Paramount+/Showtime’s wildly audacious “The Curse” had to be seen to be believed. It was no doubt an uncomfortable watch, but also one of the most daringly bold, absurdist and rule breaking shows ever put on television. This is not hyperbole.
Benny Safdie, Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder’s series, which came out last November, was a mix of domestic drama, horror, satire and docu-fiction. We already know about Safdie’s work with brother Josh, but Fielder is a genuine comedic genius. Was it even fully scripted? I couldn’t tell. That was part of the unpredictable nature of the show.
Speaking with THR, Fielder and Stone discussed that insane ending to the first season and whether they plan to continue the series.Fielder noted that the team is “all doing other things” at the moment; however, Stone said “there could be” a second season.
“There definitely could be,” Fielder agreed. “From the start, we had it mapped out beyond the first season.”
In “The Curse,” Safdie was a reality TV producer who followed a, supposedly, cursed married couple (Emma Stone and Fielder) as they co-starred in their problematic new HGTV show. Actually, that’s too simple a description. There was a lot more to “The Curse” than just a simple synopsis because it tended to, frequently, delve into the unexplainable.
Christopher Nolan is also a huge fan of ”The Curse” and was so enthusiastic about the series that, last November, he decided to moderate a 25-minute Q&A with Fielder and Safdie, right in the middle of Oscar season (via The Playlist).
Nolan noticed that for those who think they know where the story of “The Curse” was eventually heading, “You do not.” He went on to praise the series and said it was groundbreaking. “It’s an incredible show, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television before.”
There are so few shows that come along that have genuinely no precedence. You’re going back to things like ‘Twin Peaks,’ or ‘The Prisoner,’ or Dennis Potter’s ‘Singing Detective’ and things like that, so you’re in an amazing space, and I can’t wait to catch up with the climax.
The conversation was well worth a listen, and if you still haven’t seen “The Curse,” then please change that immediately. It’s incredibly rare to find a show that manages to reinvent the way a story can be told — Safdie and Fielder have done just that.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.