TV has not tended to be an auteur’s medium. Perhaps it’s the vast scope of some of these projects (Law & Order, for example, would take almost two weeks, without sleep, to watch in its entirety) or possibly it’s the collaborative nature of the form. Maybe, even, it’s the strictures of the schedule, requiring each show to find a mainstream audience. Whatever the reason, there are very few auteurs in the world of TV. David Chase, Matt Groening, the late, great David Lynch, and, in that elite roster, Amy Sherman-Palladino, who, alongside husband Daniel Palladino, has one of the most distinct voices in broadcast arts. It returns this week, with Étoile.
Jack (Luke Kirby) runs the ballet in New York, whilst Geneviève (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is “interim” director of its Parisian equivalent. Both organisations are struggling: in New York, they are haemorrhaging money (not least via $100 champagne flutes that disappear in old ladies’ handbags) while in Paris the dancers are, predictably, threatening to go on strike. And so, a cultural swap programme is suggested, sending American talent to France and French creatives to the US. Tempestuous prima ballerina Cheyenne (Lou de Laâge) heads stateside, much to the chagrin of the French ministry of culture, while eccentric choreographer Tobias (Gideon Glick) finds himself l’étranger in a strange land. “A generation of young people was lost,” Geneviève laments, of the post-Covid landscape. “The pipeline is closed.” But could this exchange initiative breathe new life into two dying institutions?
