What happens when recognition arrives decades after you’ve stopped waiting for it?
In LATE FAME, Willem Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet who long ago exchanged his literary ambitions for a steady job at the post office.
When an enthusiastic young admirer appears at his door, Ed is welcomed into a circle of twenty-something artists who proclaim him a rediscovered genius. Suddenly celebrated again—and drawn to Gloria, a magnetic actress and singer played by Greta Lee—he begins to wonder whether this unexpected second act might be real.
Directed by Kent Jones and written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Samy Burch, LATE FAME is funny, tender, and quietly piercing—a film about artistic ambition, the seduction of recognition, and the elusive question of what makes a life in art authentic.
It is also a beautiful homage to New York, where the ghosts of the city’s artistic past remain visible beneath the surface of the present.
We sit down with Kent Jones—filmmaker, critic, and former director of the New York Film Festival—to discuss LATE FAME, working with Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee, and capturing the spirit of a New York that may be disappearing but has never entirely left us. On INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, staring now.
Intoxicated by the attention—and by the alluring presence of Gloria, the group’s “tragic heroine” (a sinuous, Kurt Weill–crooning Greta Lee)—Saxberger gradually reckons with the authenticity of his newfound poetic circle. This thoughtful, witty second feature from Kent Jones (DIANE), working from a sly and hugely entertaining script by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Samy Burch (MAY DECEMBER, is a wistful yet unromantic look at a lost idea of downtown New York.