of 1980s college comedies, though it's set in the present day.
- Love & Friendship (2016) — In 18th century England, a young widow tries to play matchmaker for her daughter and herself. An adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, but, confusingly, the novel is Lady Susan, not Love and Freindship.
