by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
The Substance | 2024
There is no doubt that Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is a stylish film. It is one of the boldest and most outrageous films to receive a wide release in recent memory, and to that end, it is something worth celebrating. Fargeat is taking huge swings here, and regardless of how one responds to those swings, it feels like something of a minor miracle to see a film that takes such risks playing at the local multiplex.
For most of its life, the Cannon Group was a minor studio known for brawny B-movies like Death Wish, Cobra, Missing in Action, and Masters of the Universe. But during the 1980s, under the direction of co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who bought the company in 1979, Cannon also used some of its profits to take chances on risky auteur-driven projects in an attempt to gain some prestige. One such project was Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear, a deal Golan and Globus infamously made with Godard on a napkin at the Cannes Film Festival, where the pair were tenaciously courting filmmakers.